BA (Hons) Economics

This module has three distinct sections.

The first part, made up of six weeks of lectures, deals with different schools of economic thought. The focus of this section is to present important schools of thought, their core ideas, and discuss why their viewpoints are so different. It covers Classical, Institutional, Marxist, Historical, and Neoclassical schools of thought.

The next six weeks focus on microeconomic theory, in particular deductive reasoning used in mainstream rational choice and perfect competition theory. This section covers preference theory, demand and supply, income and substitution effects, cost and revenue curves, perfect competition and partial equilibrium theory. This progression will end with a description of general equilibrium and the two welfare theorems.

The last six weeks looks at macroeconomics. In this section the focus is on specific concepts: national accounting, inflation, unemployment and business cycles. These concepts are analysed through the use of contemporary schools of economic thought (New Classical, New Keynesian, Post Keynesian, and Monetarist) and their analytical frameworks, prompting open discussions and debate.

This first-year, first-term module introduces you to economic reasoning and basic issues in economic methodology.

The module introduces key questions in the philosophy of science, which are used to discuss the nature of economics. It considers competing definitions of economics, different levels of analysis, and the methodological issues associated with them. The divide between general principles and historical contingency, and between economic theory and economic history is investigated. The module also considers rationality and the problem of determinism and freedom, discussing possible ways to overcome existing limitations.

This module complements the Economic Reasoning module, and compares the viewpoint of economics with that of sociology, psychology, management and politics.

The first two weeks are devoted to key themes in the philosophy of the social sciences. The remainder of the module consists of four two-week “workshops”, each devoted to the possible interfaces between reasoning in economics and another social science.

In each workshop, the first session is led by a guest lecturer from the relevant department, and raises questions such as, what is this discipline’s viewpoint? What makes it different from other disciplines? What methodologies does it use? What is its view of the social world?

The second session, led by this module’s convener, relates the first session to economics, also by discussing insights from classic works in the discipline that have direct relevance for economics.

This module introduces the mathematical methods used in the analysis of modern economics. This module does not require an A Level in Mathematics (or equivalent) and is suitable for students both with and without an A Level in Mathematics as it teaches the use of mathematics in relation to economic theory and application.

Students will revise and apply basic concepts of mathematics to relevant economic problems. Furthermore, they will learn partial derivatives and second partial derivatives of functions of two or more independent variables, constrained and unconstrained optimisation. These mathematical tools will be taught with special emphasis on how they are used in economic applications and real life examples.

This module builds on the first year Introductory Economics module and the Mathematics and Statistics for Economics and Business module to give a more in depth perspective of microeconomic theory and its technical apparatus.

The first six weeks give an overview of the technical and theoretical analysis that forms the core of the neoclassical theory of consumption, production and market interaction. It introduces the following topics: choice under uncertainty, inter-temporal choice, incomplete and asymmetric information, principal-agent problem, basic game theory, dynamic and static oligopoly, price differentiation, markup pricing and market concentration.

In contrast, the rest of the module focuses on aspects of microeconomic behavior that do not conform to rational choice theory as developed in traditional neoclassical economics. Each week will explore a different alternative approach, icluding: Simon’s Bounded Rationality, Sen’s Capability Approach, Behavioural Economics.

The module aims to provide a good understanding of the key areas of macroeconomics, through the analytical tools of different schools of thought.

This module covers the evolution of macroeconomic analysis through a succession of key models, including Keynesian, Monetarist, New Classical, Real Business Cycle, New Keynesian, and Post Keynesian approaches. It studies the analytical details, the underlying economic assumptions, and the historical context in which they emerged. It also provides an introduction to structural theories of business cycles. You study economic growth and economic development, explaining the differences between the two and using historical examples. Classical, Keynesian, and neoclassical theories, as well as structural dynamics are discussed.

The final two weeks are devoted to the political economy of economic policy, from the viewpoint of different schools of thought: controversies on the effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policy, individual rationality applied to policy decisions, economic and political disagreements, models of voting on macro-policy, and recent developments.

This module introduces the quantitative methods used by economists in their empirical work. You will be technically trained in estimation theory, and introduced to broader questions regarding the use of these tools in applied analysis.

You study the basic properties of the normal distribution, and the difference between the normal and other types of probability distributions. You also learn hypothesis testing and the basic theory for linear regressions and the use of ordinary least squares in empirical analysis. Furthermore, you will learn about problems that may arise with this estimation method.

This is followed by two weeks of methodology on statistics for the social sciences, and a philosophical discussion on the appropriate use and limits of these techniques in analysing social phenomena.

This module will focus on the application of quantitative theory using data sets that you were introduced to in the Quantitative Economics module.

With the guidance of the lecturer and associate lecturers, you will find and collect appropriate data (from Eurostat, OECD, UK and other national governments databases, etc.), form a research question and come up with statistical tests in order to test your hypothesis. You will then write a report that explains your findings and the reason you used this specific estimation tool in relation to your data set. An integral part of this is to consider the limitations of your statistical toolbox in analyzing the specific data set, and more broadly, the limitations of statistical analysis in answering policy or theoretical questions.

An important part of this module is to train you in using computer packages to analyse real data. Students will learn to use computer programs to run regressions, do hypothesis testing, correlation analysis and, more generally, analyze the raw data you have collected.

This module builds on the first year module, Introductory Economics, by discussing key theoretical insights in depth, from alternative schools of economic thought. It traces the evolution of the ideas emanating from, or strongly related to key texts, through time.

The five main texts analysed are: Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, David Ricardo’s Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics, Wicksell’s Interest and Prices and John Maynard Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Each text is used as a starting point for a discussion on the evolution of the following economic concepts: specialization and gains from trade, distribution theory, theory of the firm, theory of money, and the theory of aggregate macroeconomic relationships.

Finally, the course discusses the link between past and contemporary economic thought, contextualising it within a broader perspective that includes points of view such as those of feminist economics and from geographically diverse traditions, and the use of these theoretical structures in analysing contemporary economic problems.

This module’s central purpose is to investigate the methods of historical enquiry useful for an economist and give a survey of the economic and social conditions from the industrial revolution until the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The first week covers historiography with special emphasis on the techniques economists and economic historians use. This week will focus on the various methods economic historians use, from statistical and data analysis, to economic theory applications and narrative histories, analysing the strength and weakness of each approach for different types of enquiry.

The rest of the module provides an overview of key economic and social changes in Europe for the period from the start of the industrial revolution until the fall of the Berlin Wall. You will learn about the economic, social and technological changes that occurred during these 250 years. You will learn about changes in wealth, aggregate income and income distribution, consumer habits, wages, trade and monetary aggregates. You will also learn about institutional changes (Labor and Poor Laws, Welfare State) and social changes (family structure, workers unions, literacy) and the interplay between institutional/social and economic structures. Finally, you will discuss the changing technological conditions of society during this period and its ramifications for the social and economic organisation of society.

This module not only gives you general knowledge of the economic and social evolution of Europe, but also provides context and gives you an understanding of why economic theory developed the way it did.

This module gives you an understanding of the international economy that integrates the real and monetary sides, and the economic and the political spheres. Different traditions of economic analysis will be used to shed lights on three main issues: the European Union and the Eurozone, China’s trade policy, and the international monetary system since Bretton Woods.

The first five weeks concentrate on trade. They cover the standard tools (comparative advantage, neoclassical trade theory, and new economic geography) as well as analytical and historical perspectives on international competition. It focuses on different insights concerning economic analysis and policy, as well as the integration with the political dimension.

The last five weeks focus on the international monetary system. By combining the standard tools of international macroeconomics with historical and analytical perspectives, the aim is to understand the evolution of the international monetary system since Bretton Woods, and its effects on national economies. Special attention is given to currency areas, especially the Eurozone, and to the connection between monetary arrangements and real and political aspects.

This module extends your knowledge on key microeconomic topics and gives you an interdisciplinary perspective. It focuses on social questions and introduces, in a critical manner, the types of answers economic theory provides. The four core questions investigated are:

• What goods should the government provide, and how should this provision be funded?
• How do we account and care for future generations?
• How do we deal with environmental issues?
• How does the government decide what action to take in a democratic society?

This module helps you develop key communication and presentation skills, in particular articulating economic ideas to economists and non-economists alike. The module focuses on case studies, which may include anti-trust legislation, macroeconomic reports on the UK, or any other applications of economic analysis.

You will learn to use PowerPoint effectively, present graphs, statistical findings and do background research to prepare for a presentation. Throughout the module, you are encouraged to write letters about economic issues to newspapers and to comment in well-known economics blogs.

This module compares and contrasts the behaviour of individuals and institutions. It provides a more detailed understanding of the various levels of analysis that you have encountered throughout the degree and provides an applied discussion of the issues surrounding methodological individualism, including the social construction of the individual from different geographical and disciplinary traditions.

The first eight weeks of the module cover four levels: i) the individual; ii) firms and organisations; iii) the state; and iv) the supranational and international level.

The last two weeks are devoted to how individuals and institutions cope with uncertainty. The view of uncertainty as risk is integrated and contrasted with theories of strong and fundamental uncertainty, as well as perspectives from other social sciences.

This module combines resources from three fields of economic theory: macroeconomic analysis, history of economic thought and economic history.

The first seven weeks focus on six episodes in economic history, ending with the current (post 2007) crisis. The writings of different schools of economic thought are used and contrasted in order to see how different theorists understood and analyzed the crises and the types of solutions they offered to solve them. Discourses from outside economics (from psychology or/and sociology or/and anthropology) will also be utilized as competing interpretations that explain different aspects of these crises not captured by economic analysis.

Finally, the last three weeks will focus on the general concept of economic crises, and related concepts of risk and uncertainty, and discuss how these events alter our understanding of the workings of the market economy.

In this module you will learn the basics of accounting and financial terminology and techniques. By the end of the module you will understand financial reporting and standardised disclosures, the importance of financial strategies, cash flow, and capital budgeting, and be able to appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of different types of financial data.

This module provides an introduction to the main theories, concepts, and topics concerning economic policy.

The principal aim of the module is to examine the ways in which public, economic, and international policies (which are in practice interchangeable) are bound up with political economic understandings of the economy and economic agency. Put differently, the aim of the module is to explore the deep and ineradicable links between political practice and economic ideas.

The module explores these links by progressing through the basic concepts in public policy (such as public goods and monetary/fiscal policies) before an examination of the main issues, questions and developments in modern policy such as gender, financial crises and international organisation.

This lecture course will introduce you to the fundamentals of consumer psychology and behavioural economics.

It will give you an understanding of the fundamental decision making processes and the factors that influence these processes. It covers topics such as prospect theory and classical economics, brain structures and information processing, heuristics and rules of thumb, and framing and influencing techniques.

It also discloses the various strategies used by marketers to differentiate their products, leverage brands, set strategic prices, reduce the effectiveness of consumer search, and it compares the effectiveness of each.

The course covers topics such as the types and effectiveness of pricing strategies, individual differences in uptake of pricing strategies, value perceptions and subconscious influences (priming), and ethical and legal issues around influencing consumer choice.

The lectures in this course will be supplemented by several assignments designed to develop and enhance practical skills, and further develop familiarity with consumer psychological methods and theories.

This module introduces you to various attempts to clarify and understand the links between economic and political processes which come under the banner of ‘political economy’. As a whole, the module is intended to draw out the links between the broad “school”-level approaches (such as Marxism, economic sociology, methodological individualism and institutional economics) and contemporary issues and analyses (concerning questions of resource scarcity, predation, coordination failures and trust).

To this end, the module is split into two broad parts. The first part guides you through the main thematic approaches to political economy in order to examine the principle concepts theorists have used to understand and explain economic processes. The second part seeks to apply these concepts to contemporary economic issues and questions.

It seeks to both clarify and examine the various understandings of the market and the state which have shaped the direction of economic research, so that you can finish the module with a clear understanding of the various ideas, concerns and beliefs which motivate real-world political economic arguments.

This module seeks to equip students with the capacity to think critically about ethical and economic approaches to environmental protection issues and the relationship between the two.

It will examine human rights, eco-centric, utilitarian and economic perspectives both at the theoretical level and in the practical context of policy arguments over the appropriate role of regulatory, community-centred, and market-based forms of environmental decision-making.

This module focuses on the political and cultural economy of finance through the empirical lens of the global economy. It seeks to foster a deeper understanding of finance as a technical practice but also as a powerful transformative process that shapes politics and public policy.

*In order to study this module you must have taken Economics modules at levels 4 and 5.

This module combines a variety of approaches from history, sociology, and political economy in the study of the global political economy. Its focus will be on the connection between international economic integration and domestic socio-economic transformation in the making of the contemporary world order. Further, we will examine how theories have shaped policies in the context of increasing integration of the global economy. 

*In order to study this module, you must have taken Economics modules at levels 4 and 5.

This module intends to broaden your knowledge of classical econometric theory and application. The focus will be on issues relating to time series econometrics, and data sets used by macroeconomists in thier analysis of aggregate economic performance. You will learn how to econometrically analyse and test key relationships in long standing series of annual or quarterly aggregate data that includes: investment, consumption, output (GDP), interest rates, wages and consumer and producer prices, unemployment and employment indexes.

Topics studied during this module include: modeling time series, volatility and impulse response functions, trend and cycle decomposition, stationarity and non-stationarity in time series data, Cointegration and Error Correction models, breaks in data and missing data, instrumental variables, the identification problem, time series models and autoregressive distributed lags.

Through these topics you will learn how to perform robust data analysis by identifying empirical problems when dealing with times series data.

This module builds on the Econometrics mdoule by extending your knowledge in the field of multivariate analysis. You will gain more detailed knowledge of econometric techniques in the following fields:

• financial econometrics and other high-frequency data sets
• panel data that includes stationary and non-stationary panels
• Vector Autoregressive Models

You will also extend your knowledge of matrix algebra and its applpication and use in different topics.

Throughout this module you will not only extend your knowledge in statistical theory, but also gain practical experience in using appropriate computer packages to run statistical testing. You will enhance you knowledge of Eviews, Stata and other computer software and will also be informed of the practical issues relating to the use and limitations of these computer packages.

This module builds on Mathematics for Economics and Business and introduces students to more complex mathematics operations that are necessary for the 3rd year compulsory courses in mathematical economics and econometrics for the BSc Economics with Econometrics.

Topics include: first and higher order derivatives, partial derivatives, constrained and unconstrained optimisation, exponential and logarithmic functions, basic statistical concepts (summation operation, measures of central tendency and measures of dispersion) and matrix algebra.

These topics will be presented in relation to their economic applications, so that students will learn about marginal utility, profit maximisation and cost minimisation, short run and long run profits in different market structures, and utility maximisation given a budget constraint.

This module extends your knowledge in econometric analysis by introducing you to the historical development of the tools that econometricians use, and by engaging you in the methodological and practical limitations that real world statistical analysis of social data faces. The focus of the module is the changing landscape in data collecting and inference by national governments and big organizations from the 1930a until today. You will consider core questions of doing quantitative analysis, such as how much does econometrics explain? What is the right methodology for social statistics? And what questions can and cannot be explained by data inference?

You will investigate three different aspects of the time series econometrics toolbox in depth to give context to the technical training from previous modules. These aspects are:

• A historical survey of the development of econometric techniques from the 1930s until today
• The development, limits and strengths of data collected by national governments for inference and policy analysis
• Open questions in the methodology of data analysis in the social sciences

Furthermore, you will consider how data collecting by national governments and other institutions has changed since the advent of the internet and the big data revolution. This follows naturally the progression of more data that national governments collect and collate since the beginning of the twentieth century, with the main difference being that the scale is now of a new level, and the type of data substantially different to the traditional census, national accounts or industrial production data that national governments habitually collect. New ways in which government organizations (e.g. Central Banks) use this new type of data will be presented and the analytical and methodological challenges of these new types of data will be analysed.

This module builds on the mathematics taught in the first year and intermediate microeconomics to advance your knowledge in the technical nature of economic modelling. This module will:

• provide you with clear examples of how mathematics are used in economic modelling, developing your understanding of how economists build technically sophisticated mathematical models
• showcase the use of formal economic models in a number of fields which have real world relevance

More specifically, you will expand your knowledge in general equilibrium and game theoretic frameworks, covering in depth the following fields: Time and Uncertainty models, General Equilibrium and Walrasian price setting, Option pricing, Contract Theory, Nash Bargaining, Conflict, Income and Wealth Inequality, Stability and Institutional Dynamics. These topics will be presented both from a mainstream and a heterodox perspective, giving you an awareness of the limitations of applying mathematical economic models in real world scenarios and also the alternative types of models economists from different schools of thought use in their work.

The aim of this module is to introduce students to different paradigms in development economics as well as to practical issues in current development policy. This module builds on insights from the modules Economic History, Intermediate Macroeconomics, Applied Quantitative Economics and International Economics. The general sequence of the module is to start from a discussion of the notion of development, its historical origins and different measurements followed by four weeks of lectures on alternative development paradigms and their context, in particular state planning, structuralism and dependency theory, classical and neoclassical development theory, and institutionalist approaches are considered.

The second half of the module focuses on specific policy issues such as poverty, hunger and agriculture; global inequality; international trade; aid, finance and development banks; climate and environment; education; and the role of big and small businesses. Each week a general overview of these policy issues is presented and followed by an in-depth discussion and analysis of major recent reports or data in the field. Lectures are complemented by seminars which teach the students basic techniques of compiling policy briefs and other relevant forms of policy documents widely used by development agencies.

This module develops an understanding of economic theory in a real world policy context. Students are introduced to some key theories of economic policy that deal with the complex relation between the state and the market in a variety of real world situations.

The first few weeks discuss broad theoretical approaches that conceptualize the interaction between the private and public sectors. These range from theories that see the two sectors antagonistically (for example government action as constraining market activity) to theories that see them as complementary or/and collaborative and even symbiotic (for example the state as an entrepreneurial entity that works with the private sector).

After this initial presentation of theories of state/market interaction, we see how these alternative paradigms inform policy design. These different approaches are used to discuss a variety of real world policy issues. These include the following topics: environmental issues, industrial policy, provisioning for sectors of the population (healthcare and aging support provision, housing, etc), labor relations, and national and supranational political economy.

Lectures are complemented by seminars which teach the students basic techniques of compiling policy briefs and other relevant forms of policy documents widely used in government.

This module expands on the topic of macroeconomics and focuses on the nature of money and credit in the modern economy. It covers the different public and private institutions that govern behavior in the modern financial economy, and their historical evolution in different parts of the world.

For example, it discusses the central banks of US, UK, Japan and the Eurozone, as their decision making structures, capacities and occasionally objectives, are partly determined by their different histories.

Furthermore, the module covers the theoretical analysis underpinning the modern operation of central, commercial and investment banks. It covers topics of exchange rates, the supply of money, interest rate setting, and the evolving institutional political economy that banks operate in.

It introduces students to central bank balance sheet analysis in relation to liquidity and capital assets. Finally it presents key aspects of the recent literature on regulation that has substantially altered operations in the financial sector since the 2008 crisis.