Prof Diane Reyniers MAR.6.07

This course is available on the BSc in Business Mathematics and Statistics, BSc in Management, International Exchange (1 Term) and International Exchange (Full Year). This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

This course has a limited number of places (it is capped). Students who have this course as a compulsory course are guaranteed a place. Places for all other students are allocated on a first come first served basis.

Third year only. 

This course addresses various interesting topics which will be used to encourage creative and logical thinking, structuring of clear arguments and critical assessment of evidence. The focus is on interpretation of findings rather than statistical or econometric techniques.

The intellectual backbone of the course is applied and empirical economics (including behavioural economics) and finance but, wherever appropriate contributions from the psychology, sociology and management literature will be discussed. We will mainly deal with issues which are amenable to rigorous empirical investigation. The course is designed around a set of empirical research papers. Examples of questions considered are whether pain killers are more effective when they are expensive, whether creative people cheat more, whether people overvalue their own ideas.

The main objective of the course is to enable students to comprehend and critically assess the management literature, to evaluate statements in terms of evidence and to detect false reasoning or logic. Students will gain confidence in expressing their own ideas.

Topics vary each year (based on student feedback) but examples are racial discrimination, negotiation and gender, grit, leadership, optimism and entrepreneurship.

Please watch the following video to find out more about this course:

https://echo360.org.uk/media/b724a1cb-48eb-4198-abdb-786be177f6fd/public

10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the MT.

Teaching hours in the MT will be commensurate with a usual half unit undergraduate course.

This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of Michaelmas Term, in line with departmental policy.

A take-home mock exam paper.

A reading list will be available on Moodle.

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours) in the January exam period.