Economics Courses

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.

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.

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 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.

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.