Business and Public Policy examines the many ways in which businesses and governments interact.  Students will explore how businesses influence (and are influenced by) public policy choices, both in the domestic U.S. context and worldwide.  Students will seek to understand the strategies and motivations of business leaders, stretching from profit seeking to corporate social responsibility, across policy areas ranging from the environment to public health, from fiscal management to product safety, from internet regulation to immigration.

The course is conducted on a lecture/seminar and case discussion basis.  A typical class section will contain a short lecture and interactive student discussion that addresses a theoretical approach or conceptual tool and provides a setting for the material being discussed.  The class session will also involve discussion of cases that serve as vehicles for application of the material.  These cases involve issues of how the private sector (e.g., firms, activist groups, etc.) interacts with nonmarket forces, such as the media, public interest groups, regulatory agencies, lobbyists, the international business environment, and a variety of other governmental and non-governmental organizations.  In most class sessions, a group of students will present the case details along with their own analyses.  This will help the students better understand the viewpoints of leaders in the public and private sectors.

Because the issues presented in this course are complex and constantly changing, it is important to maintain conceptual frameworks through which we can analyze not only the cases at hand but also new problems that may arise when making public policy or business decisions.  This course is geared to help students formulate conceptual tools to better understand such decisions.  The cases are used to clarify how these tools are applied in the day-to-day lives of political strategists, public officials, and private sector leaders.