APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2013/2014

GRA 5915 Business and Politics in the European Union: The Political Economy of the Single Market

Responsible for the course
Kjell A Eliassen

Department
Department of Accounting - Auditing and Law

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
6

Language of instruction
English

Introduction
This is an international political economy course that focuses on the European Union’s single market. It requires no previous knowledge, and has been designed for the ‘Minor in Political Economy’ specialization. The central focus is on business and politics in the EU, and more specifically on the policy process and regulation is the Single European Market.

Learning outcome
The course focuses on regulation and competition in the Single European Market, addressing the rationales and motivations for economic regulation and centering on the evolution of competition policy and sector regulation, as well as changes in the light of liberalisation and de-regulation. Students will become familiar with the EU policy process, the theory and practice of regulation and competition policy, and a several selected policy sectors (eg.g. financial services, energy, defence procurement, ICT etc) . The course covers several aspects of the regulatory state, such as liberalisation; self-regulation, flexibility and indirect regulation; regulatory competition, cooperation and/or convergence; as well as the legal, administrative and political bases for regulation. Central questions include: What kind of regulation or competition policy is necessary in order to make markets work as desired? Who demands and supplies regulation? How does regulation work and how explain regulatory success and failures?

Prerequisites
Bachelor's degree qualifying for admission to the MSc programme

Compulsory reading
Books:
El-Agraa, Ali M. 2011. The European Union : economics and policies. 9th ed. Cambridge University Press
Nugent, Neill. 2010. The government and politics of the European Union. 7th ed. Palgrave Macmillan

Other:
-During the course there may be hand-outs and other material on additional topics relevant for the course and the examination.
A list of compulsory readings will be provided on It's learning or in class.


Recommended reading
Books:
Baldwin, Robert, artin Cave, Martin Lodge. 2012. Understanding regulation : theory, strategy, and practice. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press
Baldwin, Robert, Martin Cave, Martin Lodge. 2012. Understanding regulation : theory, strategy, and practice. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press
Esther Versluis, Mendeltje van Keulen and Paul Stephenson. 2010. Analyzing the European Union policy process. Palgrave Macmillan
Freiberg, Arie. 2010. The tools of regulation. Federation Press
Gerber, David J. 2001. Law and competition in twentieth century Europe : protecting Prometheus. New ed. Clarendon Press
Jordana, Jacint and David Levi-Faur, eds. 2005. The politics of regulation : institutions and regulatory reforms for the age of governance. Edward Elgar
Newbery, David M.. 1999. Privatization, restructuring, and regulation of network utilities. MIT Press
Ogus, Anthony. 2004. Regulation : legal form and economic theory. New ed. Hart

Other:
Individual journal articles and book chapters available in the library and/or electronically will be recommended as further reading.


Course outline
1. The Single European Market
2. European Union institutions and the EU policy process.
3. Business, politics and regulation: Economic policy and regulation in Western Europe and the USA. Privatisation, liberalisation and de-regulation.
4. Regulation and liberalisation in a global economy. The international dimension of regulation. Regulatory competition and cooperation.
5. Comparative competition policy: National (incl. Norwegian, US), European Union and international.
6. Sector regulation. Specific aspects of and case studies from slected sectors, such as the ICT sector (telecoms, communications and the media), the energy sector (oil, gas and electricity), financial services and capital markets defence procurement.

Computer-based tools
It's learning

Learning process and workload
A course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of 160-180 hours.

Please note that while attendance is not compulsory in all courses, it is the student’s own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class that is not included on the course homepage/It's learning or text book.


Examination
In class assessment (30%) and written paper (70%, individual).
Both parts of the evaluation need to be passed in order to get a grade in the course.

Specific information regarding student evaluation beyond the information given in the course description will be provided in class. This information may be relevant for requirements for term papers or other hand-ins, and/or where class participation can be one of several elements of the overall evaluation.

This is a course with continuous assessment (several exam elements) and one final exam code. Each exam element will be graded using points on a scale (e.g. 0-100). The elements will be weighted together according to the information in the course description in order to calculate the final letter grade for the course. You will find detailed information about the point system and the cut off points with reference to the letter grades on the course site in It’s learning.

Examination code(s)
GRA 59151 continuous assessment accounts for 100 % of the final grade in the course GRA 5915.

Examination support materials
A bilingual dictionary.
Exam aids at written examiniations are explained under exam information in the student portal @bi. Please note use of calculator and dictionary in the section on examaids

Re-sit examination
It is only possible to retake an examination when the course is next taught.
The assessment in some courses is based on more than one exam code.
Where this is the case, you may retake only the assessed components of one of these exam codes.
Where this is not the case, all of the assessed components of the course must be retaken.
All retaken examinations will incur an additional fee.

Additional information
Honor Code
Academic honesty and trust are important to all of us as individuals, and represent values that are encouraged and promoted by the honor code system. This is a most significant university tradition. Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the ideals of the honor code system, to which the faculty are also deeply committed.

Any violation of the honor code will be dealt with in accordance with BI’s procedures for cheating. These issues are a serious matter to everyone associated with the programs at BI and are at the heart of the honor code and academic integrity. If you have any questions about your responsibilities under the honor code, please ask.