Economics

This course is a continuation of the foundation on microeconomics course. It is designed to provide standard tools and techniques to analyze microeconomic issues. The course begins with a review of several foundation topics on consumer and producer theory. It then moves on to discuss the general equilibrium model, whereby consumers and producers are put together in a general equilibrium framework. After that, it covers choice over time, i.e. inter-temporal choice and choices over different states of the world, i.e. choices under uncertainty. It then continues with game theory. This topic is discussed extensively. Coverage includes various solution concepts for one-shot games and sequential move games. Applications of the theory on the issues of oligopolistic competition, entry and entry prevention, and network economics receive a great deal of attention. Finally, the course ends with the asymmetric information, i.e. moral hazard and adverse selection and its application on the internal organization of the firm. Throughout the course, empirical observations and real-life cases pertaining to the issues discussed are presented. 

This course improves students’ understanding of the complexities presented by managing businesses in an international environment. It begins with a historical background of globalization and the development of institutions to support international transactions. Potential similarities and differences between countries in economic development, political and legal systems, culture, government policies on trade, and in accepting foreign investments are discussed. Differences in national monetary systems and capital markets are considered with reference to globalization and the integration of world markets. The second part of this course reviews the role of location, the strategy and organization of multinational corporations (MNCs), cross-border alliances and international mergers and acquisitions, and the formation of international knowledge networks for technology creation. The course concludes with ethical issues faced by international businesses. The course uses Hill’s 14th edition of ISE International Business: Competing in the Global Marketplace. Students also need to register on the Harvard website (www.hbr.org) and purchase assigned cases using a link included in the course manual.

This course introduces topics in the tourism market by examining real tourism market and survey data. The course offers an examination of the tools for tourism market analysis and research, including previewing and predicting, questioning, inferring the main idea, identifying the overall structure about the tourism market and survey, paraphrasing, summarizing, drawing conclusions from survey of tourism market, and reading critically by using a variety of different kinds of clues. The ultimate goal of the course is to provide students with opportunities to increase their schematic as well as tourism market knowledge, exercise their reading skills, improve their practical ability of survey and tourism marketing and research.

The Internship Workforce course provides students with an overview of working in the United Kingdom. The course looks at the changing organizational structures of work in Britain. It examines the social and economic changes that affect the workplace in the UK. Topics covered include: sociology of work, trade unions, oppression at work, generational changes at work, and the future of work. An internship while studying in London provides an opportunity to experience a “hands on” working situation and a different perspective on the workplace and working practices, while developing professional skills.

This course is designed to provide a basic starting point to understand behavioral finance. At the micro-individual level, students are supposed to master more decision-making knowledge and understand how real people make judgments and choices; at the macro-market level, students are supposed to master certain market-invalid knowledge and understand the arbitrage and strength of neoclassical finance and limitations of strength; for financial applications, students are supposed to be aware of how behavioral finance knowledge is applied to stock pricing, building portfolios, corporate finance, and so on.

This course examines the rules of economic activity in an open economy, focusing on international trade, multinational corporations, international investment, international finance, and international Macroeconomics. Based on the facts of China's economic opening-up, economic globalization and the development of international economics, this course focuses on the theories and policies of international trade, the determination and change of exchange rate, the adjustment methods of international payments, macroeconomic policies under the open economy conditions, and the international monetary system. Through the course, students can rely on the theory of international trade, international investment, exchange rate theory, theory of international balance of payments and international macroeconomic theory, using the modern economics analysis method, combining the data between macroeconomic and microeconomics to explain international economic phenomena.