SØK 3550 Applied Economics
SØK 3550 Applied Economics
Studying economics helps us to understand the world we live in. It's about understanding people, businesses, markets, and authorities. Based on this knowledge, students will be better equipped to respond to the challenges and opportunities that arise when fundamental conditions in society and markets change. Through economics, students acquire a methodology for problem-solving and analytical skills that enable them to succeed within a wide range of career paths. Examples include public administration, politics, policy analysis, health administration, entrepreneurship, market analysis, journalism, and unknown future careers.
The course builds on CORE ECON (Curriculum Open-Access Resources in Economics), which is a large international network of researchers and lecturers with a vision that knowledge of economics can contribute to a more just, sustainable, and democratic world.
After completing the course, students should have knowledge about key topics, theories, issues, processes, tools, and methods within economics.
Specifically:
- Able to explain what social dilemmas are, and provide examples of how challenges of the type "tragedy of the commons" have been attempted to be solved.
- Have knowledge about the elements in a game theoretic model.
- Explain how preferences and repeated games can affect outcomes in social dilemmas.
- Discuss game theoretic assumptions in relation to results from actual experiments.
- Explain the difference between a simultaneous game and a sequential game.
- Able to explain how institutions can affect power distribution and resource allocation.
- Explain how and why negotiations can increase efficiency.
- Explain the Lorenz curve and the Gini coefficient.
- Have knowledge about how an unregulated economy can lead to inefficient resource use in the form of external effects and insufficient information.
- Describe measures that can be put in place to achieve better resource utilization and possible challenges with such measures.
- Access national accounts statistics for analysis of economic structure, development, and cyclical movements.
- Able to find and explain figures for unemployment and inflation.
- Able to explain the goals and instruments of fiscal and monetary policy.
After completing the course, students should be able to apply academic knowledge and relevant results to practical and theoretical issues and make reasoned choices.
Specifically:
- Be able to identify social dilemmas.
- Apply game theory to discuss challenges related to social dilemmas and current issues.
- Set up and solve sequential games.
- Use the Pareto criterion and other criteria to evaluate economic outcomes.
- Propose specific measures to counteract problems with externalities.
- Apply knowledge of the public sector to discuss its importance for the national economy.
- Find national accounts statistics and assess them in terms of economic structure, development and cyclical movements.
- Find, evaluate and refer to statistics for inflation and unemployment to discuss economic situations.
- Discuss fiscal and monetary policy in terms of its design and consequences.
Students are to enhance their understanding and knowledge of socio-economic tools to analyze key issues within the field. At the same time, they should develop an awareness of fundamental welfare issues that are relevant in today's society.
- Strategic interaction and social dilemmas
- Social preferences and cooperation
- Negotiations and coordination Institutions and power
- Efficiency and distribution
- Externalities and solutions to external problems
- Public goods and asymmetric information
- Economic growth and fluctuations
- Spill-over effects and fiscal policy Public debt Inflation – causes and consequences
- Monetary policy
Students are engaged in multiple teaching and learning activities: Digital learning resources (asynchronous), lectures and lecture-facilitated discussions and group work (synchronous), and student-facilitated tutoring sessions (synchronous).
Digital learning resources include CORE videos - both educational videos and "Economists in Action". Selected instructional videos are also sourced from CORE. Each main topic is introduced with a self-produced video. The topic is motivated here and guidance is given to the various activities and learning elements on the learning platform. Furthermore, online questions and multiple-choice tasks will help students test their understanding.
Lectures and classroom discussions give the lecturer the opportunity to motivate subtopics, provide examples and explain analyses and models in more detail. Discussions and group work are designed to give students the opportunity to practice and test their understanding and skills with the lecturer present. This will be synchronous and will be carried out in a 2-hour session each week.
Furthermore, there will be student assistant-led seminars with problem-solving.
Higher Education Entrance Qualification
Disclaimer
Deviations in teaching and exams may occur if external conditions or unforeseen events call for this.
SØK 3420 Samfunnsøkonomi I or equivalent.
| Assessments |
|---|
Exam category: School Exam Form of assessment: Written School Exam - pen and paper Exam/hand-in semester: First Semester Weight: 100 Grouping: Individual Support materials:
Duration: 3 Hour(s) Exam code: SØK 35501 Grading scale: ECTS Resit: Examination every semester |
| Activity | Duration | Comment |
|---|---|---|
Teaching | 28 Hour(s) | |
Digital resources
| 40 Hour(s) | |
Student's own work with learning resources | 50 Hour(s) | |
Individual problem solving | 59 Hour(s) | |
Prepare for teaching | 14 | |
Group work / Assignments | 6 | |
Examination | 3 Hour(s) |
A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 7,5 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of at least 200 hours.