University College London

The course provides students with a thorough grounding in the archaeology of the countries where Islam was the dominant religion between 900-1400 (including Western, Central, and Southern Asia, North Africa, parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of southern Europe), introduces students to the most important current research questions and main interpretative paradigms in Islamic archaeology, including the impact of multiple conquests (e.g. Crusades, Mongol Conquest), epidemic disease (e.g. Black Death) and climatic pressures on medieval societies, as well as key themes such as state formation, urbanism, technological innovation, global exchange. Students also consider the nature and interpretation of different sources (archaeological, visual, textual) in approaching the late Islamic world and develop critical faculties in the written evaluation of current research (problems, method and theory, quality of evidence).

The course provides a foundation in the economics of regulation, both in relation to theory and in the development of government policy. Regulation economics involves looking at why we regulate some firms and not others and considering how to design effective regulatory constraints when needed. This course combines the economic theory of regulation with examples from Great Britain of how regulatory frameworks work in practice. It identifies the objectives of regulation and consider how a regulator might reach these with perfect information, and analyzes implications of ownership. It also discusses regulatory options when there is asymmetric information. The course critically assesses two core models of price regulation – rate of return, and price caps (RPI-X). It examines how regulators have developed price caps over time to encourage cost efficiency, innovation, investment and output delivery.

Urban geoscience encompasses the geological aspects of the built environment in the context of construction materials and the underlying bedrock that affects the stability of built structures. In London, the relevance of these aspects are evident. This course introduces students to critical aspects of urban geoscience related to suitability of building materials and construction sites, underground water resource, its contamination and fluctuation and, scope of urban mining using London as an example. The concepts learnt must then be applied to any other expanding city in the world in the same contexts of construction and water resources, maximizing resource recovery, and recycling from urban wastes.

This course introduces students to the practice of management, to what managers do, why they do it, and ways in which they set about doing it. Different management activities and roles are explored from both a practical and theoretical perspective. Key management responsibilities such as strategic thinking, analyzing the business environment, marketing, and motivating self and others are explored alongside a real-life study. This provides opportunities for students to apply theoretical concepts to an actual business case.

In this course, students analyze education policy through the lens of economics. There are discussions of rigorous economic arguments for or against different types of policies. The course also examines the best empirical evidence on these arguments.