This module consists of a survey of key approaches and issues in the political economy of growth and development. The aim is to familiarise students with foundational and contemporary debates on growth and development theory and policy and to develop the analytical ability of students to engage with real-world growth and development questions. We emphasize the application of theory to concrete economic realities and challenges in regions and countries in the Global South.
The module is broadly focusses on two key elements:
First, it takes a historical approach to development economics, observing how theories and policies have changed from the 1950s to today. This part introduces and critically assesses different – both mainstream and critical - approaches to growth and development, including structuralist, dependency, feminist political economy, post-colonial capitalist development, late neoclassical and behavioural approaches.
Second, it focusses on some of the themes that have been central in older and contemporary development economics, including accumulation, industrialization, structural transformation, trade, social welfare, social exclusion, among others.
The module makes extensive use of case studies and students are encouraged to relate theoretical ideas to concrete examples from specific regions and countries in the Global South.
This module is a Year 3 module for Economics Undergraduates. It aims to:
provide students with a thorough understanding of core economic policy challenges in the contemporary global economy;
equip students with the theoretical and applied skills necessary to evaluate policy challenges and to propose solutions to such challenges.
The course offers an overview of core economic policy issues in the global economy and related ongoing theoretical and empirical debates. It places these debates into the wider historical context of international economic policy and global economic governance.
The Economics of Identity course is structured around comparing and contrasting the different schools of thought in economics to understand, conceptualize, and theorize the way group based identities impact economic outcomes. Several heterodox traditions of political economy have a long history of using group-based identities as a key site of analysis for understanding the way power is unequally distributed and how these impacts equity and economic outcomes. This history is contrasted with the mainstream (neoclassical and other) approaches towards the issue of social identities that has been developed over the past few decades.
The political economy course provides an introduction to alternative theoretical perspectives within Economics. This course is a survey course that introduces students to alternative theoretical traditions in Economics, including Marxian, Institutionalist, Post-Keynesian and Feminist thought, and then uses insights from these traditions to analyse real world phenomenon, such as economic crisis, globalisation, ecological challenge, inequality, discrimination, among others. Each learning unit will introduce students to key concepts and theoretical frameworks of different schools of thought and applying these frameworks, theoretical tools, and data to examine contemporary phenomenon. This course employs a modified team-based learning approach with lectures and in-class group exercises.