Postgraduate Economics 2023-2024

This course focuses on the economics of business allowing students to understand the economics that underlie a whole host of business issues. The course will cover the functioning of markets, consumer behaviour, pricing, production and costing problems, monopoly and the business implications of inflation, economic growth and economic policy.

This course develops a mathematical and statistical ‘toolbox’ for PGT students in the Business School.  These tools will be useful in understanding and implementing research in business- and economics-related fields both during a student’s academic career as well as after graduation.  The first part of the course covers basic mathematical models common across these fields.  The second part of the course develops standard data analysis methods, including multivariate regression.  The final part of the course examines shortcomings in the standard model and describes ways of overcoming those shortcomings.

The course will cover the main elements of Microeconomic Theory together with how this underpins the macro economy, covering consumer theory, how consumers choose under constraint of a budget, to generate demands. How this theory can be used to consider the welfare effects of price changes will be considered. The problem of production will be examined to understand the supply, and the demand and supply side will be drawn together to consider market structure.  How the theory can be used to identify market supplies and demands  from empirical data will be examined.

This course introduces key techniques from economics and finance to allowing understanding of the basics of business decision making within the energy industries and the economic implications of key energy policies. We consider basic financial concepts such as: present value, the opportunity cost of capital and their role in business decision making in energy industries. We also consider key economic elements of markets and how the economic environment structures the way in which businesses make decisions and energy market outcomes.

The course will cover the main elements of Microeconomic Theory. Consumer theory will be examined by discussing how consumers choose under the constraint of a budget to generate demands. This theory will then be extended to include choice under uncertainty and intertemporal choice. Some basic elements of competitive markets will also be presented. Producer theory will be examined to understand how firms decide the quantity to be produced under the constraint of a technology. Other relevant topics, such as public goods, externalities, and auctions, will be covered.

This course discusses the world petroleum market in the context of overall energy markets.  The main features of the evolving petroleum market are analysed including examination of the Hotelling model and Hubbert curve.  Oil price determination is discussed with detailed consideration of the special characteristics of the demand and supply curves in the industry.  The role of OPEC in the market is examined, including discussion of the various models of OPEC behaviour and the determinants of its market power.  The economics of climate change and the place of renewable energy in the wider energy market is discussed.

This course offers an introduction to econometrics, which is the application of statistical techniques to provide answers to questions in finance, among others. Economic theories can predict the likely relations of financial variables, and econometrics can provide the evidence for such relations using real-world data.

As building blocks of econometrics, this course will start by covering inferential statistics, asking what inferences can be drawn about the population from a sample. You will then proceed to learn regression analysis which is the fundamental of econometrics.

The goal of this course is to deepen and broaden students' understanding and develop their analytical skills regarding investment decisions under uncertainty and the value of flexibility and information. The course will introduce relevant concepts from economics and finance such as decision trees, the Black-Scholes equation and the binomial option pricing model and discuss how these concepts may be applied to assess investments with applications related to the energy industry such as the development of an oil lease.

Much of this course is devoted to petroleum policies.  Concepts of economic rents from petroleum exploitation and the various mechanisms by which the rents can be collected by the state are discussed, including production sharing and service contracts.  Licensing policies, including relinquishment terms, pricing, procurement, domestic market obligations, the role of state oil companies, and depletion policy are examined.  The Oil Fund concept and the issue of oil and gas security of supply are discussed.  State and private ownership and control of gas acquisition, transmission and distribution to customers are examined.  The economics of CO2 capture and storage is discussed.

Business Strategy covers a broad range of topics that come under the general heading of “Business Strategy” / “Strategic Management”. The course introduces participants to concepts, frameworks and models that are useful in providing explanations of how companies operate with respect to goal setting, understanding their competitive landscape, assessing opportunities,  managing own capabilities, coordinating their activities with other companies, and competing to create value for customers. The course is interactive in nature, applying a learning-by-doing method involving students taking on roles as part of a series of simulation exercises. 

This course will build on the skills introduced in the first semester Quantitative Methods and develop skills in applying a variety of empirical methods taught across the programme to issues in energy.

The course aims to instill knowledge but, much more importantly, stimulate students’ thinking about the major challenges within different health systems and the options for the health services management. Furthermore, it aims to take a genuinely international perspective on health care, providing knowledge of different health care systems and encouraging comparison and critique. It covers a wide variety of topics including an overview of the health systems around the world, the effects of social inequalities on health inequalities and their repercussions for social policy and issues of public health policy towards tobacco, alcohol and obesity.

This course introduces the student to key aspects in labour and personnel economics and how these are related to human resource practices.  It focuses on how firms seek to incentivise workers to yield efficient outcomes in the labour market.

This compulsory element of the Masters degree in Petroleum, Energy Economics & Finance is the final stage of the degree programme.

​There is an interest in raising the level of understanding of mathematics in the financial sector. This course is a part of the new MSc programme in Financial Mathematics and provides students with the theoretical and practical skills related to mathematical modelling of financial markets.

This course will introduce students to key techniques from economics and finance allowing them to understand the business decision making relevant to the petroleum industry and decommissioning.  Students will learn how these principles help explain how investment and disinvestment decisions (such as cessation of production) are taken, how oil markets operate, and the government's role in setting environmental regulations and taxation allowances. 

The course will cover the main elements of Microeconomic Theory focusing on how they apply in the energy sector. The aim of the course is to provide students with an understanding of how economic entities, consumers and producers/firms, make choices. To do that, the content of the course will develop the participant's ability to apply core microeconomic principles and analytical methods in relation to relevant theory and model-based analysis. As well as to familiarise himself/herself with different methods of analysis adopted by economists through an awareness of the importance of model building and the choice of assumptions.

The course will focus on consumer theory,  examining how consumers make chooses, under the constraint of a budget, to generate demands. This theory could be extended to include choice under uncertainty and intertemporal choice. Producer theory will also be examined providing an understanding of how firms decide what and how much to produce. The demand and supply side will be drawn together to consider the different market structures and how they determine the price and quantity at which the good will be traded in the market. Other relevant topics, such as auctions and contract structure could be covered.

Dissertation project for MSc Law & Economics of Oil and Gas