January Term 2010

About this blog

This is a 3 week travel course through Linfield College. We will be traveling to London 1/6-1/14, Caen 1/15-1/21, and Paris 1/22-1/26.

Course Description:

The invasion of Normandy remains perhaps the single most complicated military operation in the history of the world. It required planning, production, and logistics coordination stretching from the factories and shipyards of the Unites States all the way to the shores of France. This course examines the economics of the planning and execution of Operation Overlord, including: failure of production coordination during World War I; macroeconomic coordination policies of the United States before and during World War II; establishment of optimal shipping and transportation programs to support the logistics buildup for the invasion; the logistics of training, outfitting and moving men and material to the landing zones; the role of economists in selecting targets and allocating resources within the Normandy Campaign; and the post-war international economic policies and programs that arose from a desire never to repeat the Second World War. Special emphasis is given to game theory, mathematical programming and input/output models as major analytical tools available to working economists.