Pre-Curriculum Preparation

Because of the McCourt School’s emphasis on quantitative rigor and evidence-based decision making, our students graduate with the skills to answer important policy questions by applying statistical reasoning to large datasets.

Since students enter the McCourt School with a range of quantitative skills, many students find they benefit from being reintroduced to important math concepts before starting the quantitative class sequence. The McCourt School is committed to ensuring that students with differing levels of confidence in their math background have the opportunity to succeed in our curriculum.

To that end, we offer Introduction to Quantitative Reasoning (IQR), a non-credit course taught by McCourt faculty and targeted at admitted MPP and MIDP students looking to review fundamental math topics that will be put to use immediately in the core curriculum. IQR takes place in the summer before matriculation. In order to make it as accessible as possible, it is free to enrolling students. It is non-graded, delivered remotely, and can be taken either synchronously (recommended) or asynchronously. Students will finish the course with renewed confidence in quantitative concepts and will feel more ready to begin their core classwork. The course covers topics such as linear equations; fractions; exponent and roots; and a review of algebraic operations such as solving for unknowns and simplifying expressions.

While this course is optional, it is available to enrolling MPP and MIDP students. You will find the faculty recommendation for your enrollment in this class in your admissions portal. (The recommendations made are “strongly recommended,” “recommended” or “not required.”).

The course will be taught by Professor Paul Treacy. The class will take place between July 15 to July 26, Monday through Friday. The class will be held synchronously from 7:00 -9:00 pm (19:00- 21:00) ET; it will be recorded and posted asynchronously the next day. Professor Treacy will also hold office hours every afternoon from 12:00 pm- 2:30 pm. There will be a pre-test, some problem sets focused on the skills, and a post-test.

Please complete this application by Friday, May 17, 2024 in order to be considered for enrollment in the course. Our Office of Academic Affairs (mccourtacademicadvising@georgetown.edu)  will reach out to you to confirm your registration by Tuesday, May 21, 2024.

For MPP, MIDP, and MS-DSPP students

Why is Principles of Microeconomics (or its equivalent) a required course for the MPP and MIDP degrees/ recommended for MS-DSPP degree?

When you enter our program, you will begin your required courses in Economics during your first semester. Our first Economics courses, PPOL 5004 (Intermediate Microeconomics for MPP/DSPP students) or PPOL 5103 (Intermediate Microeconomics for Development for MIDP students) presume basic familiarity with concepts that are covered in Principles of Microeconomics.

For example, we will assume that you understand the role of scarcity and the concept of opportunity cost. Just as importantly, a Principles of Microeconomics class exposes you to the “economic way of thinking.”

In our experience, students who have not taken a Principles of Microeconomics class are at a disadvantage in PPOL 5004. Further, some of the analytical skills that you learn in a Principles of Microeconomics class can also be useful in other courses.

What if I am required to take a Principles of Microeconomics course prior to starting at McCourt?

Admitted students who deposit and enroll at McCourt have the option to take a free online PPOL 001: Principles of Microeconomics course over the summer prior to the fall start. The course will run from June 5- August 11 with recorded lectures to view on your own time and online class meetings once a week. We will notify students once registration for PPOL 001 is open. Priority is given to those who are required to take the course as part of the admissions stipulation.

Your admissions portal will show whether or not you need to fulfill the Principles of Microeconomics prerequisite. Please see the information regarding the Micro prereq and other options, besides the McCourt course, to complete the requirement.

What if I completed a Principles of Microeconomics class a long time ago? What if I am not required to take a Principles of Microeconomics class but want to prepare myself?

For the purposes of your application, you will be considered as having met the requirement if you have taken a Principles of Microeconomics class that appears on your transcript.

Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Barbara Schone has gathered relevant material if you are interested in undertaking self-study to review key concepts. Please go to “Microeconomics Refresher Course” to register. Please note that you need to “buy” access to the textbook in order to access the quizzes. Also, note that there are no prepared lectures so this option is best designed for those of you who want to review relevant material at your own pace. We encourage you to reach out to Professor Schone over the summer if you have questions about the material as you review. We do not receive any revenues from the course.

You might also want to consider other ways of reviewing Principles of Microeconomics. For example, you could purchase a copy of a Principles of Economics text (used copies and previous editions are often very inexpensive) and review on your own. Alternatively, you could complete a self-study course online. Please see below for additional suggested readings.

What are the key Microeconomic concepts I should know?

The Notions of Scarcity, Costs versus Benefits, and the Role of Incentives

Each of these concepts will be analyzed in greater depth in McCourt’s Intermediate Microeconomics class. Before starting the class, you should be familiar with the following three basic ideas related to economic behavior:

• Scarcity: having more of one thing means having less of something else;
• Costs and Benefits: an action should be undertaken up to the point where the marginal benefit equals the marginal cost;
• Incentives: understanding an individual’s behavior requires knowing something about the incentives they face.

The Fundamentals of Demand and Supply, Market Equilibrium, and Efficiency

The idea of demand and supply serves as our point of departure for understanding the behavior of economic agents and the factors that influence their behavior. Entering students should understand the basic ideas of demand and supply curves, distinguishing between movements along demand and supply curves versus shifts in demand and supply curves; the notion of market equilibrium (where the market clears or comes to rest); and the concepts of efficiency and consumer and producer surplus.

Elasticity

Elasticity refers to how the quantity demanded (or supplied) of a good changes as the price of the good changes, as the price of other goods change, or as income changes.

Elasticity is a measure of sensitivity. For example, if we are interested in understanding how a change in the tax on cigarettes affects smoking, we must know something about how sensitive the quantity demanded of cigarettes is to a change in price. Students should be able to conceptually understand this change and be able to calculate elasticities.

The Basics of Firm Behavior: Profit Maximization and Production

Underlying the supply curve is the idea that firms make decisions on how much to produce based on profit maximization.

Basics of profit maximization in perfectly competitive markets and the distinction between economic versus accounting profit.

• Conditions that underlie perfect competition: standardized products, price-taking firms, no barriers to entry and perfect information
• Equilibrium under perfect competition
• Short-run Equilibrium: Short-run supply and demand curves intersect and determine short-run market price. Firms maximize profit, though profit may be positive or negative.
• Long-run: Industry supply curve intersects the market demand curve. Entry and exit drive profit to zero. No further incentive to exit or enter the industry.

Monopoly

The presence of a single firm in an industry alters the outcome of the perfectly competitive model and outcomes are no longer efficient. This condition is reanalyzed in McCourt’s Intermediate Microeconomics.

Do you have any suggested readings I should do?

Almost any Principles of Microeconomics textbook should be appropriate for reviewing the concepts in Section I. You do not need the most recent edition. Some specific suggestions are:

• Gregory Mankiw, Principles of Microeconomics
• Robert Frank and Ben Bernanke, Principles of Microeconomics
• Karl Case and Ray Fair, Principles of Microeconomics
• Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, Principles of Microeconomics

You also may find it helpful to read popular books about applying economics to behavior. Examples include:

• Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics or Superfreakonomics
• Steven Landsburg, Armchair Economist or any of Landsburg’s other books
• Tim Harford, The Undercover Economist

These books are suggestions, not required. They may help you understand how economics can be used to study the world around you. These and other authors also write blogs or columns in newspapers or online sources.

For MPP and MIDP students

Prior to your arrival at Georgetown for Orientation, you should refresh your basic math skills. Be sure to read the information below and click on the links of each section regarding the content you will need to review.

Pre-Orientation Review, Part 1:
Basic Definitions, Operations, and Formulas (.doc)

• The Greek Alphabet
• Rounding Rules
• Summation Notation
• Conveying Change
• Calculating Areas of Triangles, Rectangles and Trapezoids

Pre-Orientation Review, Part 2:
Types of Data and Descriptive Statistics (.doc)

• Types of Data (discrete vs. continuous; nominal, ordinal, interval/ratio)
• Descriptive Statistics
• Calculation of measures of central tendency
• Calculation of measures of dispersion

Pre-Orientation Self-Test Answer Guide
Download the Guide (.doc)

During Orientation, you will be attending two sessions of “Math Camp” that are designed to review basic algebra and calculus (the second session that focuses on calculus is to review intuition and very basic results). Prior to these sessions, it would be a good investment of your time to review the following topics:

• Graphing functions
• Solving equations (including the use of the quadratic formula)
• Solving a system of two equations with two unknowns

Additional Resources
We recommend that you consider purchasing two books if you need to review this material over the summer (if you do not have other good resources at hand):

• For the material related to algebra and functions, we recommend the Pre-Calculus book by Earl Swokoswki and Jeffrey Cole, Precalculus: Functions and Graphs. An early edition can be found very cheaply online and might be a good reference to have on hand. In particular, the material in Chapters 1, 2, 4, 8.1-8.2 and 9.1 is relevant for our program.
• You might also consider purchasing, Dalia Remler and Gregg Van Ryzin’s book, Research Methods in Practice: Strategies for Description and Causation as a resource for the material in Pre-Orientation Review, Part 2. At least some instructors in the Quantitative Methods sequence and the Capstone experience will use this as a supplementary text to help you build intuition about statistical concepts. The material in Part II of the book (“Strategies for Description”), especially Chapters 4 and 8, will provide background to the Pre-Orientation Review, Part 2 notes.

It is important that you be comfortable with the concepts mentioned above by the beginning of classes in the fall. If you are struggling to follow the math in your classes, it will take away from your ability to process the material at hand. Your professors will assume that you know this material and will not spend additional class time reviewing it. For some of you, it has been a long time since you have used your skills. Our experience is that these skills come back quickly with practice.

For MPP and MS-DSPP students

If you are not familiar with the United States political system and/or if you have never taken an introductory US government, political science, politics, or public policy course, we suggest reading either of the following textbooks (any edition is fine):

• Samuel Kernell and Gary C. Jacobson, The Logic of American Politics, (Washington, DC: CQ Press).
• Samuel Kernell and Steven S. Smith, eds., Principles and Practice of American Politics, 3rd Edition (Washington, DC: CQ Press 2006).

For MIDP students

We recommend that entering MIDP students become familiar with a few important books on international development. You are, of course, not required to read all of these books cover to cover before arriving on campus in August. But once here, you will find that these authors and their work resonates through many of the core classes, and the more you have read and thought about the issues and methods in these books, the better prepared you will be to engage in class and with classmates. You may be able to find used and electronic editions for many of these books online:

• Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Why Nations Fail
• Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Poor Economics
• William Easterly, White Man’s Burden
• Dean Karlan, More than Good Intentions
• Bjorn Lomborg, Global Crises, Global Solutions
• Lant Pritchett, et al, Moving Out of Poverty: 2
• Dani Rodrik, One Economics, Many Recipes

You may also want to begin the practice of following the blogs and websites of popular and respected development writers and institutions. Again, the list below is not intended to be exhaustive, nor need you exhaust yourself following all of them on a daily basis, but the following links may be helpful in getting you started (and you should learn about 3ie, J-PAL and IPA if you are not familiar with them already):

• Chris Blattman
• Owen Barder
• Dani Rodrik
• Tyler Cowen
• IPA Blog
• World Bank Impact Eval Blog
• CGD Policy Blog
• J-PAL Website
• 3ie

For MS-DSPP students

Over the summer we recommend that you do preliminary work on some foundational tasks. On this page, we list a series of resources and a list of goals.

One resource that has good “one-stop shopping” is “Computing Skills for Biologists: A ToolBox” by Allesina and Wilmes. Don’t be put-off by the mention of biology in the title – it’s a great guide for anyone doing data science.

Don’t worry, though: we will start from the beginning in all our classes. Our sense is that even as we don’t expect you to master tools the tools ahead of time, we hope that the more exposure you have to the material ahead of time, the more comfortable you will be with the tools.

You should be able to do the following before classes start.

1) Understand basic command line commands (Chapter 1 of Computing Skills). You don’t need all of the material here, but should be able to do basic command line commands on your machine and understand conceptually how command line tools can be used.

2) Understand version control with Git (Chapter 2 of Computing Skills). You should install Git and have a sense of what is being achieved with version control.

3) Basic Python (Chapter 3 of Computing Skills). You should install Python and be able to do basic programming tasks such as creating a loop.

4) Basic R (Chapter 8 of Computing Skills). You should install R and RStudio and do basic programming tasks such as creating a loop.

It’s worth perusing the rest of the Computing Skills book and the other resources we list here to get a sense of some of the tools and language used in data science. Again, do not feel like you need to master this material ahead of time, but the more you’ve got a sense of the various tools in the core toolbox, the more comfortable you’ll be.

In addition to the above, we’ve collated a list of resources that previous DSPP cohorts have found useful in the past which can be found at the link below: