Economics Courses

This two day course introduces students with an undergraduate background in economic theory to the foundations of behavioural economics. It commences with an overview of behavioural economics as an emergent property of economics and psychology, before introducing investigative methods and perspectives of particular relevance to behavioural economics. The course then recapitulates and contrasts traditional, rational choice based approaches to economics and contrasts these with alternative approaches derived from behavioural insights. It will cover an introduction to prospect theory as well as the role of heuristics in decision making processes.

Cost benefit analysis (CBA) lies at the heart of policy appraisal in Government and increasingly for the private and voluntary sector too. For CBA to be useful in informing resource allocation decisions, we need to accurately measure all the causal impacts of the policy and to attach a monetary value to them.

This two day course will give a refresher on key topics in competition and regulation, and provide information on the latest developments in this area.

The purpose of this two day course is to present an overview of the theory of economic growth, at a Masters / advanced undergraduate level. The main theories are introduced in as intuitive a way as possible, to pinpoint as rigorously as possible which ones withstand empirical scrutiny and why. This is not a theoretical course, but techniques are discussed that help think about the economic growth question in a unified manner, and that motivate the empirical questions in the field. Throughout the class, special attention is being paid to data, and to what empirical research has taught us about the effective determinants of economic growth. The proposed structure leaves plenty of room for group discussions, particularly as regards more recent developments on both empirical and theoretical fronts.

This programme consists of five 'Masters-level' modules. Participants will gain a detailed knowledge of the theory, general principles and key concepts of taxation.

This course provides an introduction to the ways in which analysts measure inequality and poverty, addressing conceptual issues and practical matters including data. There are also hands-on sessions in the computer lab.

This two day course will provide a selective, up-to-date review of analytical methods in microeconomics for the study of the public sector. It will review some of the principles underlying the role of the state and the design of the tax system and explore the problems that arise in applying these principles. Delegates will be provided with an introduction to recent relevant developments in public economics, including behavioural public economics, drawing on current research.

This 2-day workshop will refresh your understanding of the core analytical approaches and models of microeconomics, and their application to current policy. This workshop is suited to both Assistant Economists and Economic Advisors. You’ll reconsider the behaviour of consumers and firms and their interaction in markets and explore standard consumer choice theory and more recent behavioural approaches. Other topics under review are: perfectly competitive, monopolistic and oligopolistic market structures, welfare economics, and health and education policy.

The course is voluntarily directed to non-experts. While it covers the theoretical definition of the main national accounts aggregates, it does it in a lively manner based on the concrete experience of the teacher.

The main objective of this two day course is to analyse the impact of incentives on behaviour inside organisations. The principal-agent problem will be outlined and applied to the public and private sector.

One of the most important economic statistics published by the ONS has been the inflation rate: first measured by RPI, more recently by CPI and currently also by CPIH. This two-day course will start by briefly exploring the economic and statistical theory behind the construction of these price indices.

This Wellbeing in Economics, Statistics and Social Research course is designed and delivered by academics, and public sector analysts, economics and statisticians at the 'coal-face' using wellbeing in government policy development.