AREA: MICROECONOMICS
Learning Goal 1: Students will learn how markets and other governance structures organize core economic activities, such as production, distribution, and consumption, and the growth of productive resources.
Objectives:
a. Students will be able to identify and explain economic concepts and theories related to the behavior of economic agents, markets, industry and firm structures, legal institutions, social norms, and government policies.
b. Students will be able to integrate theoretical knowledge with quantitative and qualitative evidence in order to explain past economic events and to formulate predictions on future ones.
c. Students will be able to evaluate the consequences of economic activities and institutions for individual and social welfare.
d. Students will be able to identify the basic features of alternative representations of human behavior in economics.
AREA: MACROECONOMICS
Learning Goal 2: Students will learn about the determinants of macroeconomic conditions (national output, employment, inflation), causes of business cycles, and interactions of monetary and financial markets with the real economy, familiarizing themselves in the process with major economic theories of relevance.
Objectives:
a. Students will be able to identify the determinants of various macroeconomic aggregates such as output, unemployment, inflation, productivity and the major challenges associated with the measurement of these aggregates.
b. Students will be able to discuss the linkages between financial markets and the real economy, and how these linkages influence the impact of economic policies over differing time horizons.
c. Students will be able to describe the main macroeconomic theories of short term fluctuations and long term growth in the economy.
d. Students will be able to critically evaluate the consequences of basic macroeconomic policy options under differing economic conditions within a business cycle.
AREA: INTERNATIONAL DIMENSIONS OF ECONOMICS
Learning Goal 3: Students will become familiar with the origins and implications of processes of international economic integration and differentiation, the basic features of the international financial and monetary systems, and their implications for national economic policy.
Objectives:
a. Students will be able to discuss the major economic theories of international trade, and to analyze the economic implications of alternative trade policies.
b. Students will be able to trace the development of the international financial architecture and of the international monetary system, and to evaluate the implications of different exchange rate regimes for domestic macroeconomic policy.
c. Students will be able to identify major economic characteristics of selected world's regions.
d. Students will be able to trace the origins of various processes of international (global or regional) economic integration, and to discuss their implications for the international patterns of productive specialization.
AREA: HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
Learning Goal 4: Students will become familiar with the history of economic thought and the controversies between its major schools of thought and contrasting theoretical approaches.
Objectives:
a. Students will be able to trace the origins of economic thought in the ancient world and its influence on subsequent schools of thought, including the scholastics and the emergence of early modern (Classical) economics.
b. Students will be able to discuss the links between the evolution of Western economies and the emergence of economics as a distinct discipline.
c. Students will be able to define and discuss the mercantilist, early institutionalist, and heterodox schools of economics, including Marxian theory, which have challenged mainstream economics.
d. Students will be able to trace the development of neoclassical marginalism, and to identify the areas of agreement and disagreement between the classical and neoclassical approaches in economics.
e. Students will be able to discuss the historical context and content of the Keynesian revolution, as well as the subsequent developments and criticisms of Keynesianism.
AREA: COMMUNICATION OF ECONOMIC IDEAS
Learning Goal 5: Students will develop the communication skills necessary to succeed in securing professional employment or admission to appropriate post-graduate programs.
Objectives:
a. Students will produce original written and oral work that is coherently organized and presents its arguments clearly as well as accurately.
b. Students will produce original written work that is free of major errors in spelling and grammar.
c. Students will practice appropriate citation of outside sources in their original written and oral work.
d. Students will learn to make use of economic concepts and specialized economic vocabulary in their original written and oral work.
AREA: QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
Learning Goal 6: Students will develop the analytical and empirical skills necessary to succeed in securing professional employment or admission to appropriate post-graduate programs.
Objectives:
a. Students will be able to formally represent economic relationships using graphical and mathematical tools and provide meaningful verbal interpretations of these representations.
b. Students will be able to analyze empirically economic relationships using basic regression techniques, implementing that analysis through the use of statistical software.
c. Students will be able to formulate comparative statics and optimization problems in microeconomics and macroeconomics using matrix algebra and calculus.
d. Students will be able to analyze research questions with the use of econometric techniques. To this aim, they will be able to identify data and model specification issues; select and implement suitable multiple regression techniques based on their analysis of error structures; and conduct basic analyses of time-series data.