The Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University is launching a new area of emphasis in the Master’s in Public Policy program—Economic Policy. This marks the 13th emphasis area available to public policy graduate students. The Economic Policy emphasis area will launch in the fall of 2019.
A signature component of the Schar School’s MPP program, the areas of emphasis are optional, pre-defined areas of study that allow public policy master’s students to hone in on a specialized focus area while still gaining the broad understanding and foundation needed to excel in public policy and policy analysis careers.
“The new Economic Policy area of emphasis will allow MPP students to develop and showcase their skills in an area of foundational importance to policy across an array of issues, drawing on the expertise of our faculty who are scholars in the field,” said Bonnie Stabile, director of the Master’s in Public Policy program and founder of the Schar School’s Gender and Policy (GAP) Initiative.
The Economic Policy emphasis area in the MPP program will be comprised of advanced electives “built on core courses in microeconomics, macroeconomics, and statistics,” said John Earle, a professor at the Schar School.
“Among the policies and issues explored in these courses are employment and unemployment, inequality, discrimination, aging and retirement, taxes, immigration, minimum wages, education, health insurance, regulation, entrepreneurship, and productivity,” Earle added.
This is the second emphasis area the Schar School’s MPP program has launched in the last year. In the Fall of 2018, the Schar School partnered with George Mason’s College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) to offer an emphasis area in Education Policy, spearheaded by CEHD professor Spiros Protopsaltis, a former deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Education and senior Senate aide, and former Virginia Secretary of Education Anne Holton, now a visiting professor at CEHD and the Schar School.
Economic policy focused on the public good has long been at the forefront of research and entrepreneurship at the Schar School and George Mason. Economic policy is explored in depth at the Schar School’s Center for Micro-Economic Policy Research, Centers on the Public Service, the Center for Regional Analysis, the Stephen S. Fuller Institute for Research on the Washington Region’s Economic Future, the Terrorism, Transnational Crime, and Corruption Center (TraCCC), and other departments.