Economics

This course examines the constraints set on fiscal policy by the need to ensure the sustainability of public debt, the role that fiscal policy can play within those constraints to support economic activity, and the institutions that can strengthen fiscal policy credibility, including fiscal rules, medium-term fiscal programs, and spending reviews. The course utilizes case studies to illustrate these issues. The course discusses topics including fiscal sustainability, fiscal solvency, public debt, fiscal policy and growth, and fiscal institutions. Students complete a written final exam. Students should be familiar with basic macroeconomics as a recommended prerequisite.

This course provides an introduction to environmental economics and is developed for students of non-economic study programs, but is also suitable as an introduction to environmental economics for students of economic study programs. This course demonstrates how environmental problems can be approached and analyzed using economic theory. Students learn how economics provides guidance to address serious environmental problems such as global warming, ozone depletion, and air and water pollution at different scales (e.g. global and regional scales). This course establishes the foundations of environmental economics. Students learn how markets function, under which conditions markets fail, and how market failures can give rise to a misallocation of resources causing environmental problems. These insights are then used to analyze how policy interventions can correct market failure and enhance social welfare. After successful completion of this course, students are able to explain the theoretical foundations of environmental economics; explain key concepts, strengths, and limitations of environmental economic analysis (e.g. sustainability, efficiency, Pareto optimality, market failure, externalities); analyze important environmental problems (e.g. pollution) from an economic point of view; understand and explain key economic instruments and policy measures for solving economic problems (e.g. taxes, subsidies, tradable permits) on an international scale; apply economic concepts to a specific case in the domain of environmental economics; compile and structure information about a topic in environmental economics to write a scientific essay.

This course applies mathematical optimization to the analysis of economic problems. Topics include: optimization without constraints-- optimization in open sets and global extrema of concave/convex functions; optimization with equality constraints-- local and global relative extremum and economic interpretation of the Lagrange multipliers; optimization with inequality constraints-- comparative statics, convex programming, and economic interpretation of the Kuhn-Tucker multipliers. *Previous coursework in Introductory Mathematics for Economics is required. Texts: Alpha C. Chiang y Kevin Wainwright. Fundamental methods of mathematical economics. Mc Graw Hill, 2006. Knut Sydsaeter y Peter J. Hammond. Mathematics for economic analysis. Prentice Hall, 1995.

This course covers the workings of the Danish Welfare model. The students learn about one of the most extensive and generous government models in the westerly part of the welfare states, as well as the economic history behind Danish welfare development and the substantial challenges that lie ahead. Some of these challenges include slow product development, a decreasing workforce due to an aging population, the need for working forces, and the challenges from globalization.

This course examines multiple regression analysis and its use in economics, management, finance, accounting, and marketing. Topics include the properties of estimators, hypothesis testing, specification error, multicollinearity, dummy variables, heteroskedasticity, and serial correlation.

Consumption has come to dominate our lives, is driving economies, yet also endangering the future of our planet. This course asks questions about consumption from multiple perspectives, such as how did consumption assume its prominent place, how do economists rationalize consumption, how do companies use behavioral models to craft marketing strategies, whether consumption is good or bad for society or the individual, or whether consumers need to be protected.

This course enables students to apply both microeconomic and macroeconomic analysis to the assessment of current debates on financial and monetary issues. It provides a basic understanding of the following: the principles of bank management and their changing character in recent decades; strategies adopted by banks to address risk; the economic theory of bank intermediation; the role of banking in the financial system and in the wider economy; banking regulation and government intervention in the banking sector; theories and debates on the role and effectiveness of monetary policy; monetary aggregates, exchange rates, and inflation as targets of monetary policy; and the historical experience of UK monetary policy during the past three decades.