PLEASE NOTE that these are all modules which may be offered, but the Faculty reserves the right to alter, omit or add optional modules within the overall Course framework.
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M140 - Behavioural Economics
This course offers an introduction to the behavioural approach to economics. The course begins from classical theories of rational decision making, discusses the empirical problems that arise when these theories are treated as positive theories, and then offers an alternative in the form of modern behavioural theories. These modern theories draw on the insights and findings of behavioural and experimental psychology, as well as experimental economics, to improve the modelling of economic actors. The course will also discuss recent attempts by neuroscientists to identify the underlying basis for economic decision making
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M190 - Behavioural Finance
This course provides an overview of the behavioural finance literature. Behavioural finance tries to understand observed deviations from the predictions of the efficient market hypothesis with the goal of providing better insights into the functioning of financial markets. Typically this involves relaxing the assumption of fully informed and rational agents. Thus, aside from reviewing the behavioural finance literature the course also aims at providing a deeper understanding of why, and when, humans behave as boundedly rational agents on financial markets. To this end we will also study the relevant literature in psychology, behavioural economics, evolutionary anthropology as well as more traditional economics and finance.
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M170 - Corporate Finance
This course provides a rigorous treatment of the main concepts in corporate finance.
The course covers both theory and applications; some lectures will be devoted to empirical aspects.
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M150 - Economics of Networks
Our choices and behavior are shaped by whom we interact with. The choices
of our friends are in turn shaped by their friends, whose choices are in
turn influenced by their friends, and so on. Thus an individual's choices
are shaped by the overall network of relationships which obtain. Moreover,
rational individuals who realize these effects have an incentive to make
investments and create networks that are advantageous to themselves. In
the last decade, these ideas have led to a burst of research on the economics
of networks. The aim of this course is to provide a rigorous introduction
to this body of research.
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M160 - Political Economy
Political Economy: The aim of this course is to provide an introduction to the field of political economics. Students will learn to analyze political phenomena from an economic perspective, i.e. as resulting from the interaction of rational, self interested individuals. Our aim will be to understand the influence of political institutions on collective decisions, including those which determine economic policy and performance.
We will cover the following topics:
- Economic Theories of the State
- Social Choice and Voting Theory
- Spatial Models of Committee Decision Making
- Representative Democracy and Electoral Politics
- Bureaucracy
- Interest Groups
- Federalism
- The Median Voter Theorem and Applications
- Macroeconomics and Political Economy
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M240 - International Finance
The aim of the course is to introduce students to classical and emerging issues in international finance, covering both modelling and empirical issues. Topics include international financial integration, risk and international portfolio allocation, carry trade, currency crises and contagion, micro-structure of foreign exchange market.
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M250 - International Trade
This course introduces students to some basic theories of international trade, with a special emphasis on the role of technology and of individual firms. The course will focus only on two of the main lines of modeling trade among countries, the Ricardian model and the increasing return model. After exploring the two basic frameworks, we move on to analyze how recent contributions have extended the standard models incorporating firm heterogeneity. We will try to understand how firms' technological differences affect their decisions to export, which foreign market to enter, and the aggregate behavior of an economy populated with heterogeneous firms. The second part of the course reviews a set of applications of these theories, including the effects of trade openness (globalization) on labor market outcomes, innovation and growth. First, we will look at the how increased trade and interpedendencies among countries affect wage inequality, the distribution of income, and unemployment. Secondly, we will study the effects of trade on the incentives to innovate and on the growth performance of modern economies.
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M400 - Asset Pricing
The bulk of this course takes place in the Lent (i.e. Spring) term. The first 13 hours are devoted to a basic theoretical analysis of asset pricing and general finance. The next 5 hours then look at empirical aspects of the theory covered in the first part. Finally, a 2-hour revision class in the Easter (i.e. Summer) term covers any questions arising from the material in the main part of the course.
A provisional list of topics to be covered is as follows:
- Decision making under uncertainty
- Concepts of risk and risk aversion
- Stochastic dominance
- Portfolio theory
- Static Asset Pricing
- Dynamic Asset Pricing
- Options
- Other Derivatives
- Structural estimation of intertemporal allocation parameters, including risk aversion, subjective discount rates and relative prudence.
- Use of micro data versus aggregate data.
- Estimation of preference-based dynamic asset pricing models
- Estimation of dynamic household portfolio models
This subject is built on microeconomic principles, and a solid understanding of microeconomics is therefore indispensable. A knowledge of linear algebra, calculus and probability theory is assumed throughout the lectures.
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M500 - Development Economics
This course has two parts. One part discusses issues concerning resource allocation systems in poor countries with a focus on village economies and household behaviour Topics include: the allocation of resources among households; informal insurance and safety nets; rural credit markets.
The other part discusses the functioning of markets characterized by imperfections of various kinds, especially those caused by information asymmetries; and issues in the political economy of development. Topics include: credit markets in developing countries; the links between development and political institutions; and the political economy of economic policy reform.
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M510 - Poverty Environment & Sustainable Development
This course of lectures develops the economic analysis of the interface of absolute rural poverty, and the local environment in poor countries. Microeconomics reasoning is examined in terms of the large body of case studies. The idea of sustainable development is discussed and analysed both at the household and the national level. Empirical investigations into the recent economic history of nations are examined in the context of sustainability.
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M610 - British Industrialisation in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
The aims of this course are to introduce students to the main debates, conceptual tools and empirical findings that are central to understanding British economic history during the Industrial Revolution.
By the end of this course students should have acquired a good understanding of the key debates surrounding Britain's industrialisation and the welfare implications of the changes that occurred. They should be familiar with the various methodologies and data sources employed and have knowledge of recent empirical findings.
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M180 - Industrial
Organisation
This course provides a rigorous treatment of the main concepts in industrial organisation. The course covers both theory and applications; some lectures will be devoted to empirical aspects.
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M600 - Historical Perspective to Financial Crises
The aim of this course is to analyse the current global financial crisis and some previous paradigmatic financial crises. This course will introduce students to the relevant theory and empirical analysis of financial crises. We will consider historical and econometric analyses of financial crises and their effects, drawing on contemporary and historical evidence. The lectures will cover case studies of particular experiences and the broad evidence as considered by econometric/cliometric studies. Topics will include financial crises of the interwar period; financial crises associated with bubbles in infrastructural investment in more advanced countries (e.g., the dot-com crisis in 2000); those associated with the process of 'catching-up' among more advanced countries (e.g., the 1980s financial problems of Japan); financial crises associated with the process of 'catching-up' of more advanced developing countries (e.g., the 1997 Asian Crisis); recent financial crises in Latin America associated with capital account liberalisation; and the 2007-08 more 'systemic' global financial crisis.
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M620 - Institutions and Long-Distance Trade, 1000-1800
This course provides an introduction to the debates, conceptual tools, and empirical findings relevant to understanding the growth of long-distance trade from the Middle Ages through the Industrial Revolution. Through a comprehensive analysis of commercial institutions in Europe and parts of the Near East, the course examines commercial security, contract enforcement, principal-agent problems, information provision, and price volatility. It also analyzes the political economy of taxing trade and regulating commerce, together with the phenomenon of rent-seeking by professional mercantile associations. By the end of the course, participants have acquired an understanding of the theoretical problems confronting long-distance impersonal exchange and how these problems were solved institutionally in the eight centuries during which Europe made the transition to self-sustaining economic growth.
