Sneak peek of Economics degrees
Economics is, in a simple definition, a study of people. It seeks to explain what drives human behaviour, decisions, and reactions in everyday life – all these are also related to other social science disciplines such as history, politics, psychology, and sociology. Through developing conceptual models and using statistical analysis, it studies how societies, governments, businesses, households, and individuals allocate their resources.
Economics degrees typically cover three broad areas of studies:
- Microeconomics: the study of individuals and firms.
- Take a sneak peek of undergraduate Microeconomics lessons from these videos.
- Macroeconomics: the study of an economy as a whole.
- Take a sneak peek of undergraduate Macroeconomics lessons from these videos.
- Econometrics: application of statistical methods to economic data.
- Take a sneak peek of undergraduate Econometrics lessons from these videos.
(Acknowledgement: These videos originated from Marginal Revolution University at https://mru.org)
For learning more about economics, the following are some interesting and useful resources.
Blogs
Websites
Books
- Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, PublicAffairs, 2012.
- Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, Currency, 2013.
- David Smith, Free Lunch: Easily Digestible Economics, Profile Books, 2009.
- George Akerlof and Robert Shiller, Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism, Princeton University Press, 2011.
- John Kay, The Truth about Markets: Why Some Countries Are Rich and Others Remain Poor, Penguin UK, 2004.
- Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About it, Oxford University Press, 2007.
- Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economists Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, William Morrow, 2009.
- Tim Harford, The Undercover Economist, Little, Brown and Company, 2007.
- Uri Gneezy and John List, The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life, PublicAffairs, 2013.
For more formal aspects of economics, you may do some preparatory reading on some textbooks for the modules below (some titles could be subject to change, please do not buy any of these textbooks yet). Most lecture notes are self-contained, but students may consult the textbooks for extra practice questions and additional reading.
Microeconomics
- Jeffrey M. Perloff, Microeconomics: Theory and Application with Calculus, Pearson, 5e, 2020.
Macroeconomics
- Stephen D. Williamson, Macroeconomics, Pearson, 6e, 2018.
Quantitative Economics
- Dominick Salvatore and Derrick Reagle, Schaum’s Outline of Statistics and Econometrics, McGraw-Hill Education, 2e, 2011.
- Ian Jacques, Mathematics for Economics and Business, Pearson, 9e, 2018.
- Paul Newbold, William L. Carlson and Betty Thorne, Statistics for Business and Economics, Pearson, 9e, 2020.
Applied Econometrics
- Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach, Cengage, 7e, 2020.