Methodological foundations of microeconomics. Theories of production and individual choice.  Aspects of decision theory under certainty, risk and uncertainty. Introduction to game theory under complete and incomplete information, with applications to oligopoly.  Perfect competition as a limiting case. General competitive equilibrium: existence and Pareto efficiency. Private information in markets. Basic auction theory. General theory of markets with adverse selection. Contract design in the context of moral hazard problems.

MSEC101 is the core macroeconomic course of the Master’s programme. The aim of the course is to give an overview of some classic topics in macroeconomics, with a view to providing students with the skills required to read critically recent professional articles. The main focus is on the basic analytical structure of economic models, their empirical implications, and some policy applications.

Develops research ability of students through intensive discussion for preparing dissertation, individual and group research projects.  Critical appraisal of modern economic research.  Main techniques of empirical investigation and key issues in applying and testing theoretical models.

Review of conditional distributions, expectation, regression and principles of inference.  Linear regression models, ordinary and generalised least squares, heteroscedasticity.  Non-linear least squares. Hypothesis testing and confidence intervals. Maximum likelihood estimation and testing.  Introduction to models and methods for discrete and censored data.  Simultaneity, exogeneity, instrumental variables methods.  Dynamic models: autoregressive and moving average processes, vector autoregressions.  Causality, stationarity, unit root tests, and cointegration.  Introduction to panel data methods and models.

Applications of basic trade theory to real-world economic problems.  Neoclassical trade theory of pattern of trade and gains from trade, strategic trade theory under imperfectly competitive markets, labour migration and capital mobility, market distortions and commercial policies, dynamic trade theory and economic growth.  Adjustment in international exchange markets, balance of payments, and international monetary system.  Application of recent theoretical analysis on macroeconomic fluctuations and growth within an open economy context.

Applied economic theories to economic growth and development.  Meaning of development, economic growth, population and migration, capital flows, foreign aid, stabilisation and adjustment.  Income distribution, poverty, hunger, household behaviour, agriculture, rural credit markets, institutions and the problem of corruption.  Models of growth and developing emphasizing migration, moderization, technological change.  Static and dynamic model of political economy.

Measurements of changes in welfare; economy-wide incidence of taxes; taxation, risk-taking, and investments; corporate taxation; effects of taxation on financial markets; taxation of goods and services; taxation of income; taxation and savings; positive problems of redistribution; and tax arbitrage, tax avoidance, tax evasion, and the underground economy.  Applied capital theory for public-sector investment decisions; social opportunity cost of capital, labor, and foreign exchange; social cost of unemployment; welfare cost of the inflation tax; issues of exchange rate policy.

Neoclassical analysis of labour market and its institutions.  Topics on labour demand, labour supply, compensating wage differentials, human capital theory, discrimination and earnings differentials.  Theories of wage and wage determination.  Worker motivation and behaviour.  Recent developments in the distribution of wage and salary income and in key institutions and organizational structures.  Education and training: earnings functions, effects of school quality.  Unemployment, search and turnover.

Structure, behavior, and performance of firms and their interactions on social welfare, production, investment and other economic decisions under various forms of market structures.  Organization of the firm, monopoly, oligopoly, price discrimination, auctions.  Economic and social regulation, deregulation and privatization, patent, anti-trust. Principal agent theory, vertical and horizontal integration, contracts, firms’ behavior under monopoly and oligopoly, government regulations.

Survey of monetary and financial economics with an emphasis on macroeconomic elements. Models and theories of money and financial intermediation.  Standard methods of introducing money into the neoclassical growth framework, overlapping generations models, and search-theoretical foundations for money.

Applies economic analysis to the study of Chinese economy.  Sectoral contribution to the growth of total output. Formation of the development strategies before and after the economic reform.  Evaluation of various macroeconomic policies after the 1980s; and China’s integration with the global economy.

Advanced economic analysis of the growing Asia-Pacific economies and the expanding European monetary union.  Major issues such as economic liberalization and restructuring, regional integration and globalization.  In-depth reading and individual research for selected regions.

Study of econometric techniques using time series and spatially dependent cross section data. Generalized method of moments estimation, spatial dependence modeling, vector autoregression models.  Applications of these techniques in finance, macroeconomics, marketing, industrial organization, development, and other fields as well.  Empirical processes and asymptotic theory, nonparametric and semiparametric estimation, unit roots and cointegration, continuous time econometrics.

Topics on some frontier issues in economic theory.  Macroeconomics: optimal fiscal and monetary policy, time inconsistency and incentive incompatibility of optimal policy, redistribution and political economics, real business cycle models, new Keynesian models, endogenous growth, recursive methods and robust control; Microeconomics:  bounded rationality and complexity, evolution and learning, advanced game theory (in particular dynamic games), social learning, evolutionary/learning game theory and evolutionary financial economics.  Papers on current topics of research in economic theory, mathematical economics, finance, and mathematical problems of interest to economists.