London School of Economics

Students study the theoretical and practical aspects of financial markets, and learn how modern financial markets work. Engaging with leading faculty and your peers, students are introduced to modern investment portfolio management strategies covering topics such as diversification, asset allocation, portfolio optimization, the relationship between risk and return, factor models and equity valuation. Students also tackle some of the fundamental issues that arise in investment management, such as market efficiency, behavioral biases of investors, and market liquidity. 

This course covers a range of substantive topics and issues, such as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab-Israeli relations; the influence of non-state actors such as Hamas and Hezbollah; regional balances between Saudi Arabia and Iran; and the 7 October 2023 war and its regional consequences. Students dive deeply into domestic political developments, including those that have emerged in the decade since the "Arab Uprising”. More broadly, the course places the region at the intersection of global and local politics, examining the roles played by the United States, Russia, and Europe.

This course provides some intellectual pathways from GY100. Human Geography is a broad subject and there may be changes in the particular topics from year to year. Topics to be discussed include Imperialism, East and West; contemporary geopolitics; concepts of “home” and Patriarchy; material aspects of globalization such as containerization and shipping; non-economic aspects of agglomeration in cities;  biopolitics and the geography of disease and viruses; the geography of affect or feelings; soundscapes and music.

The course provides an introduction to tax policy that links real-world debates about the tax system with ideas from a range of academic disciplines, including political theory, economics, and sociology, as well as law. It addresses real-world debates about tax policy as they appear in the media and in politics, but to do so in an academically rigorous way. The course adopts an interdisciplinary approach that draws on ideas from across the social sciences to address two main questions: why do we have the tax policies we have, and how can our current tax system be improved? The main examples will be taken from the UK and US contexts, but the insights generated are truly global.

This course focuses on data about connections, forming structures known as networks. Networks and network data describe an increasingly vast part of the modern world, through connections on social media, communications, financial transactions, and other ties. The course covers the fundamentals of network structures, network data structures, and the analysis and presentation of network data. Students work directly with network data and structure, and analyze these data using R.

This course provides an introduction to the management accounting and financial control concepts that are used in strategic decision-making, in order to effectively perform in a competitive business environment. Covering issues such as technology and digitalization, corporate strategy, marketing, and modern cost management tools, students critically analyze how these tools can be used to increase performance.

This course introduces students to the study and history of these economic inequalities. It is a detailed survey of the key evidence on inequality, both contemporary and historical, and the sources and methods used to measure it. Students learn how to critically interrogate the quality of inferences from such evidence. They explore the dimensions of inequality along historical, contemporary, spatial, ethnic, and gender lines, drawing on research in economic history, economic geography, and sociology. 

This course introduces students to the core ethics concepts needed to build better technology and reason about its impact on the economy, civil society, and government. In the first half of the course, students consider ethical questions raised by different steps in the data science pipeline, such as: What is data, and how can we design better (ethical?) data governance regimes? Can technology discriminate? If so, what are promising strategies for promoting fairness and mitigating algorithmic bias? Can we understand black-box AI systems and explain their decisions? Why is it morally important that we do so? In the second half of the class, students consider ethical questions raised by the use of AI systems to manage our work, political, and social lives.

The course familiarizes students with the basic principles of law, so that they can apply them to a wide range of commercial transactions, in the light of the policy objectives that legal regulation pursues, and with an understanding of the context of commercial transactions in which the law operates. 

This course outlines the structures of the European Union, its law-making processes, judicial architecture, and its most important policy domains. It does so by focusing on both the law of European integration and the political, social, and cultural context within which it operates. Students tackle questions about the dynamics and direction of integration, including the existential challenges posed by Brexit, the rule of law crisis and the refugee crisis.