All LSE executive education participants are required to have:

• Fluency in English.
• A good undergraduate degree or significant work experience in a relevant role(s).
• Minimum two years’ professional experience. Typically our participants have more than ten years’ work experience.
• If you're a participant on our virtual course, please ensure that you have access to a laptop or computer, with a webcam and a working microphone.  You will also need a reliable internet connection.

Course pre-requisites
Basic knowledge of Macroeconomics

What are the implications of current economic events and policy choices for investment and strategic decisions? This course will provide participants with state-of-the-art analytical tools to be able to assess relevant policy debates and the implications of policy choices.

This course will offer a mix of lectures and student-led discussions involving LSE faculty and high profile external speakers. A key feature of this course is the focus on current events.

This executive course will investigate the following key topics:

• The current COVID-19 crisis and its differences with the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009.
• The implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for the Chinese economy and its international relations with the rest of the world.
• The structure of the European Monetary Union and its fragility
• The sovereign debt crisis and the recent Covid-19 crisis: a comparison between the two crises and an analysis of the tools available to deal with both.
• The European Union fiscal framework and its evolution: what is left after the Covid-19 shock.
• Policy responses under COVID-19 by monetary and fiscal authorities with a discussion of modern monetary theory (MMT).
• The macroeconomic and geopolitical implications of the Covid-19-induced recession along with the potential risk of deflation or stagflation.
• The impact of Covid-19 on the ongoing balkanisation of global supply chains and the ongoing technological disputes between US and China, with repercussions for cyber risk and strategy.
• Emerging market vulnerabilities in the Covid-19 environment, the problem of dollar-funding and the global role of the Fed.
• Are advanced economies trapped in world of low growth and low interest rates?

Rather than an intensive five-day course, the virtual courses will be delivered over four weeks and you will be able to manage them alongside your working hours.

Week one will be a course orientation where participants can access your pre-course readings and meet fellow classmates, as well as a live welcome session hosted by our world-leading faculty.

Following that, your course will be taught over the course of three weeks with 10 contact hours each week, matching the level of contact time you would get on an on-campus course. Teaching will typically occur weekdays during regular UK university hours. During this time, you'll have dedicated slots to meet your fellow participants, a virtual event per programme, full technical support by phone, email or live-chat and a 'virtual graduation' ceremony to end the course.

View the timetable of the course.

• Gain a grasp on the up-to-date economic theories that interpret current events
• The role of the US dollar in the current international monetary system and how it affects vulnerabilities in emerging market economies.
• Understand how the current COVID-19 crisis is affecting the conduct of monetary and fiscal policies and its geopolitical implications.
• Achieve an understanding of the economic linkages between current macroeconomic events.
• The European architecture and its fragility.
• Understand what determines the risk of sovereign debt and the perceived likelihood of default.
• Gain a greater understanding of China’s role in the global economy, and the impact of Chinese policies on the rest of the world

The course will be taught by:

• Dr Gianluca Benigno

Dr Gianluca Benigno is Reader in Economics and Junior Recruitment Committee Deputy Chair in the Department of Economics at LSE. He has a PhD in Economics from UC Berkeley. Read more here 

• Professor Paul De Grauwe

Professor Paul De Grauwe is John Paulson Chair in European Political Economy at the European Institute at LSE. Prior to joining LSE, Paul De Grauwe was Professor of International Economics at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He was a member of the Belgian parliament from 1991 to 2003. Read more here

Guest speakers:

• Lorenzo Codogno

Lorenzo Codogno is visiting Professor in Practice at LSE.  Prior to joining LSE, Lorenzo Codogno was chief economist and director general at the Treasury Department of the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance (May 2006-February 2015). Read more here

• Brunello Rosa

Brunella Rosa is visiting Professor in Practice at LSE and CEO and Head of Research at Rosa & Roubini Associates, having previously worked at the Bank of England. Read more here

• Dr Linda Yueh

Dr. Yueh is Fellow in Economics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University and Adjunct Professor of Economics at London Business School. She is Visiting Professor at LSE IDEAS, London School of Economics and Political Science's foreign policy centre, and Associate Fellow (Global Economy and Finance Department & U.S. and the Americas Programme) at Chatham House. Read more here