Lecture notes in European Economics

First Year

Cillian Ryan (University of Birmingham)

LEVEL: First year UK
Knowledge base: Basic understanding of Supply and Demand presumed; basic ability to understand graphs in Economics; GCSE Mathematics.
Module Name: European Economics Issues

Description: At Birmingham most of our students are mainstream Single or Joint Honours Economics students. All are taking a course on Economics Principles in parallel with this module, but we expect them to have a basic grasp of Supply & Demand at this stage, either through A levels or through a crash course in week 1.

One way to characterise this course, is that it takes all the European bits out of the Sloman Economics textbook (Prentice Hall) and concentrates them into a single thematic course in order to give students a chance to see the theory they are studying in 'Principles' in an applied setting. The material in Sloman is supplemented by some of my own notes on the principles underlying international trade (L2, highly simplified for first years -arguably overly so) and some material extracted from Baldwin & Wyplosz (The Economics of European Integration, McGraw Hill) and Swann (The Economics of the Europe, 9^th Edition, Penguin Economics, London, 2000). Baldwin and Wyplosz is in general too advanced for first years but there are one or two sections which are very valuable even for this level.

The introduction to each PowerPoint Lecture points the student to the relevant reading source where relevant. Finally, the lecture slides occasionally contain links to relevant parts of the WinEcon package which students may have via their textbook or avaiable from Winecon.com for a modest fee. The links in the text take them directly to the relevant part of the WinEcon package.

Each Lecture designed for 2 hour session with short break.

L1-An introduction to some European Economic comparative discriptors
L2: The Evolution of the European Single Market - The theory
L3: The Evolution of the Euopean Single market - Application to the EU including discussion of trade creation and trade distortion
Seminar Class 1
L4: The Common Agricultural Policy
L5: The Common Agricultural Policy Continued
Seminar Class 2
L6: Exchange rate Theory
Seminar Class 3
L7: The European Monetary System
L8: Optimum Currency Areas
Seminar Class 4
L9: European Competition Policy
L10: European Regional Policy:
- This lecture is integral to the module, both because of the importance of addressing the regional impact of trade liberalization in earlier lectures (industry gains and losses within countries and core versus periphery activity across the EU) and because it introduces students to a range of economic geography concepts. The lecture is almost exclusively based on Baldwin & Wyplosz (Chapter 9) and for that reason is not included here. The text book site is: http://www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk/html/0077121635.html
Finally:

End of Semester Assessment;

This module is assessed by a ‘TIMED essay’ in the last week of term and a traditional 2 hour exam in the Summer. For the times essay the students are given the topic in advance and are allowed to prepare one A4 page of notes in advance, which must be included with the written essay. I am flexible about how long the take to write but I expect an average of about 80/90 minutes. If they wish, students are allowed to consult textbooks outside the room during the Timed Essay (although they rarely do – but it provides them with an additional psychological security blanket)). See How to get better essays while reducing your work and plagiarism

Second year

Nick Potts (Southampton Solent University)

Module name: European Business Environment.
Three sets of lecture notes for a module on European integration aimed at 2nd year Business students.

Third Year

Liliana Hiris (Robert Gordon University Aberdeen)

Module Name: European Economy
Level: Final year UK management students
These are the 10 2-hour lectures that make up this course (find corresponding classes under seminar / workshop materials)

Mike Walsh (Coventry University)

Module Name: The European Union: Economic Policy

Postgraduate (MBA)

Richard Connoly (University of Birmingham)

These lecture notes are designed for an MBA course on how economic developments shape political risks with a focus on Russia and the transition economies of Eastern Europe.