Economic Policy (Postgraduate Diploma)

Four courses from the following

Macroeconomic policy and financial markets

This course focuses on the relation between macroeconomic factors, macro economic policy and financial markets and institutions. Financial markets and institutions are treated as the central elements in the transmission of macroeconomic policy.

Unit 1: Macroeconomics and the World of Finance
Unit 2: Saving and Finance
Unit 3: Investment and Financial Markets
Unit 4: Monetary Policy and the Central Bank
Unit 5: Fiscal Policy and Government Finances
Unit 6: Expectations, Inflation, and Interest Rates
Unit 7: Foreign Exchange Markets and Foreign Trade
Unit 8: International Capital Flows and Financial Markets

Microeconomic principles and policy

This course looks at the principles economists use to model the behaviour of individual agents (firms, consumers, and policy authorities) and the ways in which they interact in a market economy. This course examines and builds upon core theories of microeconomics, and is structured around: market equilibrium; consumer demand; theory of the firm; pricing and output in competitive and monopolistic markets. The course explores the economic principles that underpin the influence of market structures - whether markets are competitive or monopolistic - on consumers and firms, how these principles can be applied to economic problems, and their implications for policy.

Unit 1: Theories and applications of microeconomics
Unit 2: Consumer Theory
Unit 3: Theory of Production and Costs
Unit 4: Profit Maximisation and Competitive Supply
Unit 5: Non-Competitive Market Structures
Unit 6: Factor Input Markets
Unit 7: General Equilibrium, Efficiency and Pareto Optimality
Unit 8: Externalities, Public Goods and Asymmetric Information

International finance

This course is concerned with the institutions of international finance and the key policy problems that have arisen in recent decades. It presents a policy-oriented perspective, similar to that an economist would use when advising governments on how to work within the modern international financial system and how to overcome its problems.

Unit 1: Evolution of the International Financial System
Unit 2: Foreign Exchange Markets
Unit 3: The Balance of Payments
Unit 4: Balance of Payments Policies - The Mundell-Fleming Approach
Unit 5: Balance of Payments Policies – The Monetary Approach
Unit 6: Fixed and Flexible Exchange Rate Systems
Unit 7: Currency Blocs, Financial Integration and International Co-ordination
Unit 8: Foreign Exchange Problems and Policies of Developing Countries

The International Monetary Fund and economic policy

Few countries have complete autonomy in macroeconomic policy. For many, policy is conducted in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or supervised by the IMF. The course examines the changing roles of the IMF, the nature of economic policies it encourages countries to pursue, and some of the effects these policies have on the economic environment of business, on the financial sector, and on social conditions. The course gives a simple introduction to the basic IMF economic policy framework, ‘financial programming’. Using different types of countries, including transition economies and developing countries as case studies, it enables students to study issues such as the role of capital controls and the problems of highly indebted countries.

Unit 1: Macroeconomic Stabilisation and the Role of the International Monetary Fund
Unit 2: The IMF’s Approach to Stabilisation
Unit 3: Alternative Approaches to Stabilisation
Unit 4: Stabilisation and the Financial Sector
Unit 5: Stabilisation Policy and the Financial Sector: Institutional Responses to Recent Crises
Unit 6: Stabilisation and the Financial Sector: Some Challenges and Controversies
Unit 7: Stabilisation and Low-income Countries
Unit 8: Challenges for Low-income Countries

Public financial management: planning and performance

In this course you will be introduced to the methods and issues of public financial management. You will examine subjects, including cost management, budgeting, expenditure control techniques, accounting for public spending and performance budgeting.

Unit 1: The Context of Financial Management
Unit 2: Budget Coverage, Classification and Structure
Unit 3: Costs
Unit 4: Accounting and Budgeting – National Level
Unit 5: Accounting and Budgeting – Sub-national Level
Unit 6: Budget Execution
Unit 7: Financial Management and Performance
Unit 8: Budgeting and Democracy

Public financial management: revenue

This course addresses the theory and practice of public finance with special reference to how governments raise revenues. It is concerned with taxation, borrowing and aid. There are economic principles that bear on the issues of financing public expenditure and these are covered in the course. If you have not studied economics before there is an Appendix that covers the relevant microeconomics concepts that underlie taxation theory. At the same time the course recognises that decisions on taxation, borrowing and aid are not taken solely with reference to economics but also to politics.

Unit 1: Tax Issues in Context
Unit 2: Taxation Incidence and Optimal Taxation
Unit 3: Policy Objectives and Taxation
Unit 4: Tax Policy Issues in Developing and Transition Countries (I)
Unit 5: Tax Policy Issues in Developing and Transition Countries (II)
Unit 6: Local Revenues in Developing and Transition Countries
Unit 7: Deficits and Debts
Unit 8: Foreign Aid and Debt Relief