Economics

This course helps the students to acquire basic knowledge about bank and fintech business models and risks; understand the functioning of contemporary financial technologies and discuss their merits and flaws; evaluate the impact of digitalization and fintech firm entrants on the banking sector.

This course introduces banks and their business models and discusses how trends in financial technologies affect the banking sector. The course combines academic rigour and literature review with practical insights from case studies, e.g., based on financial statements and industry reports. 

First, we will discuss the role of banks in the financial system and why they exist. We briefly introduce the business model of banks and take a closer look at their balance sheets. We focus on the different aspects of how banks are managed and issues relating to banks’ asset and funding structure and then analyse the various risks they are exposed to, their measurement, and how banks manage these risks. 

Second, regarding FinTech and digital disruption in banking, we will develop a conceptual framework that guides us in thinking about innovation in banking and briefly introduce the financial technologies which enable respective innovation and disruption and the policies around them (e.g., Open Banking/PSD2). We then focus on analysing the business model of new fintech firm entrants competing with incumbent banks and how the use of financial technologies enhances banks’ business models. We will cover fintech lending as a complement or substitute to traditional bank lending. Finally, we peruse applications of distributed ledger technology in banking and financial markets, such as blockchains and smart contract based financial protocols, and discuss how they disrupt traditional financial intermediation processes.

This course teaches how economic and psychological factors affect economic decisions of individuals, focusing on their bounded rationality. Each class is composed of two parts. The first half of the class explains the basic concepts and principles of Behavioral Economics; the second half introduces a few research articles to bolster student discussion of related research questions. 

This course develops one's understandig of economic phenomena through analyzing evolutions of Japanese economy over the past decades and their interactions with economic policies, including monetary, fiscal, financial regulation policies, trade and industrial policy. The discussion encompasses the high-speed growth period of the '60s; the hyper-inflation age of the '70s; the financial bubble of the '80s; the financial crises of the '90s and 2000s, as well as the successive deflationary decades extended through the launch of the new policies - Abenomics and beyond. 
 

This course introduces the fundamental principles of economics and business administration. The course explores two main themes: academic research in college and corporate business. Through a dynamic combination of lectures, group presentations, and discussions, students acquire both theoretical knowledge and practical skills crucial for their academic and professional endeavors.  

This course covers methodologies of empirical regional/development economics, such as: 

(1) How to conduct field surveys;

(2) How to use RCTs and micro-econometric methods, and 

(3) How to read journal articles and how to prepare referee reports.

Course Prerequisites: Intermediate/advanced microeconomics and econometrics.

This course provides the conceptual inventory and practical tool kits that enable students to achieve circularity across organizational spaces. By integrating ethnographic methods with key concepts from entrepreneurship, the class equips students with the theoretical and practical knowledge needed to make transitions to sustainability. The course is intensive and follows a problem-based learning approach, where students develop solutions to a real-world circular challenge presented by a case company. The class requires active participation from students, with classroom activities and discussions as well as working in project teams inside and outside the classroom. It facilitates learning by participating, learning by observing, and learning by in-class presentations and critical reflections. Students are supported in their learning process with mentoring and coaching in collaboration with the Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship.

This course introduces analytical tools and recent topics in industrial organization related to the digital economy.

It provides students with theoretical tools for equilibrium analysis of oligopolistic competition, both useful for research in both empirical and theoretical industrial organization. These tools include discrete choice models, basic contract theory, and some theories of particular games such as aggregative games and supermodular games.  Additionally, it provides students with theoretical frameworks to analyze recent market phenomena in the digital economy such as platform’s business strategies and competition in online markets.

This course investigates various economic issues of South and North Korean economics without serious economic theory. The course covers the economic development differences between North and South Korean economies; the history of both economies after WWII,; trade between North and South Korean economy; each country’s export and import; each economy’s labor market, and each economy’s current situation. For a better understanding of Korean economic issues, the course employs economic concepts like GDP, inflation, unemployment, interest rate, and etc. 

This course introduces undergraduate students to the empirical aspects of international trade. It analyzes the causes and consequences of international trade both in developed and developing countries, with a special emphasis on the role of firms.  After an introduction on key stylized facts of international trade, the course studies the published-work in international trade: trade from the point of view of individual firms. The course discusses various topics such as trade policy, trade liberalization, inequality and Global Supply Chains. 

Recommended prerequisites: 2nd year basic microeconomics, macroeconomics and econometrics. Basic understanding of applied-microeconomics is desirable (not essential).