Course details
Details of course options in the honours (third and fourth) years of the degree in economics.
Please find below a short description of core courses for the last two years of the undergraduate degree in Economics. For more information on these and other courses, please refer to the Degree Regulations & Programmes of Study (DRPS).
Topics in Microeconomics
This course is designed to provide a coherent development of some important topics in micro-economic analysis at a more advanced level than that of standard intermediate courses. It thus extends and deepens the work of Economics 1 and Economics 2, bridging the gap between intermediate and graduate level courses in economics, and providing insight into some recent areas of economic research activity. Throughout there is an emphasis on the application of economic principles.
Topics covered are likely to be drawn from:
- Economics of asymmetric information, principal agent model, hidden action, moral hazard, hidden types adverse selection
- Topics in game theory
- Auctions
- Bargaining theory
- Topics in behavioural economics
Essentials of Econometrics
Essentials of Econometrics (EE) provides an opportunity to learn skills that are important for later stages of the Economics programme, and many future career and life contexts. EE aims to ensure that all economics honours students have a sound grasp of the basic techniques of modern empirical economics.
The topics covered are likely to include:
- Statistics (review of probability distributions, statistical inference, estimation and hypothesis testing)
- The linear regression model (two-variable model, multiple regression, functional forms, dummy variables)
- Regression analysis in practice (model selection criteria and tests, multicollinearity, heteroskedasticity, autocorrelation)
There are weekly lab sessions to reinforce lectures, with exercises which foster 'learning-by-doing'
The course provides an opportunity to develop and practice key practical skills in:
- Computing
- Data gathering
- Processing
- Analysis
- Presentation
Topics in Macroeconomics
This course is designed to provide a coherent development of some important topics in macroeconomic analysis at a more advanced level than that of standard intermediate courses. It thus extends and deepens the work of Economics 1 and Economics 2, bridging the gap between intermediate and graduate level courses in economics, and providing insight into some recent areas of economic research activity. Throughout there is an emphasis on the application of economic principles.
Topics covered are likely to be drawn from:
- Public debt deficits and fiscal sustainability
- Development accounting and cross country income differences
- Global imbalances, sovereign debt and default
- Demographic changes and funding social security
- Optimal currency areas and the euro
- Optimal policy areas and fiscal federalism
- Monetary policy operating procedures and transmission mechanisms
- Politics and economic growth
- Development aid, debt and conditionality
Applications in Econometrics
Applications of Econometrics (A of E) builds on the techniques developed in Essentials of Econometrics through a variety of economic applications. The course is divided into two parts. The first part, taught by Dr Jonas Cederlöf, will cover time series methods, focusing on regressions with trending variables, testing and correcting for serially correlated errors, as well as forecasting. The second part, taught by Dr Andreas Steinhauer, covers techniques for working with panel data, instrumental variables estimation, and limited dependent variable models. Applications include both instructions on how to employ these methods to data that are freely available and examining journal articles which use these methods. Students will have the opportunity to carry out their own empirical modelling and estimation, developing skills expected of contemporary economics graduates in a wide variety of contexts.
On completion of this course, you will be able to show:
- A knowledge and understanding of econometric techniques for the empirical analysis of economic phenomena, along with application of these techniques in a variety of contexts.
- Research and investigative skills such as problem framing and solving and the ability to assemble and evaluate complex evidence and arguments.
- Communication skills in order to critique, create and communicate understanding and to collaborate with and relate to others.
- Personal effectiveness through task-management, time-management, teamwork and group interaction; dealing with uncertainty and adapting to new situations; personal and intellectual autonomy through independent learning.
- Practical/technical skills such as modelling skills (abstraction, logic, succinctness), qualitative and quantitative analysis and interpretation of data, programming of statistical packages and general IT literacy.
Optional Courses
In years three and four, you will take modules from a selection which varies each year and could include the following courses:
- Advanced Mathematical Economics
- Applied Financial Econometrics
- Applied Labour Economics
- Behavioural Economics
- Climate Change and Environmental Economics
- Development Economics
- Experimental Economics
- Economics of Education
- Economics of Organisations
- Economics of Sport
- Fiscal Policy, Macroeconomics and Inequality
- Firms, Markets, and Competition
- Game Theory
- History of Monetary, Capital and Interest Theories
- International Economics
- Key Developments in Modern Economic Analysis
- Modelling the Financial Crisis and its Aftermath
- Natural Resource and Environmental Economics
- Programming and Numerical Methods for Economics
- The Economics of Cities and Regions
- Unemployment and Labour Market Dynamics