Economics

This course covers the most important areas of financial economics and investments. The course explores how financial markets work and how they price financial securities and assets. As witnessed in the recent 2008-2009 financial crisis, financial market risks can have spillovers to the whole macroeconomy. Therefore, to understand macroeconomic risks, it is important to have a solid understanding of how financial markets work. The course discusses topics including portfolio selection, equilibrium asset pricing, arbitrage, fixed income securities, and derivatives. Students are required to have completed courses in calculus and statistics as a prerequisite for this course.

Economic development affects the living standards and options of people. The question of why some countries grow much faster than others is perhaps the central question in the study of development. This course approaches this question by reviewing and explaining the logic behind the most important arguments that have been advanced to account for differences across countries in rates and levels of economic development. The emphasis is on the studies of growth (both theoretical models and empirical work), population structure, inequality, poverty, fiscal policies, financial development and trade.

Full course description

The long-run economic development of countries, as well as inequality within countries are the major topics of this course. The long-run growth part deals with topics such as basic growth theories, including institutions, population, education, health, and migration. The inequality part relates to how the distribution of income, access to education, health services, or infrastructure can be highly uneven and become a major obstacle for economic development. Throuhout the course, policy implications and potential actions related to these topics are taken into consideration and discussed.

Course objectives

• To provide participants with an overview of major economic concepts and policies in development issues, such as growth and population dynamics, education, aid, trade and debt. 
• To deliver the skills needed to consider development problems and approach them in a rigorous and critical way, using both economic theories and policy analysis. 

Prerequisites

SSC1027 Principles of Economics. Knowledge of basic quantitative concepts such as reading and working with graphs and simple equations is also a prerequisite. 

Covid-19 is an infectious disease caused by a type of virus, manifesting itself in individual human beings; but the covid-19 pandemic is not just a health issue, but a social and economic phenomenon. This course explores the economics and politics of the covid-19 pandemic and the policy response (health-related, economic and social) in the UK and other countries. It does not cover specific medical or scientific aspects of covid-19 as a disease, but beyond that discusses a wide range of topics relating both to the direct and indirect impacts of the pandemic. There is a particular focus on how and why policy decisions were taken; and on the longer-term implications.