MPNA 635 Economic Reasoning for Public Administrators and Nonprofit Managers

This course introduces MPNA, MPA, MNLM, and other Metro State graduate students to the application of the principles and methods of economic analysis to the policy, management, and operational decisions faced by public administrators, nonprofit managers, social entrepreneurs, and other public service professionals. Public and nonprofit organizations (hereinafter referred to as not-for-profit organizations) are fundamentally different from profit-seeking firms. They are organized to provide socially valuable goods and services (e.g., public education, socials services for the unemployed) independent of the revenues they receive from the sale of their products. While surpluses and profits can support their social missions, not-for-profit organizations do not intend to maximize these surpluses/profits. Because not-for-profit organizations use scarce resources from taxpayers, donors, volunteers, and other external stakeholders, they also operate under greater public scrutiny and with unique public expectations for openness/transparency, honesty, accountability, and fairness. This course will explain how managers and leaders of public agencies, nonprofit organizations, and social enterprises can apply economic analysis and reasoning in the complex task of effectively providing social goods and services, taking into primary consideration the fundamentally different social and political goals, internal constraints, and external authorizing environments faced by not-for-profit organizations. MPNA 635 will also improve the economic literacy of public and nonprofit professionals in discussing and defending their respective positions on a public policy issue or controversy. Competence Statement Students will understand the fundamental concepts and methods of economic analysis and critically appraise and adapt them to the context of policy analysis, public administration, nonprofit management, social entrepreneurship, political advocacy, criminal justice and law enforcement, and other related public service professional fields.