Economics

Course Structure

1. Pre-sessional mathematics refresher course - All students attend the compulsory pre-sessional mathematics refresher course, which runs for 2 weeks in September, before the start of term.
2. Microeconomics - This is a graduate level introduction to microeconomic theory. You will cover the theory of the firm and consumer behaviour, partial and general equilibrium analysis, monopoly and oligopoly, welfare economics, static and dynamic games, games with incomplete information, Bayesian decision theory, and common knowledge.
3. Macroeconomics - You will be provided with an introduction to modern intertemporal macroeconomics focusing on economic growth. You will also develop and apply tools for dynamic economic analysis that are useful in all fields of economics.
4. Econometrics - The first half of the unit focuses on Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimation and the analysis of models with discrete and limited dependent variables, which arise frequently in economic analysis. The second half of the unit concerns the analysis of time series data including ARMA models, the analysis of nonstationary time series data and cointegration analysis, simultaneous equations models and vector autoregressive models.
5. Research Methods - While conducting research sounds like an easy task, it is paved with difficulties. This course aims to help you avoid these traps and to developing good research skills so that you can conduct an efficient piece of research at the end of your degree.
6. Dissertation - The dissertation gives you the opportunity to analyse an economics issue in depth. You will be assigned a dissertation supervisor and by the end of March, submit a preliminary dissertation report that contains a clear statement of the problem under consideration, the structure of the project and the research methods that are going to be applied. The dissertation is then written over the summer.
7. Financial Economics - You will be provided with the tools for analysing financial markets and the banking system. The unit covers issues arising from the banking system and credit markets and the implications of multiple equilibria, asymmetric information and market failure in these markets.
8. Industrial Economics - You will examine the behaviour of firms depending on industry characteristics. Starting from a brief analysis of monopoly and perfect competition this course moves on to an analysis of the interaction of firms in oligopolistic industries. Using standard game theoretic analysis of modern industrial economics, relevant industry strategies such as collusion, price discrimination, vertical control and entry and exit will be analysed.
9. Political Economy - This course will provide an advanced treatment of the tools used in political economy to tackle some major questions faced by public sector economists. It will in particular focus on the modelling of voters and politicians behaviours to address the role played by incentives and constraints faced by politicians when choosing public policies. The effect of different forms of institutional arrangements on public decision making and electoral accountability will be analysed from both a theoretical and empirical perspective.
10. Public Economics - Public Economics is concerned with the study of the effects of government policy and the design of optimal policies. You will assess the implications of basic welfare economics in public policy and a number of recent research areas in public economics are then discussed including income taxation, tax evasion, externalities and social security.
11. Evaluation Economics - The aims of the unit are to give you broad advanced-level training in the economics of policy evaluation and the facility to apply economic models to evaluate actual policy interventions. It will provide you with the facility to apply quantitative techniques and qualitative methods and you will evaluate actual policy interventions in particular fields and countries.
12. advanced training in the principles of economics and their application appropriate to postgraduate level
13. developed the ability to apply the advanced knowledge, research methods and skills they have acquired to the solution of theoretical and/or applied problems in economic policy
14. the ability to evaluate critically current research and advanced scholarship in the discipline
15. analytical skills and an ability to develop simplifying frameworks for studying the real world and to be able to appreciate what would be an appropriate level of abstraction for a range of economic issues
16. a range of transferable skills that will be of value in employment and self-employment
17. the knowledge and skills base from which they can proceed to research in economics and related areas.