Course Offering

Basic macroeconomics
Course objectives:

This course is designed to provide general understanding of four sectors and three markets which cover central elements of macroeconomics. These four sectors include firms, business, government and foreign while the three markets include commodity or goods, factor or resource, and financial. Essential theories and issues of current macroeconomics with real world application will be discussed in order to provide learning partners with theoretical understanding and empirical evidence. Students are also encouraged to familiarise with their own countries data and to examine them in order to understand the impact of macroeconomic policies and behaviour of the economy. No prior knowledge in economics is required for this course but strong desire and genuine effort to learn are prerequisites.

Macroeconometric Analysis of Developing Economies
Course objectives:

Macroeconometric models have become one of the most important tools for policy makers of the day in quantifying the impacts of various policies on their economies and for forecasting. Nevertheless, policy makers in developing nations (including centrally planned and transition economies) who are applying those models for various purposes have to overcome various problems that do not exist in developed economies. One of the frequently observed problems is the lack of data. This fact not only restricts the scope of econometric analysis but also requires highly developed skills for extracting meaningful quantitative information from the limited available data. Another problem is related to the behaviour of macroeconomic variables, particularly financial variables such as interest rates and exchange rates, which are highly regulated and are subject to the influence of non-economic forces that play minor roles in developed countries.

Given this background, this course will explore various econometric methods to overcome the above-mentioned problems and attempt to construct representative models for developing economies. These models can be useful for policy makers in their deliberation to achieve high standards of living for their nation.

This course is also designed to provide a clear understanding of the salient features, challenges and opportunities of the participants’ own economies. They will also learn to use econometric models to quantify the effectiveness of various government policies on the economy. A prior knowledge of basic statistics, applied econometrics and macroeconomics is useful. Furthermore, the course will use Excel and Eviews and learning partners are supposed to know how to use them in advance. This course is highly recommended for students who intend to do quantitative analysis in their thesis writing.

Growth and Development in Asia
Course objectives:

Nothing matters more to the long-term living condition of a country than its growth and development. Theoretical and empirical research on economic growth has highlighted the correlation between growth and a variety of variables which determine the growth. The developing countries should develop further is almost universally desired by their people and governments. And policy makers in those countries have attempted to improve living conditions through various economic policies. Nevertheless, it is a known fact that there are large differences in income across countries and over time. Therefore, it is worth understanding and analysing the factors that determine the growth and convergence using old and new theories of growth. Also, currently available long-term data pave the way to understand the links between theory and empirics. This in our view sheds some light on the policy-making process in developing countries that are struggling to achieve high growth. Understanding theories of growth and development and their applications with relative effectiveness in the real world plays a vital role in any policy-making process.

ODA and Poverty Eradication (New course to be introduced)