Economics and Finance BSc (Hons)

This module aims to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of key literature, research and economic policy debates in the area of environmental sustainability and responsible business. The objective of the module is to provide students with appropriate tools and technical know-how to critically discuss the trade-offs between economic development and environmental protection and moving capitalism towards a
wider sense of accountability. The module will explore and examine the linkages between economic policies and environmental sustainability, the effects of international trade and globalisation on environmental resources, the role of international environmental agreements and the emergence of new forms of financial reporting centred on the principles of sustainability and social accountability.

Key topics covered in this module include:
• Fundamentals of Environmental Economics and Sustainable Development
• Economic Growth and Environmental Conflicts
• Measuring Sustainable Economic Welfare
• Contingent Valuation and Revealed Preference Methods
• Alternative Concepts of Capital: Environmental Accounting, Integrated Reporting, and the Triple Bottom Line
• International Trade and Environmental Protection
• Stakeholder Activism and Social Responsibility
• Political Ecology: Challenging Narratives of Environmental Degradation
• Financial Reporting and Climate Change.
• The Circular Economy
• The Role of Social and Solidarity Economies

This module provides you with a thorough understanding of advanced microeconomic theories and related policy debates, and their application in contemporary debates and real-world scenarios. The module will enhance your ability to analyse and critically evaluate relevant economic issues by providing you with a rigorous foundation and deep knowledge of applied microeconomics.

You will examine competing approaches to microeconomic theories and their applications to policy issues, including heterodox approaches and ideas as well. The module combines theory with applied materials and problem sets. The core topics covered in this module will include:

• Extensive Form Games and Repeated Games with Applications;
• Coalition Games and Applications;
• Static and Dynamic Games of Incomplete Information;
• Lindahl–Pigou pricing;
• Fundamental and aggregate non-convexities;
• Social Choice and Information Economics.
• Prospect Theory;
• Altruism and Reciprocity;
• Economic Evaluation of Healthcare: Measures and Applications.

This module will deepen your understanding of macroeconomic concepts and conventional macroeconomic thinking. As this is an advanced course, the emphasis is on both critical thinking and practical application of concepts and frameworks in the analysis of contemporary macroeconomics and policy issues. During the module, you will engage extensively with research in macroeconomics. By completing this module, you should be able to use the knowledge gained to provide a critical analysis of global and significant macroeconomic events.

The topics covered will include:
• A Recap of Intermediate Concepts;
• Growth, Capital Accumulation and Technological Progress;
• Goods and Financial Markets – Extensions;
• Output, Interest Rates and Exchange Rates;
• Exchange Rate Regimes;
• The Neutrality of Money Theorem;
• Financial Markets and Expectations;
• Fiscal and Monetary Policy;
• Macroeconomic Growth Theory and Growth Cycles;
• The Developmental State and Industrial Policy.

In this module, you will learn about contemporary research issues in economics and finance. The module expands from key economics concepts and financial theories addressed in previous years by focusing on the latest developments in the global economic world, enabling students to develop a deep understanding of current economic and finance issues and arguments that dominate contemporary debates and
policy making. The module is research-led; the knowledge conveyed in the lectures serves as a stimulus for students to conduct their own research by addressing a wide range of topics, including (but not limited to):
• Macroeconomic Information and its Impact on Financial Markets;
• Investment Strategies Based on Information Transmission Processes;
• Financial Markets Based on New Asset Classes e.g. the Emergence of Cryptocurrencies;
• The Role of Governments for National Economies and Financial Markets;
• Public Policy and Externalities: Effects on Research and Development, Education and Welfare;
• Regional Economies, Trading Blocks and the Economics of Development;
• Agglomeration Economies and Globalisation;
• Effects of Economics Crises e.g. The Euro Zone and Sovereign Debt Crisis;
• Impact of Policies and Political Changes on Economic Systems e.g. the Brexit Process.

The Dissertation module aims to equip you with the necessary intellectual and practical skills for undertaking an individual student-led, ethical investigation into an accounting, economics or finance (AEF) related problem or issue. In addition, the Dissertation aims to equip you with key transferable, employability skills, time management, project management, communication (written and verbal), negotiation, persuasion and influence, discovery, initiative, creativity and innovation in problem-solving and analysis.

The module is student-led but you are supported by, introductory lectures and workshops as well as guest lectures which introduce undertaking AEF research followed by one-to-one or small-group supervision meetings with an academic from the AEF subject discipline.

The lectures and IT workshops will provide a thorough grounding into undertaking an extended piece of researching, focusing on:

• Refining a research aim/question (focusing and scoping the research) and project proposal
• Developing a literature review
• Researching ethically
• Quantitative research and analysis techniques
• Qualitative research and analysis techniques

Upon completion of the AFM Dissertation module you will be able to:
• Conduct independent and ethical academic research involving the application and critical evaluation of appropriate theories and models.
• Engage critically with relevant literature to establish a framework in which to analyse and synthesise the results of your primary or secondary research.
• Generate / collect relevant primary or secondary data using an appropriate and justified method.
• Analyse your data using an appropriate and justified method of analysis.
• Recognise the ethical implications of your work.
• Critically evaluate the source of your data and the method you adopted.

The Management Enquiry module is a student-led individual project that enables you to undertake a significant piece of assessed work commensurate with a capstone module. The module aims to provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate an authentic engagement with managers and/or professionals from the Accounting, Economics or Finance (AEF) discipline, and to integrate the knowledge you have developed during your programme to explore the theory in practice. The learning on this module is experiential and problem based, where the focus is upon you discovering, probing, and questioning key practice-based issues. Through the module you will be offered the opportunity to develop and enhance key transferable employability skills; time management, project management, communication (written, aural and verbal), negotiation, persuasion and influence, discovery, initiative, problem-solving and analysis.

The module has five thematic areas; explore, review, engage, reflect, and connect. These form the key elements of the assessed submission.

Part A (35%, 3,500 Words)
• Explore: Interviewing a manager and/or professional from the AEF discipline. In this interview you will either explore a key issue which you feel AEF is facing or, alternatively, explore with the manager or professional the key issues that they feel they are facing in practice. It is expected that you will apply appropriate interview methods and provide evidence of the interview within the submitted enquiry report (e.g. within the appendices).
• Review: Critically examining the appropriate literature to support the exploration, displaying an ability to critically assess and appraise the AEF knowledge related to a specific key issue arising from your exploration.
Part B (65%, 6,500 Words)
• Engage: Displaying an authentic engagement with the AEF problem/issue identified in Part A, by collecting/generating and analysing further live data (beyond the initial interview) regarding the AEF problem/issue. This live data may be primary data (e.g. further interviews with, or questionnaire to, managers and/or professionals in practice) or secondary data (e.g. industry data). Application of appropriate, ethically-considered, research methods and appropriate qualitative or quantitative data analysis.
- Reflect and Connect: Demonstrating an ability to critically evaluate and reflect on the issues arising from the Management Enquiry. Demonstrating how you have connected and fed-back to the participants of the Enquiry (usually the manager and/or participants) your key findings to provide clear prioritised, well-justified, practical, and actionable recommendations for change/enhancement/improvement to existing AEF practice to show how the recommendations would potentially affect workplace professional decision making.

The module aims to provide you with an opportunity to integrate the knowledge acquired during the programme and apply this to a consultancy project for a real organisation. This consultancy project provides a vehicle for participants to develop and demonstrate key employability skills, to relate theory to practice, and to undertake a significant piece of assessed work commensurate with a capstone module.

You will work on behalf of an external organisation, which has identified a business problem or question, requiring a solution, working in small group of typically 4 individuals (you will select their own team members), participating in group and individual activities. The host organisation will provide a project briefing, and review; students will be supported by appropriate academic input and guidance from Newcastle Business School in the form of a mentor and via the Business Clinic.