Dr Huei-Chun Su, CMK. C316

This course is for MSc Economic History, MSc Economic History (Research), MSc Global History, MSc Economics, LSE-Columbia University Double Degree in International and World History, MSc Economics and Philosophy, and MSc Philosophy of the Social Sciences. Other graduate students may take this course only with the permission of the course lecturer and if space and timetables permit.

The course aim is to understand the changing nature and content of economics as it turned from a branch of moral philosophy in the 18th century to a technical social science at the end of the 20th century.

The course will explore the long-term changes in certain key concepts in economics, in its change from moral philosophy to social science. The primary texts on these themes, chosen from a variety of European and American authors, will provide material for study of the changes in methods, concepts and theories of economics. Secondary literature will be used to help understand and assess the changing role of economics both as a science and as an art intended for state action.

40 hours over MT and LT, mixture of lectures and seminars. (Those students without previous study in the history of economics should also attend the lectures for EC311).

Students will be expected to produce seminar papers and written work.

Reading lists will be given out at the beginning of the course. Henry Spiegel's The Growth of Economic Thought provides a general background text.

A three-hour written examination in the ST. Additionally, students taking MSc Economics will be required to submit an extended essay at the beginning of the ST; for such students the written examination and the extended essay will each count for half of the marks.