Economics

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, 0ppression 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 practises, while developing professional skills.
 

This course focuses on differences in the functioning of national economies around the world and especially on differences between the national economies of individual EU member states and Central and Eastern European countries. It discusses the influence of culture, geography, abundance, or lack of natural and human resources, and mainly economic institutions and polices on the economic development of those countries. Using Hofstede's dimensions, students explore cultural differences among European countries and discuss practical issues such as the differences in the style of management and differences in consumer preferences. In addition to other theoretical tools employed in the course such as contemporary population theories, natural resource abundance, and production theories, also statistical data are included, serving as supplementary information for the comparison. The course explains common generalizations and classifications of economic and social models (e.g. Atlantic capitalism vs. Rhine capitalism; Sapir's view: Anglo-Saxon model vs. Nordic vs. Continental vs. Mediterranean model) and analyzes the implications of differences between economic and social models used by individual member countries for competitiveness. In addition to helping students understand economies of different countries and their ability to do business, it also helps them gain an insight into European economic institutions and policies. Although the lectures and readings contain extensive empirical evidence and data, the emphasis is on understanding the logic and economics of the analyzed processes.

This course introduces the main currents of thinking on capitalism in recent social theory. It provides an understanding of global capitalism's institutional diversity and dynamics and the historical transformations of the global economic order since the 1970s. The course navigates the complexity of today's economic world using structured theoretical thinking.

This course introduces the world of investments. It develops an understanding of individual investment decision making by introducing topics and techniques used by both personal investors and money managers. The course focuses on both individual securities and portfolios, teaching students to consider the risk and return of different types of investments, and how to use this knowledge to achieve financial goals. There is a focus on stock and bond investing. The course covers the mechanics of buying and selling securities, efficient market theory, portfolios, diversification, stock valuation, and international investing. 

This course gives a brief introduction to the economics of technological change and the labor market. The main aim of this course is to understand the impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on the demand for workers and on wages. The course considers such questions as what are the effects of ICT on the structures of organizations; how does ICT impact wages and the division of labor? do people with ICT skills earn higher wages?  Knowledge and understanding of introductory microeconomics and of introductory macroeconomics (comparable to first year courses microeconomics and macroeconomics) and a good understanding of first year mathematics (e.g. derivative of nested functions) is required.

This course covers the basic principles of security valuation, portfolio management and corporate finance. Topics include: consumption smoothing and investment, mean-variance analysis, CAPM, efficient market hypothesis, pricing of stocks, price movements, IPO, capital structure, dividend policy, loan contracts, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate governance. Students are advised to take ECON1101, 2121, 2011 and 2021 before taking this course.