MSc Economics (International Development)

BEEM011: Applied Econometrics 1

Applied econometrics employs statistical methods to real-world data to give a quantitative description of the relationship amongst variables around us and a measure of how precise this description is. In this module, we will briefly review probability theory and fundamental statistics, which will cover topics like hypothesis testing and confidence intervals. We will then proceed to regression analysis, which is the workhorse of applied econometrics. We will also attempt to cover more advanced topics in regression analysis such as, but not limited to, panel data methods and nonlinear functions.

The module aims to provide students with an applied econometric foundation necessary in order to conduct a high-standard empirical analysis of economic data.

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BEEM100: Macroeconomics

The module explores the core areas of modern macroeconomics. The aim is to develop understanding of macroeconomic models from microfoundations, as it becomes increasingly necessary in contemporary approach. The emphasis will be on learning theoretical concepts and analytical techniques, as an aide to understanding contemporary macroeconomic problems.

Summary:

By the end of the module you should be able to manipulate a number of theoretical models to analyse key contemporary macroeconomic issues, such as what influences the business cycle and long-run growth; how the behaviour of households, firms, and governments affect aggregate welfare; how asset prices are determined; and how macroeconomic policy can improve wellbeing.

Sustainability

All the module materials can be downloaded from the ELE (Exeter Learning Environment).

Employability

Previous students have successfully found jobs in centres that deal with current trends in economic activity and government institutions, such as central banks. It is also a necessary module for anyone wishing to pursue PhD study in this area.

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BEEM101: Microeconomics

In this Microeconomics module we will learn and use maths and rigorous logic to consider deep questions of...

• individual preferences, choices and optimization subject to constraints;
• firms' profit-maximising choices and the implications of these for society (how much value is created, who gets what, how do we consider these outcomes as a society);
• psychological influences on the above, and limits to optimization;
• general equilibrium, i.e. interactions of consumers and producers on interdependent markets.

This is a selective and bespoke module. We will focus on a limited set of concepts, models and applications. We will aim to incorporate material that is particularly relevant to your careers and your research interests.

This is an inquisitive module: we ask 'the 'how?', 'why?', 'so what?', and 'is this reasonable?' of the models and concepts.

Additional Information:

Internationalisation

This is a basic and applied theory course, but the content is applicable in every country. The examples used in this module can be applied to any firm or decision.

Sustainability

All of the resources for this module are available on the ELE (Exeter Learning Environment).

The aim of the module is to develop:

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BEEM103: Optimisation Techniques for Economists

Summary:

Optimising behaviour is at the core of most economic analysis. Whether we ask how a consumer should behave, how firms should compete in a market or how governments should decide on their monetary policy, the ability to solve optimisation problems is key to finding an answer. This module provides a thorough introduction to the techniques involved in unconstrained and constrained optimisation. It expands on the optimisation techniques introduced in the microeconomics and macroeconomics courses in the first term and lays the foundation for many advanced economic option courses in the second term.

Additional Information:

Internationalisation

Microeconomics is relevant across countries as it is based on mathematical models.

Sustainability

All of the resources for this module are available on the ELE (Exeter learning Environment).

Employability

This module equips students with logical thinking, numeracy and writing skills, as well as an understanding and theoretical knowledge of economic issues. These help students think like economists, a quality highly valued by employers.

Economic problems are often expressed using mathematical models which are to be formulated, analysed and to be confronted with real-world data. The module aims to make you familiar with those mathematical tools and methods which are used frequently in most economic models and to demonstrate how they are applied.

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BEEM124: Dissertation

You will create a substantial independent piece of work using skills and knowledge acquired throughout their degree.

For MSc Economics (Behavioural Insights), MSc Economics (Environmental Policy) and MSc Economics (International Development) students, this will be an applied specialist project in your field of specialism. For Behavioural Insights, you will develop an original behavioural intervention proposal under the guidance of an expert behavioural economist. For Environmental Policy, you will carry out an environmental research project with Exeter's influential Land, Environment, Economics and Policy Institute (LEEP). For International Development, you will develop an original development intervention proposal under the guidance of an expert development economist.

For MSc Economics and MSc Financial Economics students, this will be a research dissertation. You will identify and analyse an original economic problem using the techniques of economic and/or econometric analysis under the guidance of a supervisor.

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BEEM152: Behavioural Development Economics

Behavioural economics applies psychological insights into human behaviour to investigate how people make economic decisions under various conditions of constraint (e.g., time and knowledge) and influence (e.g., social pressure). The module requires basic knowledge of undergraduate microeconomics. It will keep neoclassical theory as a benchmark; while discussing deviations from it in development economics related but not limited to labour economics, firms, and health economics. It will explore psychological characteristics that affect economic choices and outcomes, with a focus on how they affect poor people's choices in low- and middle- income countries.

Additional information:

Internationalisation

• This module covers economics from an empirical and policy point of view and incorporates many examples from studies on behaviours of people from across low- and middle- income countries

Sustainability

• All of the resources for this module are available on the ELE (Exeter learning Environment)

Employability

• This module equips students with logical thinking, questioning of core economic assumptions and presentation skills, as well as an insight into the behaviours of people living in poverty. This will be helpful in making students think like economists, a skill valued by employers. In particular, it will help students in securing jobs related to policy making and in development consultancies

External Engagement

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BEEM154: Economics of Public Finance

Should the government combat climate change, and if so how? Can inequality be reduced without hindering economic efficiency? What should be done about the enormous long-run costs of social insurance programs, such as pensions and public health insurance or healthcare? How big of a role should a central government play in local education decisions? To begin to answer questions like these, we need a clear understanding of the role of government in the economy. This class is about developing such an understanding.

Aims: This class aims at developing a clear understanding of the role of public finances and public policies in the economy.

Research use: To ensure the richest possible understanding, we will learn in three different ways: through economic theory, through examples and applications, and through empirical evidence. Each of these will be informed by published peer-reviewed research.

Interdisciplinary aspects: Virtually by definition, the issues of public finance and public policy are at an intersection of many fields within as well as outside economics. This class will be perfectly suited for interdisciplinary pathways provided the pre-requisites above are satisfied.

International perspectives: We will encounter a broad range of policy areas addressed by governments in the United Kingdom, the United States, and a number of other countries.

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BEEM155: Development Economics

You will be given a thorough exposition of concepts, policy issues and debates on the causes and characteristics of the wealth and poverty of groups and nations. These series of lectures, without being exhaustive, will draw on classic themes in the subject and will cover recent developments in the literature. They will emphasise the importance of political economy factors, missing and incomplete markets in developing countries, and the systemic effects this has on the process of economic development. Other important topics include the concept and theories of underdevelopment, distributional factors and poverty, institutions, human resources (health, education and population), conflict, gender, measurement and methods, and behavioural science factors. You will also learn about cash transfers, corruption, and governance.

This module undertakes a detailed examination of theories, policy issues, controversies and progress in raising standards of living in the developing world. Lectures will explain why certain societies and countries remain under-developed. We will cover theoretical models, behavioural studies, empirical and applied studies.

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BEEM163: Research in Practice: Study Design

The ability to conduct and interpret primary research is a crucial skill for consultants, policymakers and researchers in a variety of organisations (e.g. consultancies, development organisations, government departments, think tanks, big businesses and tech companies). This module will explore the latest tools for designing, running and analysing randomised controlled trials, field experiments or survey-based projects and impact evaluations that are now a central part of the economics, business and policy toolkit. This module will also develop literacy with current cutting-edge methodology and ability to critically evaluate research.

The content of this module will be suitable for data and research-oriented students, and for those who are interested in work with businesses, consultancies, government, development organizations or other fields where evaluating policies, programmes, products and other interventions is important. This content is recommended for interdisciplinary pathways and will be of use to all students with the necessary econometric tools who are interested in running field experiments and designing or analysing survey-based projects. The examples in this course will be drawn from empirical microeconomics and behavioural economics.

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BEAM036: Domestic and International Portfolio Management

This module takes the perspective of portfolio management and aims to develop skills based on formal modelling of asset price procedures and knowledge of empirical research findings particularly in an international setting.

Sustainability

All the resources for this module are available on the ELE (Exeter Learning Environment).

Employability

In this module, students learn how to work with investment portfolios. The module covers 70% CFA CBOK syllabus on the topic of the Portfolio Management and prepares students well for the CFA Level 2 exam on this topic.

This module studies portfolio management, developing student skills in the formal modelling of asset price procedures and knowledge of empirical research findings, particularly in an international setting. The module expands economic analysis to take into account of issues arising in foreign exchange, international finance and financial economics.

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BEAM042: International Financial Management

Summary:
International Financial Management provides you with a conceptual framework within which the key financial decisions of financial or non-financial companies can be analysed. The module focuses on decision making in an international context, building on, and extending the analytical framework provided by domestic financial decision making to account for dimensions that are unique to international finance.

Additional Information:

Internationalisation
This module offers an intuitive and real world grasp of the concepts and issues in international finance. A wealth of examples is provided to enable you to see the application of the subject to business, mostly from the perspective of international financial decision making.

Employability
This module equips you with the advanced knowledge to be able to understand and evaluate the performance of financial decisions made by financial and non-financial companies, and their risks and opportunities, in a global context.

Links to the academic literature are provided by a selection of articles from academic journals at the end of each lecture, which ensures that you are able to reflect on and evaluate issues and problems in the subject at a high academic level.

You will also develop team-working and presentation skills through various in-class and post-class learning activities.

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BEE3077: Health Economics

This unit introduces you to key conceptual frameworks and principles of health economics. It examines how both the UK and international health care systems are financed and funded. The unit will examine the core theories of supply and demand in health care, including the importance of information (and information asymmetry), the critical role of insurance, hospital financing and delivery, long-term care organisation, pay-for-performance schemes, private/public mix in finance and provision of health care, and economic epidemiology.

This module aims to equip you with fundamental health economics and public health knowledge, which is essential for working in the government and health related industries, such as health care providers.

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BEEM012: Applied Econometrics 2

Summary:
In this module you will be introduced to important concepts of time series econometrics and their usefulness in analysing financial/economic data. It is designed to give you an understanding of why the specific econometric methods are used, to provide you with a working ability of applying modern econometric methods and illustrate their application in finance.

Additional Information:

Internationalisation
Since econometrics relies on mathematical and statistical tools, the course content is relevant internationally.

Sustainability
All of the lecture material is available on ELE (Exeter Learning Environment).

Employability
Students acquire the ability to analyse financial data and understand the foundations of economic theory. They also develop their technical expertise in a computer software tool, logical articulation of solutions for financial data questions, and their confidence in identifying, calculating and solving research problems. These valuable skills will help them for a career in business, international organisations, government, academia or banking.

The aim of the module is to introduce you to the fundamental techniques used in the analysis of financial data, and to provide the necessary economic background to carry out empirical investigations.

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BEEM125: Experimental and Behavioural Economics

Summary:

"Taking a course in experimental economics is a little like going to dinner at a cannibal's house. Sometimes you will be a diner, sometimes a part of dinner, sometimes both." (From Experiments with Economic Principles by Bergstrom and Miller ).

Why do people give to charity? Why do people who buy insurance? Why do we like to conform to the behaviour of the majority? We will explore these questions and more in this course. We will pitch the model of rational choice against theories of behavioural economics, and in the process acquire the toolkit for the modern behavioural economist. The lectures and tutorials will go hand in hand. Attendance (especially in the tutorials) is critical for you to understand the content of this module. In the tutorials you will participate in experiments and learn first hand how behaviour might differ from theoretical predictions. Behavioural nudge theory will be critically evaluated.

Additional Information:

Internationalisation

Microeconomics is relevant across countries as it is based on systematic behavioural deviations across societies and mathematical models.

Sustainability

All of the resources for this module are available on the ELE (Exeter learning Environment).

Employability

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BEEM157: Behavioural Finance

The efficient markets hypothesis has been the central proposition of finance since the 1970s. Since then, disruptive events like the rise and fall of the dot-com bubble and the global financial crisis have shed substantive doubt on this hypothesis. The field of behavioural finance relaxes the assumption of fully rational investors and incorporates insights from psychology to better understand investor behaviour. We will discuss empirical challenges of the efficient markets hypothesis and provide an overview of behavioural theories that set out to explain commonly observed deviations.

The aim of this module is to expand and enrich your knowledge of finance from a behavioural perspective. It provides you with the ability to question classical finance models in an informed and well-grounded manner. It does so by first developing a deep understanding of the classical models and their underlying assumptions, moving on to how they are challenged by empirical evidence, and finally showing how theories from behavioural economics can help to predict and understand real-world behaviour within financial markets.

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BEEM162: Environmental Economics and Sustainability

This is a module about the economics of sustainability and the links between the environment and the economy for Master's students seeking to develop the skills to address real-world sustainability challenges and their ability to work across sectors and disciplines. We will apply economic principles to answer questions about 1) how to allocate scarce resources across individuals and through time, 2) what sustainability means, and 3) how to assess our progress toward sustainable development. Students will apply advanced concepts from the module to critically engage with sustainability case studies through fortnightly discussion sessions.

This module aims to equip you with the economic skillset to assess policies through the lens of sustainability. By the end of the module, you should be able to differentiate between normative and positive criteria, apply the fundamentals of welfare and growth economics (including the notion of inclusive wealth) to the theory of sustainable development, understand what macroeconomic indicators like GDP do and do not capture, and interrogate the use of the term 'sustainable' in business and policy contexts. You will also be able to develop sustainability policy goals and recommendations informed by economic principles. Finally, you will develop a novel sustainability indicator and a bespoke dashboard for a country, region, or organisation of interest.

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BEMM071: Leadership and Global Challenges

The aim of this module is to provide you with an opportunity to actively and critically engage in debates about the role of leadership in major global challenges facing the world today. In doing so, the module looks to challenge your implicit conceptions of leadership and to develop a more sophisticated understanding of real-world leadership and its challenges. Each topic will be explored in depth through engagement with academic literature theory and research, as well as practical case-study perspectives and real-world examples. Particular attention will be given to how each topic plays out at the interaction of leaders, organisations, and society.

• Destructive leadership
• Inclusive leadership
• Responsible leadership

This module equips you with the ability to apply critical thinking and understand how different types of leadership contribute to the problems and solutions to the world's greatest challenges. This ability to ask critical questions is an essential higher order thinking skill that will underpin all future management practice.

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BEMM375: Sustainable Tourism Management

Tourism relies on the quality of the environment so the careful management of businesses, people and places is a critical issue for the sector. This module offers critical insights into the impact of tourism on a variety of environments, the emergence of more sustainable forms of tourism and the management responses to developing more sustainable practices. Although the module starts from first principles, it offers you an opportunity to develop a critical awareness of the theoretical and practical issues that influence how the principles of sustainable development are applied in tourism. You will study the challenges of tourism activity in a one-day field visit, enabling you to appreciate the issues for businesses, communities, organisations and tourists at first hand. The aims of the module are:

• to investigate the multiple connections between tourism, tourists and place, including the impacts of tourism on different environments and the role of tourism as an economic force within the climate emergency era;
• to critically evaluate traditional approaches to tourism planning, development and management and more innovative forms that promote sustainable development and stewardship of environmental resources;
• to develop an understanding of a range of strategies used to develop and monitor sustainable tourism in global, national and local contexts, and different business settings.

Additional Information:

Internationalisation

Tourism, in itself, is a globally significant subject and it is taught using a number of international case studies, covering examples from every continent in the world.

Sustainability

The entire module is dedicated to embedding sustainable principles into tourism management. Thus, sustainability is a fundamental aspect of the curriculum where the aim of the module is to encourage future tourism practitioners and managers to develop a sustainable perspective.

All of the resources for this module are available on the ELE (Exeter Learning Environment).

External Engagement

Guest speakers have previously included Dartmoor National Park Authority, Historic Royal Palaces, VisitExeter, Eden Project, and tourism and environmental consultants.

Employability

Students develop their understanding of how to apply sustainability principles in practice through a strategy plan assignment. Through guest lectures and a field visit, engagement with external organisations allows students to gain insights and connect with sustainable tourism practitioners.

This module offers critical insights into the evolution of sustainable tourism; the impact of tourism on a variety of environments; and the emergence of more sustainable forms of tourism. Although the module starts from first principles, it offers students an opportunity to develop a detailed and critical awareness of the theoretical and practical issues that influence how the principles of sustainable development are applied in tourism. The aims of the module are to:

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