This article dives into the key transferable skills which are valuable to any successful economist – policy analysis, data analysis and effective communication.
Policy analysis
Economists are often tasked with designing and evaluating the effects of policy in topics as varied as health, development, the environment, international trade and perhaps most obviously macroeconomics.
Good policy making requires knowledge of the setting, the application of relevant economic models and the skills necessary for the evaluation of its effects. Those are skills we help you to develop across a range of core and optional modules, and all three years of the programme.
For example, in the year two optional module on Environmental and Resource Economics, you will study why the market fails to provide the necessary protections for the environment and what policies might be used to correct these failures. Or, in the year three Economic Policy Analysis modules, you will study the role played by different institutional rules in shaping the behaviour of elected governments by providing incentives.
Data analysis
As the economy becomes more and more dependent on data and analysis, it is important that you develop the necessary skills: to be knowledgeable of data sources, types and quality and be able to apply a wide variety of techniques to make appropriate interpretations of the results.
Our courses will help you to develop these skills, with an emphasis on learning how to apply them. This is training that starts in year one of the programme, and continues in year two with the Applied Econometrics modules. Included in these modules are ‘hands-on’ lab classes that will teach the use of specialist data analysis software.
Effective communication
An important skill for the workplace is being able to construct and present a well-founded economic argument in either written or verbal form.
There are a number of opportunities across the programme to present on different economic topics, with numerous evaluations of your ability to construct a well-founded argument.
