Module leader

Amrita Dhillon

Information on Restrictions and Pre- and co-requisites, Teaching Format, Academic Aims, and Learning Objectives can be found in the module thumbprint.

CATS Points

This module is available at 30 CATS

Context

This module is compulsory for final year students taking the Economics, Politics and International Studies degree. It may not be taken by L100, L116, LV13 and GL11 students. Others such as visitors and part-time students may take the module provided their economics and/or politics background is judged adequate by the module leaders, to who requests to take the module as an option should be addressed.

Teaching format

40 lectures and 15 seminars in the first two terms. This is a joint economics and politics module and both lecturers are present at seminars.

Assessment methods

2 x 3000 word essays (30% weight) and a 3–hour examination (70% weight). The weight on assessed work is higher than normal for an EC-coded module and reflects an emphasis on private study and extensive reading in this module.

Academic aims

To explore the relationship between economics and politics as academic disciplines and real life phenomena through a study of economic policy making; to examine critically the relationship between states and markets, and the development of postwar economic policy at home and abroad.

Syllabus

The module examines problems of international economic coordination and policy and macro and micro problems of British and European economics and policy making. In no set order, topics have included: theories of the policy making process, theory and empirics of market failure; public choice theories; issues of international political economy and globalisation; bureaucracy and the “core” executive in Britain; the development of governments’ economic policies in recent decades, including the economics and politics of inflation, unemployment, and migration, the welfare state and economic performance, income distribution, public finance, and regional and global governance.

Illustrative reading

Gamble A. (2009), The Spectre at the Feast, Palgrave-Macmillan

Grant, W. (2002), Economic Policy in Britain, Palgrave-Macmillan.

Lindert, P. (2004). Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century. Vol. 1. The Story. Cambridge University Press

Moran, M. (2005), Politics and Governance in the UK, Palgrave-Macmillan.

Rajan, R. (2009). Fault Lines. Princeton University Press.