Economics

This seminar provides students with an introduction to the study of contemporary Chinese political economy. The early sessions of the course will place China’s economic development in global historical context before examining the characteristics of the Maoist command economy as well as reformers’ approach to marketization after 1978. Later sessions will focus on current issues relating to the state’s efforts to establish a sustainable, equitable and innovative economy. The final sessions examine China’s role in an increasingly turbulent global economy. Working closely with the instructor, students will write a research paper on a topic related to the contemporary Chinese political economy.

This course provides a general and base knowledge of modern industrial organization based on strategic interaction among firms and consumers. The course examines the functioning of the markets by analyzing the behavior of non-competitive firms, also with the tools of modern game theory. Industrial policies and regulation are discussed together with the principles of competition policy. The course discusses topics including introduction and microeconomics background; game theory and oligopoly; market structure; non-price strategies; and competition policy and regulation.

The course broadens, and selectively deepens, students' understanding of finance, building on their existing knowledge of financial economics. The course covers a broad range of topics, with both a theoretical and an empirical emphasis. These include topics in corporate finance, investments and performance evaluation, and international finance. The course consists of two interchangeable ten-week components, one on investments and international finance, and the other on corporate finance.

This course focuses on derivatives, with a particular emphasis on equity derivatives (standard call and put options, exotic options), futures and forward contracts, and interest rate derivatives (swaps, caps and floors, swaptions). It systematically addresses three basic questions: how do these products work, i.e. what are their payoffs? How can they be used, for hedging purposes or as part of trading strategies? And above all: how are they priced? The course emphasises a small number of powerful ideas: absence of arbitrage, replication, and risk-neutral pricing. These are typically introduced in the context of discrete-time models, but the course also covers some well-known continuous-time models, starting with a comprehensive treatment of the Black-Scholes model. The level of mathematics is appropriate for third-year students with a solid quantitative background.

The course provides a comprehensive introduction to the modern theory of finance. It describes the functioning of the main asset markets, the most important theories explaining the formulation of prices of financial assets, and the role of financial markets in the optimal allocation of risk bearing. Students develop an understanding of the economics and characteristics of the main financial assets. 

This course provides an introduction of the contemporary economic development of China. The course is divided into topics covering the main aspects of China’s contemporary economic development. Throughout the learning process, we emphasize on learning the quantitative facts of China’s economic development, as well as the basic quantitative skills of analyzing questions related. The specific topics of learning include: the labor market, education, population, migration, agriculture, industrialization, political economy, culture, among others. The detailed delivery may be adjusted according to the learning process.

The course contains the learning materials, practices and case studies to develop the knowledge and skills of the students in the field of data science and its application in the real business/work world. The students learn how to apply analytical techniques and scientific principles to extract valuable information from business data for decision-making, strategic planning. This course covers practical contents of statistics, machine learning, information visualization, and data analysis techniques through python programming language and other tools.

This course covers classic macroeconomic issues such as inflation, unemployment, interest rates, growth, and technological progress. The course also provides the foundations needed to understand how the macroeconomy operates and presents various solutions to economic problems.

This course acquaints students with an improved understanding of the key disciplines of environmental economics pertaining to the study of the relationships between the economy and the environment. It equips students with the practical knowledge of environmental economic principles, environmental sciences and other related disciplines in managing the environment-economy relationships towards achieving a more resource-efficient and environmentally sustainable economy for the benefit of society. This takes the course to an extensive range of studies covering the connection between the economics of ecosystem services, ecosystem multifunctionality and environmental value which integrally linked to resource efficient economy and human welfare; the relationship between economic use of the natural system and environmental externality; market mechanism; environmental and resource conservation; cost-benefit analysis; valuation techniques and their limitations, among other subjects of interest.

This course introduces a set of analytic tools and conceptual frameworks through which to assess the origins and evolution of the institutions that constitute modern capitalism. It takes an interdisciplinary political economy approach that draws insights from economics, sociology, political science, history, geography, science and technology studies, and law. The course critically assesses the rise of what Karl Polanyi and Albert O. Hirschman have referred to as "market society," a powerful conceptual framework that views the development of modern capitalism not as an outcome of deterministic economic and technological forces, but rather as the result of contingent social and political processes. The material covers various theoretical perspectives that illustrate alternative conceptions of rationality, which in turn produce competing ways of seeing and making sense of the complexities of our social world. Ultimately, the course exposes a range of critical conceptual tools and frameworks through which to interrogate the current relationship between states and markets, and to consider the extent to which social actors can challenge its limits and imagine alternative possibilities.