The aim of this part of the course is to introduce students to a number of topics at the frontier of current research in applied economic theory. The main focus is the interaction between theory and experiments. It will present theoretical models on several key topics and examine their validity in experimental settings. Topics that will be covered are bargaining, public goods and learning.

1. Introduction to the Experimental Methodology.

2. Principal-Agent Models.

3. Bargaining.

4. Public Goods.

5. Learning.

The aims of this course are to introduce students to the methods, approaches, and strategies of research in economics. The course provides an overview of the main challenges students have to address to produce theoretical, empirical and experimental research papers at the required level for a PhD dissertation. It will also discuss the whole lifecycle of a research project. The final part of the course will present a brief overview of the economics job market.

1. How to write a paper

2. How to publish a paper and get a job

This course offers an introduction to the behavioural approach to economics. Among the topics covered are cognitive biases, decision-making heuristics, behavioural game theory, intertemporal decision making, addiction, and applications to labour economics and development. It is also hoped that it will include a brief survey of recent research in neuroeconomics, with an emphasis on its relationship to economic theories. The course includes both theoretical and empirical material, but a recurring theme is the importance of experimental findings both in the laboratory and in the field.

1. Heuristics and biases: Endowment effect, status quo bias and anchoring.

2. Heuristics and biases: Representativeness, availability, framing, and loss aversion.

3. Applications to labour economics.

4. Applications to development economics.

The course introduces students to behavioral finance. This area of research examines how psychological factors have an impact on the behaviour of asset prices, corporate finance, and various financial institutions and practices. In the first part, we explore how several heuristics (rules-of-thumb people use to make decisions) are important in choices we make in finance and other contexts. Next, we use some of these heuristics to construct prospect theory – a model of decision-making that is an empirically-driven alternative to the standard expected utility framework. The central part of the course is dedicated to the role emotions, altruism, and the tendency to imitate others play in the functioning of financial markets. In the final part of the course we apply what we learnt to two critical types of financial decisions: saving for retirement and investing in stocks.

1. Introduction to the course and behavioural finance.

2. Heuristics and Biases: Representativeness, availability and anchoring.

3. Heuristics and biases: Framing, loss aversion and status quo.

4. Prospect theory.

5. Investor sentiment.

6. Herding.

7. Other-regarding preferences.

8. Application: Retirement savings.

9. Application: Investments.

The course introduces students to the economics of networks. This area of research has emerged in the last two decades and it has introduced a set of tools for economists to incorporate network structure in the analysis of individual behaviour and economic outcomes. Topics covered include the formation of networks, the provision of local public goods, coordination, learning, trading, and financial networks. A central focus of the course is the interplay between theory and experiments.

1. Introduction to networks and the experimental methodology.

2. Network formation.

3. Local public goods games on a network.

4. Strategic complementarities on a network.

5. Cooperation on a network.

6. Diffusion.

7. Social learning.

8. Trading on a network.

9. Financial networks.

The aim of this course is to introduce students to a number of topics at the frontier of current research in political economy. Students will learn to analyze political phenomenafrom an economic perspective. The majority of the course will focus on microeconomic models of political phenomena, with a particular emphasis on how the theoretical predictions help us to understand empirical findings. Topics that will be covered include the role of institutions, the importance of leaders, voting, media, conflict, and corruption.

1. Introduction and the problem of collective action.

2. The importance of institutions.

3. The importance of leaders.

4. Voting.

5. Communication.

6. Media.

7. Conflict.

8. Corruption.

9. Experimental evidence.

1. Choice under uncertainty, missing markets and GE.

2. Moral hazard and incentive contracts.

3. Adverse selection.

4. Signaling.

5. Theory of the firm.

6. Economics and psychology.

The first part of the course will introduce students to selected topics in the economics of networks. This area of research has emerged in the last two decades and it has introduced a set of tools for economists to incorporate network structure in the analysis of individual behaviour and economic outcomes across different areas of micro and (more recently) macroeconomics. We will focus on models of network formation and games played on (exogenously given) networks.

The second part of the course will introduce students to experimental economics. Experiments have become an essential tool to examine the behavioural validity of theoretical models and uncover empirical facts that are unexplained by current theories. After an introduction to the experimental methodology, we will focus on public goods and network experiments. Throughout this part of the course, the focus will be on the interplay between theory and experiments.

1. Introduction to the economics of networks.

2. Network formation.

3. Games on networks.

4. Introduction to the experimental methodology

5. Public goods.

6. Network experiments.

This course complements the 2nd year undergraduate microeconomics lectures by exploring more in depth some of the topics and covering additional material. In teh first term we learn about public goods and challenges to the standard assumptions on how individuals make choices. Second term lectures cover an introduction to prospect theory – the main alternative framework to expected utility – and applications of game theory to different areas of economics. A theme throughout the course is the crucial role of the experimental methodology in providing input and testing theoretical models.

1. Introduction to the course and the experimental methodology.

2. Public goods.

3. Foundations of choice I.

4. Foundations of choice II.

5. Expected utility and prospect theory.

6. Applications of Game Theory: Bargaining.

7. Applications of Game Theory: Principal-Agent models.

8. Applications of Game Theory: Networks.