Sanford School of Public Policy
Duke University

Crafting a Foundation

Students need a solid underpinning of analytic and professional skills to succeed in the world of public policy. Duke’s demanding core curriculum ensures our students hit the ground running when they graduate.

• Microeconomic Analysis (2 semesters). The first semester of the sequence introduces topics such as consumption and production theory, theories of collective choice, welfare economics, market structures and regulation, and non-market decision making. Quantitative methods and microeconomic theory for analysis of both normative and positive aspects of economic policy are presented in the second semester through case studies on topics such as public utility regulation, pollution regulation, hospital rate setting, and product safety regulation.
• Political Analysis. The course explores the role of legislatures, interest groups, chief executives, and the bureaucracy in defining alternatives and in shaping policy from agenda formulation through policy implementation.
• Data Analysis and Evaluation (2 semesters). The two-course sequence is intended to make students critical consumers and effective producers of statistical evidence presented in support of policy arguments. The first course devotes significant time to fundamental building blocks of statistics, including basic probability, inference, and hypothesis testing, which, in turn, support the study of multiple regression. Students learn to manipulate large databases, conduct sensitivity analysis, and present results. The second course presents experimental and nonexperimental methods for evaluating the effect of public programs, including topics in experimental design, regression analysis, and simulation.
• Ethical Analysis. The course examines the historical and philosophical roots of normative concepts in politics, liberty, justice, and the public interest; their relationships to one another and American political tradition, and their implications for domestic and international problems.
• Policy Analysis (2 semesters). The two-course sequence emphasizes identifying pragmatic solutions to contemporary policy problems in a variety of settings and case studies. Group work, writing, professional development, and presentation skills are emphasized.
• Management and Leadership (2 semesters).To satisfy this requirement, students may enroll in public policy management courses such as Public Management, Principles of Leadership, Public Budgeting, Foundations Strategy & Impact, or Negotiations. Management and leadership courses offered outside of the Sanford School at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke Law School, or UNC–Chapel Hill also may be accepted.