ECONOMICS OF FINANCIAL MARKETS|FINANCIAL MARKETS|MARKETS

Aims: To provide students with a thorough understanding of the functioning of financial markets. The module is intended for motivated students who are...

Economics of Financial Markets (ECON0001)

Aims: To provide students with a thorough understanding of the functioning of financial markets. The module is intended for motivated students who are interested in developing an analytical understanding of financial economics. It will cover crucial topics such as the role of markets and institutions as providers of liquidity, the reasons for price volatility in financial markets, financial fragility, different types of market microstructure and informational efficiency of financial markets.

Suitable for: Suitable for Final year BSc Economics (L100, L101, L102), BSc Economics and Statistics (LG13), BSc Economics and Geography (LL17), BA Philosophy and Economics (VL51), BSc PPE Politics, Philosophy and Economics (4V86) and BA European Social and Political Studies specialist students.

Prerequisites: ECON0013: Microeconomics (or equivalent) must have been taken previously. Students should also possess a working knowledge of calculus and probability.

Assumed knowledge: Students should be fluent in microeconomics and in mathematics for economics (e.g., optimisation under constraints). A good understanding of probability theory is also necessary. Students have great advantage if they are familiar with decision under risk (e.g., expected utility, risk aversion).

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE. CORE. OVERSEAS PRACTICE ENGAGEMENT

This module is concerned with two major issues. The first one concerns how poor men, women and children can become actively engaged in policy and planning...

Social Development in Practice (DEVP0035)

This module is concerned with two major issues. The first one concerns how poor men, women and children can become actively engaged in policy and planning processes, both at the programme and project level and beyond, which ensure more equitable and transformative development outcomes. These processes must be able to engage with the everyday realities of people in all their diversity and, at the same time, be sensitive to the range of different socio-cultural, economic and political contexts which affect people’s rights and freedoms. This requires a planning approach which has a micro level focus (i.e. at the household and community levels) and which is able to build the capacity of people to engage as agents of social change with a range of other institutional actors at the meso- and macro levels. It also means exploring the various organisational and institutional processes which can create both opportunities and constraints to the type of development outcomes that people value. For example, how does power, politics, stakeholder interests and capacities shape what can be done, and how? A practitioner who is involved in social change is undertaking a political[1] endeavour.

The second major issue concerns the roles of the social development practitioner as both a social planner and as a catalyst of social change. Where does the practitioner ‘fit’ within these complex processes and environments of planned change? Whose agenda takes precedence? How can he/she juggle the multiple roles of a social researcher or ‘investigator’, planner and advocate for more equitable and negotiated development processes and outcomes?

[1]‘The heart of development is institutions and politics, not money and technology, though the latter are undeniably important (Korten,1990: 144) and `the most fundamental issues of development are, at their core, issues of power' (ibid: 214).