Economics and Philosophy BA

This module adopts a broad focus on factors influencing growth and development, concentrating on core economic policy areas and the role of international organisations.

Topics covered include macroeconomic policies, in particular exchange rates and the role of the IMF; aid policy and the World Bank, effects of aid on growth, macroeconomic and fiscal policy, and poverty; trade policy and performance and the WTO; economic reforms and growth experiences in East Asia, China and Africa; human development and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

This module discusses aspects of some of the main sub-areas of experimental and behavioural economics. This includes applications related to individual decision-making, strategic behaviour and market behaviour.

The module encourages reflection on both the role of experiments in economics and the assumptions that economics does (and should) make about people’s motivations. Both experimental economics and behavioural economics are still comparatively new fields within the wider discipline.

The module considers their potential and main achievements, relative to more traditional economic techniques. It encourages development of critical skills and reflection on specific research contributions in experimental and behavioural economics.

This module covers:

• saving, focusing on how agents make intertemporal decisions about their savings and wealth accumulation
• saving puzzles and household portfolios, focusing on credit markets and credit markets' imperfections, and why do households hold different kinds of assets
• asset allocation and asset pricing, focusing on intertemporal portfolio selection, asset pricing and the equity premium puzzle
• bond markets and fixed income securities
• the term structure of interest rates
• the role of behavioural finance in explaining stock market puzzles

This module provides an advanced economic analysis of the theory of organisation of firms and industries. It will analyse a variety of market structures related to the degree of market competition with a special emphasis on imperfectly competitive markets. It will also analyse issues related to the internal organisation of firms.

This module looks at:

• trade policy
• economic policy for trade and international factor mobility
• theory and evidence
• trade policy and imperfect competition
• trade and distortions
• the political economy of protection
• trade policy reform

This module covers:

• models of intra-industry trade
• trade policy in oligopolistic industries
• multinational enterprises
• testing trade theories
• the WTO and "new issues"

This module covers an economic analysis of the labour market, with an emphasis on policy implications and institutional arrangements.

This module investigates different kinds of contemporary logic, as well as their uses in philosophy. We will investigate the syntax and semantics of various logics, including first order logic, modal logics, and three-valued logics, as well as ways to apply formal techniques from these logics to philosophical topics such as possibility and necessity, vagueness, and the Liar paradox.

We’ll cover ways to reason and construct proofs using the logics we study, and also ways to reason about them. We’ll look at proofs regarding the limits of formal logic, including proofs of soundness, completeness, and decidability.

This module covers:

• dynamic general equilibrium models, focusing on how the time path of consumption, and saving, is determined by optimising agents and firms that interact on competitive markets
• growth in dynamic general equilibrium, focusing on the Solow model and the data, and the role played by accumulation of knowledge (endogenous innovation) in explaining long run growth
• Real Business Cycles (RBC), focusing on how the RBC approach accounts for business cycle fluctuations, and what links short run fluctuations and growth processes

This module is intended to provide an introduction to mathematical techniques used in economics. In particular, examples of economic issues that can be analysed using mathematical models will be discussed in detail.

Particular attention will be given to providing an intuitive understanding of the logic behind the formal results presented.

This module will cover topics in advanced microeconomics and decision theory. The precise content may vary from year to year, but the module will start from the basis established by the Microeconomic Theory module.

This module provides a rigorous introduction to formal models of money in the macroeconomy. Following this, applications for areas of central banking, finance and international macroeconomics will be explored.

This module covers: 

• Foundations:
  • The rational political individual?
  • Voter participation
  • Collective action and the role of the state
• Core Political Economy:
  • The economic approach to politics
  • Political aspects of economics: rights and the limits of the state
  • Political aspects of economics: inequality and the duties of the state
• Political Economy in Action:
  • Political economy in action: some current issues in political economy

The module will introduce some major themes of the economic analysis of government. Using the tools of modern microeconomic theory, it will explore how government institutions are designed, how they could be designed better, and how they shape economic policy.

This module concerns these three themes: Authenticity, Freedom, and Ethics, and their relations. We will be exploring these themes via a focus on how they are handled by three different schools of thought: Kantianism; Existentialism; and Contemporary Compatibilism.

Philosophers on the agenda include: Kant, Korsgaard, and Velleman (from the Kantian School); Sartre, Camus, and Beauvoir (from the Existentialist School); and Frankfurt, Watson, and Wolff (from the Contemporary Compatibilist School).

This module will teach you how to communicate philosophy through a variety of different mediums, assessing them in each. We will look at how philosophy can be communicated through legal documentation, press releases, handouts, lesson plans, webpages, funding bids and posters (with optional presentations).

A number of the sessions will be delivered by professionals from outside the university, with support from the module convener. Seminars will be used to develop each of the items for assessment. You will be invited to draw upon your prior philosophical learning to generate your assessments, except in the case of handout where you will be set a specific philosophical task and asked to complete some (very basic) independent research.

The aim of this module is to provide you with an opportunity to write an 8,000-word dissertation on a philosophical topic, the precise subject of which is by agreement with the supervisor. At the completion of the module, you will have had an opportunity to work independently, though with the advice of a supervisor. 

This module will introduce you to economic policy analysis. It will focus on the role played by different institutional rules in shaping the behaviour of elected governments by providing incentives to elected governments.

This module will introduce students to economic policy analysis, using examples from environmental economics and international trade. The first part of the module is about climate change. We first examine the practice of discounting future outcomes. We will look at the evidence for climate change in the past and predictions for future damage. Combining this with information about abatement options and costs, we can devise a globally optimal policy path, depending on the discount rate. Finally, we will trace actual climate change negotiations, evaluate climate change policy and examine why it is so difficult for countries to agree on greenhouse gas emission reductions. 

The second part of the module will focus on the issues around and methods for policy evaluation. We also draw some lessons for policy prescription/design. There is an increasing consensus as to the appropriate methods for evaluation but the topic of policy prescription remains contentious. It considers the main empirical methods of policy evaluation and the fundamental question of evaluation studies (what would have happened if the policy had not been undertaken). It discusses trade liberalization and exporting firms. This allows us to think about aggregate outcomes for policy change using evidence from microdata. It considers the question of whether there is systematic, reliable evidence that government policies stimulate growth in the long run and if so what those policies are. This topic is used to explore the issue of policy prescription.

In this module we'll ask questions like:

• How should human beings interact with the non-human natural world?
• Is nature intrinsically valuable, or does it possess value only by being valuable to us?

As part of this we'll cover topics such as:

• the moral status of animals
• the ethics of zoos
• responsibility for climate change
• whether there is any connection between the twin oppressions of women and nature
• the environmental impact of having children
• the ethics of restoring nature after it has been damaged by human development

This module is worth 20 credits.

What are the proper concerns of an egalitarian society? If we’re concerned about equality, what kind of world should we be working towards? What does it mean to treat one another as equals? Should we treat each other that way? If so, why? And what are the political implications of such obligations? 

In this module we will be exploring these and other questions at the heart of the egalitarian project. Subjects will include equality of condition, relational equality, moral equality and political equality. We will also touch on issues around welfare, luck, rights, dignity, status and democracy. Writers covered may include Dworkin, Sen, Parfit, Anderson, Kant, Rousseau, Scanlon, Christiano and Rawls.

This module will provide an introduction to international monetary issues, including the determination of exchange rates and international spill-over effects. 

Politics and truth have always had a complicated relationship. Lies, bullshit, spin, and propaganda are nothing new.

Polarization is on the rise in many democracies and political disagreements have spread to disputes about obvious matters of fact.

But have we really entered the era of 'post-truth' politics? Is debate now framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the facts?

In this module, we'll explore questions such as:

• Should the existence of widespread disagreement in politics make us less confident in our own views?
• Are voters morally or epistemically obligated to vote responsibly?
• Is it rational for citizens to base their political views on group identity rather than reasoned arguments?
• Should we have beliefs about complex policy questions about which we are not experts?
• Is democracy the best form of government for getting at the truth?

This module is worth 20 credits.

Karl Marx's thoughts and words have had an enormous impact on history. Revolutions have been fought, economic policies pursued and artistic movements established by followers (and opponents) of Marxism.

Together we'll examine some of Mark's original writing and explore his thinking. Specific themes we'll cover include:

• alienation
• the materialist conception of history
• ideology
• the labour theory of value

By the end of the module you should have a good overview of Marx's attempt to synthesise German philosophy, French political theory, and British economics.

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module focuses on a range of econometric methods used in policy evaluation and in the identification and estimation of causal effects. Topics to be covered include:

• potential outcomes framework
• regression analysis and matching
• instrumental variables
• difference-in-differences
• regression discontinuity

This module will consider mind, psychology, and mental health from a philosophical angle. The module will cover a range of exciting and fundamental topics in the philosophy of mind and psychology (chosen from topics such as, the social mind, animal minds, the nature of consciousness, the mind-body problem, the emotions, imagination, pain, will and action, belief, perception, mind as machine, and artificial intelligence - selected topics will vary from year to year).

We will always ask how these relate to mental health. But the module will also have a more specific focus on mental health as we will take the tools of philosophy of mind and psychology to mental health: we will consider how philosophy of mind and psychology can help us better understand mental health, but also how reflection on mental health can impact work in philosophy of mind and psychology. So the module will also cover content chosen from topics and areas such as the nature of mental health (and mental illness), delusion, thought-insertion, therapy, self-deception and the philosophy of specific mental disorders (for example, addiction, schizophrenia, depression) - specific topics varying from year to year.

So, in sum the module will combine focus on specific topics in philosophy of mind and psychology (with a mental health angle), and specific topics in philosophy of mental health (with a philosophy of mind and psychology angle).

This module covers the following:

Static numerical methods

• Numerical solution methods
• Numerical static optimisation methods
• Applications: resource allocation, computable general equilibrium

Dynamic numerical optimisation

• Discrete dynamic programming
• Implementation of the methods
• Applications: optimal growth, rational expectations, asset management

Agent-based economic modelling

• Foundations of agent-based modelling
• Basics of computer programming
• Applications: evolutionary games, markets   

Illness, ageing, death and dying are universal experiences. Yet discussion about them often only happens in times of emotional distress.

Together we'll explore philosophical issues related to human mortality in an open, supportive and compassionate way.

As well as a deeper understanding of the issues you will also build capacity to think sensitively and humanely about the human experience of ageing, illness, and dying.

Typical topics might include:

• experiences of being chronically ill
• psychiatry and mental health
• the oppression of ill persons · illness narratives
• the moral and spiritual significance of illness
• the experience of dying
• empathy, grief, and mourning
• death and the meaning of life
• the significance of human mortality to wider philosophical issues and concerns

This module is worth 20 credits.

There is perhaps no more vivid example of the exercise of state power over individuals than through the institution of criminal law. This power relationship raises a host of important philosophical questions, such as:

• Is there a general obligation to obey the law? If so, what is the basis for this obligation?
• What sorts of acts should be criminalised, and why?
• What does it mean for someone to be responsible for a crime, or for the state to hold someone responsible?
• Is criminal punishment justified? If so, why?
• What is the proper role for the presumption of innocence: Who must presume whom to be innocent of what? 
• Is the state ever justified in imposing legal restrictions on offenders even after they have completed their punishment?
• How should the criminal law function in the international context?

We'll look at thinking from across history, from seminal figures such as Plato, Bentham, and Kant, to more contemporary philosophers such as Hart, Hampton, Duff, and others.

No experience of criminal law necessary. Ideal for both philosophers and practitioners.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Education plays a fundamental part in all our lives. It shapes who we are as individuals, our value systems, our political and religious outlooks. As a consequence it changes how society looks, how it operates, and what we think society ought to be like. Education then, is of the most profound importance.

As philosophers we are uniquely placed to think long and hard about education:

• what is its role?
• what should its role be?
• who gets to decide what is taught?

Rising to this challenge this module creates the space, and provides the tools, for you to do just this.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Much of our life is filled with compulsory work but when free of obligation, when at leisure, we play in many different ways. We voluntarily chose to engage with the arbitrary rules and restrictions of games. We roll dice and push the pieces round a board. We twiddle thumbs and shoot fictional computer game zombies. We get involved in organised physical activities, sports such as football or athletics. We seek to escape our everyday lives by hiking up mountains in the wild, or by drinking and dancing in nightclubs. We may play with others, seeking friendship, intimacy or sex. We may relax alone, reading literature or practising art. We may mix these different activities together. 

One often hears the opinion that ethics is subjective. But what does this mean, exactly?

And one often hears the view that ethics is relative. But relative to what?

And what is ‘ethics’ anyway?

And if ethics is subjective, or relative, what does that mean for ethics as a discipline? Does it mean, for example, that our ethical pronouncements can never be incorrect, never be challenged, or never disagreed with?

This module addresses these and other questions about the foundations of ethics, and gives you the material to develop your own views of this peculiarly human phenomenon.

This module is an extended discussion of utilitarian approaches to moral and political philosophy, including utilitarian accounts of:

• the nature of wellbeing
• reasons and rightness
• rights and justice
• democracy
• individual decision-making
• praise and blame

When we evaluate scientific theories there are a number of criteria not directly connected to predictive success, or even the ability to accommodate the empirical evidence, that collectively are called “theoretical virtues”. For example, we often evaluate theories partly on their simplicity, explanatory power, coherence with other theories, ability to unify disparate domains, fruitfulness for future research, etc.

In this module will focus on one of these theoretical virtues in order to address in detail if and how it is related to epistemic success. Can we, contrary to first impressions, account for the virtue in terms of predictive success? Can we give an epistemic defence of the virtue? Can it be defended on pragmatic grounds? How does our answer to the previous question affect the attitude that we should take towards our best scientific theories?

While we may consider various examples from the history of science, no background knowledge of science or logic (beyond elementary first-year logic) is presupposed. All reading assignments for this module are accessible to students with no training in science. More technical/formal reading materials will be made available to those who are interested, but such readings will not be compulsory for this module.