Economics Courses

This course covers a range of econometric evaluation techniques that are used to gauge policy impacts (with a focus on microeconomic contexts). Consideration is given to standard regression-based approaches, instrumental methods, difference-in-differences and matching methods. Please get in touch for the full course outline.

This two day course introduces students with an undergraduate background in economic theory to the foundations of behavioural economics. It commences with an overview of behavioural economics as an emergent property of economics and psychology, before introducing investigative methods and perspectives of particular relevance to behavioural economics. The course then recapitulates and contrasts traditional, rational choice based approaches to economics and contrasts these with alternative approaches derived from behavioural insights. It will cover an introduction to prospect theory as well as the role of heuristics in decision making processes.

Cost benefit analysis (CBA) lies at the heart of policy appraisal in Government and increasingly for the private and voluntary sector too. For CBA to be useful in informing resource allocation decisions, we need to accurately measure all the causal impacts of the policy and to attach a monetary value to them.

The aim of these modules is to make participants aware of the intellectual developments that have shaped current macroeconomic policy. It reviews both the recent theoretical and empirical literature and considers the agenda likely to influence policymakers in years to come. As well as reviewing these developments we will also provide an understanding of the key mathematical and econometric tools utilised in current macroeconomic research.

This two day course will give a refresher on key topics in competition and regulation, and provide information on the latest developments in this area.

The three-day course combines ‘workshop’ and ‘surgery’ activities, with learning on key issues that need to be considered in the development of a Business Case. Over the three days of the course the learning activities will be focused around the ‘live’ business case that each attendee has been tasked with developing.

The purpose of this two day course is to present an overview of the theory of economic growth, at a Masters / advanced undergraduate level. The main theories are introduced in as intuitive a way as possible, to pinpoint as rigorously as possible which ones withstand empirical scrutiny and why. This is not a theoretical course, but techniques are discussed that help think about the economic growth question in a unified manner, and that motivate the empirical questions in the field. Throughout the class, special attention is being paid to data, and to what empirical research has taught us about the effective determinants of economic growth. The proposed structure leaves plenty of room for group discussions, particularly as regards more recent developments on both empirical and theoretical fronts.

The aim of these half-day modules is to enable students develop a better understanding of economic statistics and its uses in the policy making arena. This includes interpreting and analysing economic statistics while understanding its limitations.

This course will introduce and explain the concepts and tools of economics. It will teach participants a number of economic principles, furnishing them with a set of tools to both enhance their analytical ability and to enable them to work more closely with economists. Applications and case-studies will be presented alongside the theory; participants will be encouraged to relate these to their own areas of work and that of their organisation as a whole. The approach will be discursive and participatory.

This course builds on the introductory Economics for non-economists course. The purpose of this course is to review and analyse current macroeconomic issues and events, from the perspective of the interactions between the private sector and government policymakers. We focus in particular on the keys to economic growth, the determinants of business cycles, the role of fiscal and monetary policies, and the causes and consequences of the Great Recession of 2008.

This two day course builds on the introductory Economics for non-economists course. Participants will revisit some familiar concepts and will gain more insight into the theory behind some key principles of economics and develop a broader understanding of how they directly influence government policy.

This programme consists of five 'Masters-level' modules. Participants will gain a detailed knowledge of the theory, general principles and key concepts of taxation.

This course provides an introduction to the ways in which analysts measure inequality and poverty, addressing conceptual issues and practical matters including data. There are also hands-on sessions in the computer lab.

International economics is an old subject, which almost goes back to the beginning of economics as an autonomous field. It continues to grow in importance as countries become tied more to the international economy.

This two day course is taught at Masters level and aims to introduce participants to the main economic perspectives on the balance of payments, the exchange rate and its underlying macroeconomic drivers.

This two day course is designed to serve as an introduction to panel data analysis and emphasis will be placed on providing an intuitive explanation of the underlying theory and the practical implementation thereof.

This course will introduce you to the field of Data Science using the industry standard: the Python programming language. We will cover key steps involved in solving practical problems with data, from access and manipulation, to processing and visualisation. These topics will be explored from a “hands-on” perspective using a modern Python stack (e.g. pandas, matplotlib), and examples using real-world data. We will start with an overview of the main ways to access and manipulate data in Python. Then we will move on to visualisation, learning to create figures that allow you to better understand your data. We will finish the course with some time for questions and to work on your own data.

This two day programme provides a comprehensive introduction to STATA and enables participants to practice application of the issues covered. As a result, delegates will understand (i) the theory behind particular quantitative (mainly econometric) techniques and (ii) how to physically code these into STATA and understand its outputs.

This two day course seeks to recapitulate and revise the main elements of mainstream macro-economic theory, covering the classic model of aggregate supply, Keynesian demand analysis and a simplified general equilibrium framework. In the closing session alternative methodological perspectives will be addressed and throughout the workshop, the discussion will touch on the shortcomings and simplifications of the models covered.

This two day course will provide a selective, up-to-date review of analytical methods in microeconomics for the study of the public sector. It will review some of the principles underlying the role of the state and the design of the tax system and explore the problems that arise in applying these principles. Delegates will be provided with an introduction to recent relevant developments in public economics, including behavioural public economics, drawing on current research.

This 2-day workshop will refresh your understanding of the core analytical approaches and models of microeconomics, and their application to current policy. This workshop is suited to both Assistant Economists and Economic Advisors. You’ll reconsider the behaviour of consumers and firms and their interaction in markets and explore standard consumer choice theory and more recent behavioural approaches. Other topics under review are: perfectly competitive, monopolistic and oligopolistic market structures, welfare economics, and health and education policy.

The course is voluntarily directed to non-experts. While it covers the theoretical definition of the main national accounts aggregates, it does it in a lively manner based on the concrete experience of the teacher.

The main objective of this two day course is to analyse the impact of incentives on behaviour inside organisations. The principal-agent problem will be outlined and applied to the public and private sector.

This two day course provides a comprehensive introduction to the theory and methods of social impact and social value measurement covering the ethics of social value and best-practice methodology and latest research in the field.

This practical, two-day workshop will present an overview of the manipulations of data that are often required prior to statistical analysis. Topics will include dealing with outliers, combining data from different sources, calculating annual average growth rates, weighting and smoothing data and constructing indexes. It was also cover basic statistical methods used in describing data such as measures of central tendency and dispersion, correlation and the use of dummy variables in regression analysis.

One of the most important economic statistics published by the ONS has been the inflation rate: first measured by RPI, more recently by CPI and currently also by CPIH. This two-day course will start by briefly exploring the economic and statistical theory behind the construction of these price indices.

This Wellbeing in Economics, Statistics and Social Research course is designed and delivered by academics, and public sector analysts, economics and statisticians at the 'coal-face' using wellbeing in government policy development.

This is a very practical two day course and regularly achieves an 'Excellent' rating from 100% of the delegates. It is designed to help economists to communicate technical, complex, detailed, abstract information simply, precisely and briefly to others (whether Ministers, managers, other officials or the public).