Courses tagged with "Information Theory" (219)

This course covers the key quantitative methods of finance: financial econometrics and statistical inference for financial applications; dynamic optimization; Monte Carlo simulation; stochastic (Itô) calculus. These techniques, along with their computer implementation, are covered in depth. Application areas include portfolio management, risk management, derivatives, and proprietary trading.

The fact of scarcity forces individuals, firms, and societies to choose among alternative uses – or allocations – of its limited resources. Accordingly, the first part of this summer course seeks to understand how economists model the choice process of individual consumers and firms, and how markets work to coordinate these choices. It also examines how well markets perform this function using the economist's criterion of market efficiency.

Overall, this course focuses on microeconomics, with some topics from macroeconomics and international trade. It emphasizes the integration of theory, data, and judgment in the analysis of corporate decisions and public policy, and in the assessment of changing U.S. and international business environments.

D-Lab: Energy offers a hands-on, project-based approach that engages students in understanding and addressing the applications of small-scale, sustainable energy technology in developing countries where compact, robust, low-cost systems for generating power are required. Projects may include micro-hydro, solar, or wind turbine generators along with theoretical analysis, design, prototype construction, evaluation and implementation. Students will have the opportunity both to travel to Nicaragua during spring break to identify and implement projects.

D-Lab: Energy is part of MIT's D-Lab program, which fosters the development of appropriate technologies and sustainable solutions within the framework of international development.

This course is an elective subject in MIT’s undergraduate Energy Studies Minor. This Institute-wide program complements the deep expertise obtained in any major with a broad understanding of the interlinked realms of science, technology, and social sciences as they relate to energy and associated environmental challenges.

This course gives a historical perspective on financial panics. Topics include the growth of the industrial world, the Great Depression and surrounding events, and more recent topics such as the first oil crisis, Japanese stagnation, and conditions following the financial crisis of 2008.

The unifying theme of this course is best captured by the title of our main reference book: "Recursive Methods in Economic Dynamics". We start by covering deterministic and stochastic dynamic optimization using dynamic programming analysis. We then study the properties of the resulting dynamic systems. Finally, we will go over a recursive method for repeated games that has proven useful in contract theory and macroeconomics. We shall stress applications and examples of all these techniques throughout the course.

This course is a survey of modern macroeconomics at a quite advanced level. Topics include the neoclassical growth model, overlapping generations, endogenous growth models, business cycles, incomplete nominal adjustment, incomplete financial markets, fiscal and monetary policy, consumption and savings, and unemployment. The course is also an introduction to the mathematical tools used in modern macroeconomics, including dynamic systems, optimal control, and dynamic programming.

This course introduces new product development. Topics include technology transfer, relations between science and technology, and the innovation process.

This course builds on the work done concurrently in 15.280 Communication for Managers and 15.311 Organizational Processes in the first semester of the MBA program. 15.280 is offered for 6 units and 15.277 provides an additional 3 units for a total of 9 units in Managerial Communication. 15.277 acts as a lab component to 15.280 and provides students additional opportunities to hone their communication skills through a variety of in-class exercises. Emphasis is on both individual and team communication.

15.762J Supply Chain Planning focuses on effective supply chain strategies for companies that operate globally, with an emphasis on how to plan and integrate supply chain components into a coordinated system. Students are exposed to concepts and models important in supply chain planning with emphasis on key tradeoffs and phenomena. The course introduces and utilizes key tactics such as risk pooling and inventory placement, integrated planning and collaboration, and information sharing. Lectures, computer exercises, and case discussions introduce various models and methods for supply chain analysis and optimization.

This class is an applications-oriented course covering the modeling of large-scale systems in decision-making domains and the optimization of such systems using state-of-the-art optimization tools. Application domains include: transportation and logistics planning, pattern classification and image processing, data mining, design of structures, scheduling in large systems, supply-chain management, financial engineering, and telecommunications systems planning. Modeling tools and techniques include linear, network, discrete and nonlinear optimization, heuristic methods, sensitivity and post-optimality analysis, decomposition methods for large-scale systems, and stochastic optimization.

This course was also taught as part of the Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA) programme as course number SMA 5223 (System Optimisation: Models and Computation).

This six-week summer course teaches basic concepts of corporate financial accounting and reporting. This information is widely used in making investment decisions, corporate and managerial performance assessment, and valuation of firms. Students perform economics-based analysis of accounting information from the viewpoint of the users of accounting information (especially senior managers) rather than the preparer (the accountant). This course is restricted to MIT Sloan Fellows in Innovation and Global Leadership.

The 15.821 and 15.822 Sequence

Marketing research may be divided into methods that emphasize understanding "the customer" and methods that emphasize understanding "the market." This course (15.821) deals with the customer and emphasizes qualitative methods (interviews, focus groups, Voice of the Customer, composing questions for a survey). The companion course (15.822) deals with the market and emphasizes quantitative methods (sampling, survey execution, quantitative data interpretation, conjoint analysis, factor analysis).

The methods covered in 15.821 are often used in the "front-end" of market research project, whose second-stage is a quantitative survey. The quality of information gathered in the second-stage is greatly enhanced in this way.

15.821 is designed for the nonspecialist, e.g., someone planning a career in general management, product or project management, R&D, advertising, or entrepreneurship. 15.822 teaches analytical techniques that are standard in consulting or marketing research, and is ideally suited for students planning careers in those fields.

This course uses theoretical models and empirical studies to help understand the economics behind various internet businesses. We will begin with a discussion of relevant topics from industrial organization (IO) including monopoly pricing, price discrimination, product differentiation, and barriers to entry. The main part of the course will be a discussion of a number of online businesses. In the context of those businesses, we will discuss extensions and applications of the ideas from the first section of the course.

The purpose of this class is to advance your understanding of how to use financial information to value and analyze firms. We will apply your economics/accounting/finance skills to problems from today's business news to help us understand what is contained in financial reports, why firms report certain information, and how to be a sophisticated user of this information.

This is a course in how corporations make use of the insights and tools of risk management. Most courses on derivatives, futures and options, and financial engineering are taught from the viewpoint of investment bankers and traders in the securities. This course is taught from the point of view of the manufacturing corporation, the utility, the software firm—any potential end-user of derivatives, but not the dealer. Most related courses focus on the extensive taxonomy of instruments and the complex models developed to price them, and on ways to exploit mispricing. While this course will make use of some of these pricing models, the focus is on how corporations use the insights and models to improve their operations, to increase the value of their real assets, or to create the financial flexibility necessary to implement their core strategy.

D-Lab Development addresses issues of technological improvements at the micro level for developing countries—in particular, how the quality of life of low-income households can be improved by adaptation of low cost and sustainable technologies. Discussion of development issues as well as project implementation challenges are addressed through lectures, case studies, guest speakers and laboratory exercises. Students form project teams to partner with mostly local level organizations in developing countries, and formulate plans for an IAP site visit. (Previous field sites include Ghana, Brazil, Honduras and India.) Project team meetings focus on developing specific projects and include cultural, social, political, environmental and economic overviews of the countries and localities to be visited as well as an introduction to the local languages.

This course explores the theory behind and evidence on regulatory, tax, and other government responses to problems of market failure. Special emphasis is given to developing and implementing tools to evaluate environmental policies. Other topics include cost-benefit analysis, measurement of the benefits of non-market goods and costs of regulations, and the evaluation of the impact of regulations in areas such as financial markets, workplace health and safety, consumer product safety, and other contexts.

This course offers an introduction to noncooperative game theory. The course is intended both for graduate students who wish to develop a solid background in game theory in order to pursue research in the applied fields of economics and related disciplines, and for students wishing to specialize in economic theory. While the course is designed for graduate students in economics, it is open to all students who have taken and passed 14.121.

This course addresses the evolution of the modern capitalist economy and evaluates its current structure and performance. Various paradigms of economics are contrasted and compared (neoclassical, Marxist, socioeconomic, and neocorporate) in order to understand how modern capitalism has been shaped and how it functions in today's economy. The course stresses general analytic reasoning and problem formulation rather than specific analytic techniques. Readings include classics in economic thought as well as contemporary analyses.

This course focuses on the origins, functions, and implications of downtown management organizations (DMOs), such as business improvement districts, in a variety of national contexts including the United States, Canada, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. It critically examines how a range of urban theories provide a rationale for the establishment and design of DMOs; the evolution and transnational transfer of DMO policy; and the spatial and political externalities associated with the local proliferation of DMOs. Particular emphasis is given to the role of DMOs in securing public space.