Economics with Hispanic Studies BA

You will undertake an extended piece of investigative and synthesising work on a subject of particular interest and produce a final written dissertation of 8,000 words.

This will:

• provide practice in researching a topic independently and in depth
• involve use of a range of primary and/or secondary information sources
• create coherent and sustained analysis and argument in both writing and speech.

This advanced module will be your final step towards fluency, training you in a more formal, sophisticated register of spoken and written Spanish.

We'll continue to use a wide range of authentic Spanish texts to further deepen your knowledge and confidence at this advanced level. We'll look at how the texts are put together so that you may use these skills within your written and spoken Spanish, taking you to the highest level of proficiency.

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 generalises and builds upon the material covered in the year two modules, Econometric Theory I and II. In the first part of the module, we study large sample, or asymptotic, theory. This is needed in order to obtain tractable results about the behaviour of estimators and tests when the standard modelling assumptions - which frequently cannot be verified in practice - are relaxed.

The second part of the module continues the time series analysis taken in Econometric Theory II, with the emphasis on the behaviour of typical economic time series, and the implications of that behaviour in practical analysis, such as the construction of models linking economic time series. The key issues addressed will be the identification of non-stationarity through the construction of formal tests and the implications for modelling with non-stationary data.  

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 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.

Taught in Spanish, this module has been designed to give you a thorough insight into Spanish business including the contexts that have influenced its development and the ways it interacts with wider society.

We'll investigate a range of factors that have shaped the Spanish business landscape since the transition to democracy, such as:

• changes within the global and European regulatory environment
• ideological factors
• entrepreneurship
• government action to attract foreign investors, promote Spanish FDI and boost trade with regions such as Latin America, Europe and China.

You'll not only gain a historical understanding, but a contemporary perspective too by looking at case studies of both companies like Inditex (the owners of Zara and other important fashion brands) and important Spanish industries such as tourism. The module also explores some of the less positive impacts and criticisms of Spanish business practices relating to the environment, debt and corruption.

This module addresses the way in which cinema (both documentary and feature films) and literature (mostly short stories) have reflected, resisted, interrogated, and remembered the socio-political violence and conflicts that have shaped the 20th and 21st centuries so far in Europe (emphasis on the Iberian Peninsula) and Latin America (including Brazil).

The module adopts a comparative approach which focuses on the formal experiments and common preoccupations of filmmakers and writers across different national cultures and historical contexts (translations and subtitles will be provided when required). It will discuss questions on authoritarianism (Franquismo, Military Dictatorships in Central and South America, Salazarism, etc), colonial and neo-colonial practices, racial and class inequality and social injustice, gender and sexuality. Visual and literary texts may address significant conflicts as they occur and also the ways in the legacies of past traumas endure.

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.

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

Free education from cradle to grave has been central to modern Cuba’s cultural and ideological identity. This module will encourage you to explore Cuba’s revolutionary change since 1959, through an examination of its evolving ideologies. You’ll review the critical factors of nationalism, dependency, radicalism and leadership which shaped developments from the original rebellion up to the present day.

Together we’ll discover the role of education policies and the ways in which a ‘cultural revolution’ was fundamental to the socialisation process of, and popular participation in (or dissent from) the Revolution.

This study will help you form conclusions about both the meaning of ‘ideology’ within the context of the Revolution, and the international geo-political significance of Cuba's self-definition and evolution.

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 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   

This module will offer a panorama of painting in Spain from the late 16th century to the late 19th century taking in four themes: portraiture, history and genre painting, religion, and mythology and myths.

Artists covered will include Domenikos Theotocópoulos, Diego de Silva y Velázquez, Jusepe de Ribera and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo from the Spanish Golden Age and Francisco de Goya, Vicente López, Martín Rico and Marià Fortuny from the 19th century.

You will have the opportunity to study other painters in the preparation of assessments throughout the year. There will be an emphasis on designing exhibitions and on understanding the paintings both within the context of art history and the history and cultures of Spain.

You may believe that politics and literature are two distinct fields of study, but this module will help you understand the complex but integral relationship between the two.

We’ll explore the representation of key social and political issues within contemporary Spanish literature. You’ll discover how literature in late capitalism, and contemporary ‘Hispanic’ authors in particular, dealt with issues of language, identity, culture, society, nationhood, gender, class, memory, time and writing.

We also explore debates regarding the consistency of the categories of ‘Spain’ and ‘Spanishness’ when analysing cultural production in contemporary Iberia. This shall lead us to assess the competing discursive practices involved in remapping the notion of Spanish canonical literature at the beginning of the new millennium.

This advanced module will be your final step towards fluency. We'll build on your grammatical competence and assist you to develop a more sophisticated and formal register of vocabulary, idiom and advanced syntax.

During class you'll gain the ability to discuss a wide range of topics in written and spoken Portuguese, giving you the confidence to converse articulately upon complex and intellectual subjects.

This module looks at key 20th century Spanish American novels and short stories and considers issues such as race, gender, sexuality and the conflict of cultures. You will be trained in using a broad range of tools of narrative and rhetorical analysis so as to engage in debates about literary representation and aesthetics, and will hone your use of these through a programme of research tasks, seminar presentations, group discussions, and written assignments.