BSc Economics / Course details

The overarching aim of the course is to enable students to understand the interface between economics and finance. To this end the course aims:

• To familiarize students with the role of uncertainty and risk in economics and finance.
• To enable students to understand the economic role of (different types of) assets.
• To introduce students to the fundamental concepts of asset markets (short selling, arbitrage, equilibrium, optimality, completeness of asset markets).
• To familiarize students with the economic fundamentals of formal theories of asset pricing, their implications and limitations.

Emphasis throughout will be on the formal theory of asset markets. There is no applied material involved.

On completion of this unit successful students will be able to:

• Have clear understanding of the economic principles underlying finance.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the role of asset markets as means of risk diversification.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the foundations and limitations of asset pricing techniques.
• Solve numerically typical problems related to asset pricing and risk management.
• Perform rigorous analysis of asset markets and portfolio decisions

ECON30432 pre-req: ECON20120

The overarching aim of the course is to enable students to understand the interface between economics and finance. To this end the course aims:

• To familiarize students with the role of uncertainty and risk in economics and finance.
• To enable students to understand the economic role of (different types of) assets.
• To introduce students to the fundamental concepts of asset markets (short selling, arbitrage, equilibrium, optimality, completeness of asset markets).
• To familiarize students with the economic fundamentals of formal theories of asset pricing, their implications and limitations.

Emphasis throughout will be on the formal theory of asset markets. There is no applied material involved.

On completion of this unit successful students will be able to:

1. Have clear understanding of the economic principles underlying finance.
2. Demonstrate an understanding of the role of asset markets as means of risk diversification.
3. Demonstrate an understanding of the foundations and limitations of asset pricing techniques.
4. Solve numerically typical problems related to asset pricing and risk management.
5. Perform rigorous analysis of asset markets and portfolio decisions.

Uncertainty and Risk:

• States of nature.
• Contingencies (events).
• Information.
• Contingent goods, contingent plans.
• Preferences over contingent plans.
• Alternative notions of risk.

Alternative Institutional Contexts of Risk Sharing:

• Contingent markets.
• Security markets.
• Real/financial securities, bonds, stocks, options, derivative securities.

Individual Behaviour Under Uncertainty:

• The no arbitrage principle.

Economies with Uncertainty:

• Contingent markets equilibrium.
• Asset markets equilibrium, the no arbitrage property of asset prices.
• Asset market completeness, equivalence between asset markets and contingent markets, optimality properties of complete asset structures and policy implications.
• Asset pricing techniques: arbitrage pricing theory, the capital asset pricing model.
• The Modigliani-Miller theorem of corporate finance.
• Incomplete asset markets, causes and consequences.
• Information, (rational) expectations.

Synchronous activities (such as Lectures or Review and Q&A sessions, and tutorials), and guided self-study

• Tutorial exercises.
• Three online homework sets.
•  Office hours.
• Revision sessions.
• Discussion boards.

Theory of Incomplete Markets, M. Magill and M. Quinzii, MIT Press, Chapter 1.

For every 10 course unit credits we expect students to work for around 100 hours. This time generally includes any contact times (online or face to face, recorded and live), but also independent study, work for coursework, and group work. This amount is only a guidance and individual study time will vary