PPOL 4100 American Public Policy System (4 Credits)

The American Policy Agenda, which is required for MPP students, will provide an intensive overview of the development of American public policy in the 20th century, with special emphasis on the interconnection between the values of the public and private sectors. Through the lens of a useful descriptive model, graduate students will learn concepts of the role of government have evolved from: the (1) constitutional period, wherein political society was thought to be a rational device for the protection of property and liberty and prosperity was equivalent to the free management of affairs; to the (2) administrative period, wherein powerful regulatory agencies were created to control concentrations of corporate power and the idea developed that the market does not always reflect the social good; to the (3) bureaucratic period, wherein the stock market collapse of 1929 and the Great Depression reversed key ideas of limited government inherent in the constitution and, beginning with the New Deal, social engineering in the "public interest" defined virtually every problem as "national;" to the (4) social welfare period, wherein government became the source of vast entitlements and benefits and interest groups came to dominate the policy debate; to the (5) current period of stalemate, gridlock, and reconsideration, wherein big government is a given, along with a utilitarian social contract defined as that which provides the most efficiency, the most productivity, and the most consumption for the most people.

PPOL 4200 Microeconomics for Public Pol. (4 Credits)

Microeconomics for Public Policy Analysis will provide a comprehensive, case-based overview for the MPP student of the consequences of contemporary public policies for individuals, households, and firms. Public policy is often said to consist of the distribution of scarce or valuable resources or benefits through the mechanisms of the public sector. This course will provide the opportunity to gain fluency and expertise in the application of economic analysis to such problems as transfer payments, entitlements, government subsidies, taxation, housing, education, labor, welfare and crime. Issues concerned with exploring the government's role in encouraging innovation, maintaining a growing economy, and budgeting under conditions of "surplus," will be explored using contemporary policy initiatives. Two competing visions of public policy will be examined: the role of economic policy in securing the benefits of "ordered liberty," which accrues to the individual; and (2) the vision of public policy as fundamental to the correction of anomalies in the market and in the distribution of scarce resources, often based on interest group claims of "disparity" and "inequality".

PPOL 4225 Economic Policymaking: From Concepts to Practice (4 Credits)

This course focuses on understanding the policymaking process and the social, political, and economic forces that influence it. We focus on the study of selected examples of policy design, discussing the views, constraints, and motivations of key actors and groups that influence the policy formation process and explore how these results differ from the policy prescriptions in neoclassical economic theory. The course centers on key debates around major government policy decisions and analyzes the alternative paths open to policymakers at the time at which they took those decisions. We will emphasize central questions in macroeconomics, international economics, and development economics through a case-study lens focused on evaluating decisions by assessing the arguments in favor of and against various policy alternatives. Topics covered include global financial and health crises, fiscal deficits, structural adjustment, the role of multilateral organisms, high and runaway inflation, the causes of underdevelopment, economic sanctions, debt limits, the spread of globalization, and the reliability of economic data.

PPOL 4250 Hacking for Good (4 Credits)

The basic structure of the course involves teams of students competing to find the most innovative approach to a common problem. The course is led by faculty member, who will connect students to local experts and policy makers. Students will work together to research, analyze, propose, and present a proposal that addresses some aspect of a pressing societal project. The final product is judged by a panel of local policy makers and other experts. Topic vary from year to year. Examples include such issues as combatting homelessness in Denver, designing more efficient transportation systems, reducing water use in urban areas, reducing Denver’s carbon footprint, and the like.

PPOL 4300 Quantitative Analysis-Pub Pol (4 Credits)

This course will provide the MMP student with the tools of mathematical analysis needed for the advanced study of public policy issues and evaluation of alternatives. Topics will include descriptive statistics, probability, sampling, estimation, inference and hypothesis testing, variable analysis and correlation, regression theory, reliability and validity, and prediction and simulation. Students needing review of college-level algebra will be referred to appropriate tutorials. The overall learning objective of this course is to help students recognize and apply basic statistical concepts to Public Policy and, more in general, Social Science analysis. Students will learn how to use statistical software to: build datasets, describe data in a visual and analytical fashion, perform statistical tests, and construct basic statistical inference models. Students will also learn how to report their analytical findings for Public Policy analysis.

PPOL 4350 The Policy Lab: Local/National (4 Credits)

The Policy Lab is an experiential course designed to introduce students to the policy-making and political environment surrounding a specific area of public policy at the state and national level. In different years, the Policy Lab might cover as a specific area, for example, fiscal policy, education policy, or health policy, and so on. The basic structure of the course is designed to: (1) introduce students to general thematic scholarship and expertise on the policy area being examined, (2) immerse students in the state and/or national policy-making environment through guest lectures and discussions with lawmakers, academics, policy experts, and political practitioners, and (3) connect students to lawmakers, nonprofit organizations, or other advocacy groups working on the specific policy area in order to work on proposing legislation, ballot initiatives, or other frameworks for reform design and implementation. The final product is a professional policy consultant report or the equivalent. The course will be led by faculty members with deep professional expertise in the policy issue being explored.

PPOL 4351 The Policy Lab: Comparative/International/Global (4 Credits)

The Masters in Public Policy Curriculum has two tracks depending on student professional experience and expectations. The first, and long standing, track centers on working professional policy problems centered in a U.S. context. The second track is centered on comparative/international/global policy questions for those students seeking to work in international and/or non-U.S. contexts. Both tracks have a Policy Lab requirement but given the potential diversity of the logical policy questions to be addressed, each has its own Policy Lab designation to help match faculty expertise and student interest to the learning objectives sought of the course. The basic structure of the lab course involves student teams, each working on a different issue for an external client. The course is led by a faculty member who coaches the student teams and stands in as or gathers a panel from the PPOL community to serve as the clients, identifies other experts and policy makers who can be resources for the team, helps students learn how to learn about the issue, provides feedback at critical junctures during the quarter, and assesses the quality of the students’ work. The final product is a professional consultants’ report.

PPOL 4400 Introduction to Policy Analysis (4 Credits)

This course will provide the student with the analytical tools necessary to evaluate competing points of view, using empirical techniques, logic, and statistical inference. Case studies will be drawn from the current legislative and regulatory environment and will provide the MPP student with opportunities to construct a course of action, based on the use of logically consistent arguments and on the persuasive use of facts and empirical data. Students in this course will also learn the history and development of the scientific method, how to distinguish speculation, theory, fact, and opinion, how to identify the validity, ideological content or irrationality of data, how to identify the intentional obfuscation of issues, and how to evaluate one's own prejudices and vulnerability to argument not based on evidence. Students in this course how to identify the validity, ideological content or irrationality of information, how to identify the intentional obfuscation of issues, and how to evaluate one's own prejudices and vulnerability to arguments not based on evidence.

PPOL 4410 Health Policy (4 Credits)

This course will examine major health care policy decisions and how each shaped fundamental elements of the U.S. health care system. Course material will explore the questions of why America spends more on health care than other industrial nations, why 8.6 percent of Americans do not have health coverage, and why the location of one’s birth or current neighborhood may affect their health. These topics will be explored through the lens of recent and current policy debates, including the Affordable Care Act and other federal health care programs, the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the cost and affordability of prescription drugs. In addition to mastering the content in these areas, the course will weave in policy scenarios and exercises meant to mimic decisions federal and state policymakers must make when addressing policy challenges created by the U.S. health care system.

PPOL 4500 Cost-Benefit Analysis/Pub Pol (4 Credits)

How do we determine if programs have met their objectives? Increasingly, this is a matter for empirical evaluation. This course will focus on quantitative approaches to program evaluation and on the primary tool available to the policy analyst in the modern organizational framework, cost-benefit analysis. Various issues will be considered, including the "costs" associated with taxes (and tax expenditures), governmental mandates, health and safety regulation, environmental regulation, government "investments," such as those in education, defense, law enforcement, and the regulation of financial industries.

PPOL 4501 Great Issues Forum (2 Credits)

Intensive Great Issues Forums provide cutting edge opportunities to study emerging issues, like innovation and technology, antitrust, privacy, health care, education, fiscal policy, national security, economic growth, ethics, and metropolitan dynamics. We maintain close affiliations with leading think tanks, such as the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and with important political figures and policy-makers. The Great Issues Forums are unique short courses devoted to a single policy issue and taught by a nationally-recognized authority in the area. These courses will occur on a periodic basis, with at least two forums to be offered each academic quarter. Participation in these courses is required for graduate students in the MPP program. Each course will be taught on an intensive workshop basis, over the course of two or more days, for example, all-day sessions on Friday and Saturday. Specific topics will be determined by the immediacy of the policy issue and its relevancy to the curriculum of the MPP.

PPOL 4502 Issues Forum II (2 Credits)

Intensive Great Issues Forums provide cutting edge opportunities to study emerging issues, like innovation and technology, antitrust, privacy, health care, education, fiscal policy, national security, economic growth, ethics, and metropolitan dynamics. We maintain close affiliations with leading think tanks, such as the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and with important political figures and policy-makers. The Great Issues Forums are unique short courses devoted to a single policy issue and taught by a nationally-recognized authority in the area. These courses will occur on a periodic basis, with at least two forums to be offered each academic quarter. Participation in these courses is required for graduate students in the MPP program. Each course will be taught on an intensive workshop basis, over the course of two or more days, for example, all-day sessions on Friday and Saturday. Specific topics will be determined by the immediacy of the policy issue and its relevancy to the curriculum of the MPP.

PPOL 4550 International Development Policy (4 Credits)

This course surveys international development policy. It has two main goals: (1) to build a multi-faceted understanding of what constitutes “development” and (2) to compare and assess different approaches to aiding the success of low- and middle-income countries. We will begin by asking what development is and examining the expansive ways in which it can be defined and measured, looking at these questions from economic, institutional, social, and political angles. We will study macro approaches to industrialization, economic growth, and development over the past half-century, with an emphasis on comparing and contrasting different development strategies. We will then focus on the development and aid business, looking at what the World Bank and other aid agencies do, the successes and failures of traditional approaches to foreign aid, and new thinking and actors in international development policy. We will end by examining how development policy could better address key contemporary challenges, such as the natural resource curse, corruption, and the challenges of building effective and legitimate governance in developing countries.

PPOL 4600 Regulation and Institutional Analysis (4 Credits)

This course will provide the MPP student with a solid understanding of the legal basis for policy action, through a case-based examination of executive and legislative authority, judicial policy-making, the expansion of the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment, and the expansion of administrative authority under the Administrative Procedure Act. Such issues as affirmative action, government contracting, school finance, antitrust, and substantive due process will be presented utilizing a combination of traditional legal analysis and the cost- benefit approach of the policy specialist.

PPOL 4655 Negotiating Environmental Conflict and Policy (4 Credits)

Environmental issues engage multiple stakeholders with differing knowledge sets, beliefs, values, and even worldviews. Science alone is ill-equipped to resolve such complex disputes. Environmental conflicts involve negotiating differences, as do the development and implementation of environmental policies. This course explores both these ‘downstream’ and ‘upstream’ arenas. Within the domain of environmental and public policy conflict and policy, it focuses on the range of processes used to address these conflicts and issues, what different processes may have to offer, and the tradeoffs in both process and substance that must be considered. Themes of public involvement, information management & integration, and designing for adaptation will undergird consideration and critique of approaches. Multiple case studies will be explored and compared.

PPOL 4700 Public Management & Budgeting (4 Credits)

This course introduces students to the topic of public management, which includes concepts such as organizational structure, performance management, and strategy development. In addition, the instructor will teach the techniques and concepts of government and non-profit budgeting/financial management. The budgeting process includes program development/implementation, cost and revenue estimation and projection, and budget evaluation. The relationship between public management and budgeting will be explored.

PPOL 4701 Special Topics in Public Policy (1-4 Credits)

Various topics in public policy are covered. Topic subjects to change each term as deemed appropriate with local, regional and federal policy issues and regulation changes. Two examples are: “Denver Dynamics” explores the policy options and responses to the challenges of big city governance. Exclusive interactions with major stakeholders in the City and County of Denver are featured, with a view to giving the student an insider’s view of power, economic development, political influence and decision-making. “Getting Results Inside the Beltway: Power and policy in Washington, D.C.” is a travel course consisting of specially-arranged one-on-one sessions with Washington-based lawmakers, decision-leaders, and policy experts, through which graduate students will gain an understanding of the dysfunctionalities of the current budget process, political polarization, the interest groups that shape the current policy dynamic, the increasing importance of media in shaping policy, the solutions that will be required for the United States to regain fiscal sanity and solvency—and the challenges that will need to be met to preserve American hegemony and redefine national security.

PPOL 4702 Special Topics in Public Policy Skills (1-4 Credits)

Various professional skills and competencies are covered in these 1-credit classes. Each student will be required to complete four of these for the MPP degree. The topics are subject to change given student needs. Examples of topics may include: Diversity and Inclusion in Public Policy, Drafting a Policy Memo, Presenting a Policy Position to a Professional Audience, Working in Teams Addressing Complex Issues, Ethics Challenges in Public Policy Choices, and The Practice of Public Policy.

PPOL 4715 Negotiation Workshop (2 Credits)

Negotiation is an important skill for most jobs and professions. Whether you are crafting policies or legislation, negotiating agreements, advocating for rights, making arrangements to meet human needs, or implementing programs, the ability to strategically advance your own or your group’s interests while working through differences allows efficient and mutually acceptable solutions to be created. Though some may feel negotiation is an art, it is also a skill that can be taught and practiced. In this course you will learn, and have opportunities to practice and improve, analytic skills, communication skills, and forms of preparation and execution. You will leave with new tools to advance your goals and to work with others to create solutions that are "win-win.

PPOL 4821 Executive Introduction to Public Policy (4 Credits)

This course offers an introduction to the contemporary study of public policy for the Executive MPP student. It has three main goals: (1) to build a multi-faceted understanding of what constitutes public policy, with a particular emphasis on how public policy is co-created by government, private sector, and civil society actors; (2) to understand the range of political, social, economic, and institutional forces that shape public policies and their outcomes; and (3) to introduce different forms and techniques of public policy analysis tied to audience, context, and objectives. We will begin by asking what public policy is and examining why we need it, explicitly addressing how political and societal context and decisions shape public policymaking. We will examine the traditional foundations of how public policy is typically framed and analyzed, rooted in neoclassical economics. We will round out the course by considering new ways of thinking about and analyzing public policy.

PPOL 4822 Executive Microeconomics for Public Policy (4 Credits)

Microeconomics for Public Policy Analysis will provide a comprehensive, case-based overview for the EMPP student of the consequences of contemporary public policies for individuals, households, and firms. Public policy is often said to consist of the distribution of scarce or valuable resources or benefits through the mechanisms of the public sector. This course will provide the opportunity to gain fluency and expertise in the application of economic analysis to such problems as transfer payments, entitlements, government subsidies, taxation, housing, education, labor, welfare, and crime. Issues concerned with exploring the government's role in encouraging innovation, maintaining a growing economy, and budgeting under conditions of "surplus" will be explored using contemporary policy initiatives. Two competing visions of public policy will be examined: the role of economic policy in securing the benefits of "ordered liberty," which accrues to the individual; and (2) the vision of public policy as fundamental to the correction of anomalies in the market and in the distribution of scarce resources, often based on interest group claims of "disparity" and "inequality.

PPOL 4823 Executive Data Analysis and Visualization (4 Credits)

This course is aimed at helping policy professionals to review basic principles of statistics and apply this knowledge to visualizing data for policy analysis and communication. Students will use software to produce visualizations for effective and accessible data description and analysis.

PPOL 4841 Executive Cost Benefit Analysis (4 Credits)

This course will focus on economic analysis and will provide an intensive overview of analytical tools used in public policy decision-making. After discussing economic theory and its role in policymaking, we will cover analytical techniques such as Cost Benefit Analysis, Cost Effectiveness Analysis, Cost Utility Analysis, and other analytical approaches. Economic analysis is both a science and an art. The aim of this course is to give students an understanding both of the practical aspects of economic analysis as well as its economic and philosophical foundations and ethical implications. Students should gain an appreciation of the role of economic analysis in policy decision-making and become comfortable with various analytical approaches commonly used by government officials and policymakers.

PPOL 4842 Executive Policy Making Process (4 Credits)

Governments make public policies through a complex process, which varies in its details across countries, over time, and even from issue to issue within the same country. In this course we will study several parts of those processes and some of the inputs into them. The overall goals for this course are: (1) to introduce students to the multiple features of the policy making process and the literature on those features; (2) to enable students to use effectively databases and other research tools to examine those features of the policy making process; and (3) to give students the experience of tracing a specific policy issue through the policy process to analyze how some features of that process affect the outcomes of the policy.

PPOL 4843 Executive Policy Writing and Briefing (2 Credits)

In this two-credit course, students will develop policy-specific applied writing skills for the most important contexts and purposes in government and policy settings. Students will learn the key elements, formats, and styles for four categories of policy writing: 1) issue analysis briefs, 2) decision briefs, 3) legislative testimony, and 4) comments to proposed regulations. Students will take part in peer-review exercises as well as simulated policy briefings summarizing their written materials.

PPOL 4852 Executive International Economic Policy (4 Credits)

This course focuses on understanding how governments design and implement economic policy and how economic, social, political, and cultural forces impact on that process. The course centers on key debates around major government policy decisions and analyzes the alternative paths open to policymakers at the time at which they took those decisions. We will emphasize central questions in macroeconomics as well as international and development economics through a case-study lens focused on evaluating decisions by assessing the arguments in favor of and against various policy alternatives. In the discussion of these cases, we will contrast neoclassical economic theories of optimal policy design with political economy, structuralist, and institutional views of the policymaking process. Through each example, we will engage with the views, constraints, and motivations of key actors and groups that influenced the policy formation process. Topics covered include global financial and health crises, fiscal deficits, structural adjustment, the role of multilateral organisms, high and runaway inflation, the causes of underdevelopment, economic sanctions, debt limits, the spread of globalization, financing climate action, and the reliability of economic data.

PPOL 4889 Capstone: Intelligence/Threat Assessment (4 Credits)

All students in the Certificate of Specialization in Strategic Intelligence must complete a capstone project centered on demonstrating the ability to provide a professional grade strategic assessment or other intelligence product. One of the Certificate-associated faculty will supervise the set of projects for each year as needed to meet graduate requirements for the participating students on a one-to-one or small group basis. The total credits via the Capstone are 4 and the standard is the same as any other Korbel independent project of same number of credits.

PPOL 4950 Policy Memorandum (4 Credits)

The Policy Memorandum research project is designed to provide the MPP student with a capstone experience that will synthesize the knowledge and skills that were acquired during the 60 quarter hours of formal coursework. Included among the skills that students will apply are research, quantitative methods, economic analysis, cost-benefit analysis, budgeting and project management.

PPOL 4991 Independent Study (1-4 Credits)

Students will work in collaboration with faculty from the Institute for Public Policy Studies to complete an independent study project.

PPOL 4995 Independent Research (1-8 Credits)

The Policy Memorandum research project is designed to provide the MPP student with a capstone experience that will synthesize the knowledge and skills that were acquired during the 60 quarter hours of formal coursework. Included among the skills that students will apply are research, quantitative methods, economic analysis, cost-benefit analysis, budgeting and project management.