Required For: MS Students in the Policy Analysis Concentration. Prerequisites: 90-710 Applied Economic Analysis, 90-711 Empirical Methods, 90-722 Management Science, 90-714 Policy & Politics, 90-729 Organizational Design and Implementation, 90-724 Financial Analysis, 90-728 Inf. Tech for PPM, 90-717 Professional Writing, 90-718 Professional Speaking or exemption The purpose of this course is to give students practice in analyzing a variety of substantive policy problems. The course is problem-centered rather than method-centered. That is, students will confront a sequence of policy cases and problems with two different types of assignments. The first part of the course will emphasize assignments to critique completed analyses and design improved analyses. Assignments in the latter part of the course will emphasize discovering (or inventing) and applying methods appropriate to the substantive problem at hand. Students will be required to model the policy situation, theoretically and/or empirically, and use the model to evaluate various alternative courses of action. All basic skills in computing, statistics, economic analysis, and management science will be assumed; this material will not be reviewed in class. The substantive problems will be diverse -- from estimating economic losses from ill-timed traffic signals and recommending improved signalling procedures to sitting hazardous waste facilities -- to assist students in learning how to move easily and effectively across diverse policy domains.