English

This course covers the tools required to evaluate and carry out empirical data analyses and introduces students to various regression methods that empirical researchers (economists, social scientists, data scientists, etc.) use for estimating, testing, and forecasting causal relationships.  Frontier research papers with various economic data sets are covered, and the course discusses how machine learning and econometrics can be used together to improve causal inference.  

Topics include basic regression models, advanced topics in panel data, time series analysis, difference-in-differences models, and discrete choice models 

Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of linear algebra, probability, and statistics is expected. If you are not sure whether you meet the prerequisites, please consult with the instructor.  

This survey course examines innovation holistically, encouraging students to question the status quo and critically examine both the positive and negative impacts of innovation. 

Innovation is often hailed as the ultimate solution to many challenges, ranging from economic growth to technological advancement. However, this enthusiastic embrace of innovation frequently overlooks its significant negative effects on individuals, society, politics, and the environment. While innovation has propelled societies forward in many areas, it has also created new problems, often exacerbating inequalities and producing unforeseen consequences. 

Through lectures and debates on current case studies—such as climate change, the brain drain from poorer countries to developed nations, and the impact of artificial intelligence on individuals and society—students will explore the multifaceted nature of innovation and develop principles for a more inclusive and responsible approach. This course challenges students to think critically about who benefits from innovation and who may be disadvantaged, prompting consideration of ethical, social, and environmental dimensions alongside economic and technological ones. By engaging with diverse perspectives, students gain an appreciation for the complexity of innovation and the importance of a balanced approach. 

This course provides an intermediate level introduction to the application of modern time series methods that may be used to analyze economic data. The initial part of the course includes a review of techniques that can be used to identify the dynamic properties of time series data. Thereafter, a selection of the popular modelling frameworks is introduced (i.e. autoregressive integrated moving average models, distributed lag models, and vector autoregressive models). Extensions to these frameworks, which allow for aspects such as cointegration and error correction representations, are also covered, before attention is directed towards the application of model misspecification tests and forecasting exercises. Course entry requirements: ECO4006F, ECO4007F and ECO4016F.

This course covers information security and alternatives for protecting secret information from malicious digital attacks. The course examines various information protection devices and the principles, mechanisms, and implementations of computer security,  

Topics include Security concepts and principles, Software security – exploits and privilege escalation, User authentication, Operating systems security, Access control, Secure design and coding exercises, Cryptographic building blocks, Malicious software, GitCTF Competition, Web and browser security, Open source security and more. 

This course teaches the psychological processes that inform eating behavior, and the challenges in changing these behaviors. Receive a recent model to explain how many people can display eating behaviors that run counter to their intentions. This model is used to connect biological, sensory, consumer-level, and psychological processes to understand eating behavior. This course focuses in depth on the different psychological processes that explain differences in people’s eating behavior with a strong emphasis on automatic processes that steer behavior in the moment of food choice and eating, and how these contribute to current difficulties to behavior change. The course. focuses on the question of how people’s eating behavior can be changed by employing psychological insights and interventions, and how to deal with psychological resistance to change. Learn how these psychological insights can be applied and integrated in two distinct approaches to behavior change: ‘Nudging’ and ‘Boosting’. Learn to design strategies to change behavior and reflect on the applied and ethical implications of the two different approaches by literature self-studies, quiz learnings, and groupwork assignments. Basic knowledge of biology, psychology, nutrition and/or health sciences required. This course is part of the minor Psychobiology of Eating Behavior.

This course analyzes the structures and functions of international public law using the methodological and theoretical tools of political economy. Rather than treating law as an autonomous system of norms, the course interrogates how legal regimes emerge, operate, and evolve in relation to power, interests, and material structures at the international level. We examine how legal frameworks reflect and institutionalize global distributions of power, economic interdependence, and the strategic behavior of states and non-state actors. Topics include sovereignty, trade, development, human rights, investment law, and environmental regimes, with a focus on power asymmetries, institutional design, and enforcement. Adopting a political economy approach to analyzing law - and public international law in particular - has a number of analytical, critical and empirical advantages. It highlights underlying power relationships; the political economy approach enables one to understand who writes law, for whose benefit, and in what structural context (imperialism, capitalism, inter-state rivalry).

This course provides a comprehensive understanding of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their critical role in shaping global development. It provides the knowledge and skills necessary to critically analyze, evaluate, and contribute to the progress towards these goals, particularly within the context of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It prepares students for a range of professional roles where understanding and facilitating sustainable development is key.

The course covers basic theory of analytic functions including elementary properties of analytic functions in one variable. Complex differentiability and Cauchy-Riemann equations. Calculation rules. Elementary examples of analytic functions: power series expansions, exponential functions, branches of logarithms, and functions defined by these calculation rules. Contour integrals in the complex plane. Cauchy’s integral theorem and integral formula. Existence of a primitive function and local power series expansion of analytic functions. Cauchy estimates, Liouville’s theorem, and the fundamental theorem of algebra. Theory of meromorphic functions, Laurent series expansion, and the residue theorem. Residue calculus. Further elements of the theory of holomorphic functions such as argument principle, Rouché’s theorem, and open mapping property. Harmonic functions. Regularity, existence of harmonic conjugate, mean value property, maximum principle, Poisson integrals.

This course examines some of the key theoretical and practical problems and opportunities which arise when the ethical-political position of care is applied to issues around environment and sustainability. The first half of the course focuses on theoretical topics, such as: 1) Gillard's "different voice" contribution to moral psychology and feminism; 2) the challenge which relationality and interdependence presents to ethics and politics; and 3) how ethics of care offers an additional perspective on justice linking people-animals, and present-future generations. The second half of the course explores a number of empirical cases in areas like renewable energy (nuclear power, wind farms, community renewables etc.); landscape management (eco-system services, rewilding, species reintroduction etc.); and sustainable food production (allotments, regenerative agriculture, GM crops etc.). It also explores home and community, and cultures and communities around the world which link people and planet in different ways.