ECON1401 Economic Perspectives - 2025
General Course Information
Course Code : ECON1401
Year : 2025
Term : Term 1
Teaching Period : T1
Course Details & Outcomes
Course Description
This course will engage you with the founding ideas of economics and their relevance to the social usefulness of modern economic science. You will participate in active refection and debate about the discipline’s objectives and approaches as they have developed through history and as they relate to other social science and business disciplines. You will learn how modern-day problems are addressed in different subfelds of modern economics, how these endeavours relate to the historical development of economics, and where the frontiers of economics as a discipline presently lie.
Course Aims
The aims of the course are:
1. To prepare students to undertake advanced undergraduate study in economics grounded in a broad understanding of the place of the discipline in history and society.
2. To develop students’ awareness of the breadth, universality, and frontiers of the concerns addressed by economists.
3. To develop students’ expressive abilities in both spoken and written form.
Relationship to Other Courses
ECON1401 is required to betaken by all students in the Bachelor of Economics program, usually late in their frst year (ideally) or in the early part of their second year. Students are strongly discouraged from waiting until their fnal year to take ECON1401. ECON1401 is not a pre-requisite for other courses, but the School of Economics strongly recommends that ECON1401 betaken by students early in their program of study because its content informs the selection of higher-level courses and builds conceptual frameworks into which content from later courses can be placed.
In addition to assuming basic competence in English and mathematics taken from highschool, ECON1401 builds on material contained in ECON1101 Microeconomics 1. This pre-requisite will beenforced.
Course Learning Outcomes
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Course Learning Outcomes
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Program learning outcomes
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CLO1 : Describe the historical development of economics as a science
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• PLO1 : Business Knowledge
• PLO3 : Business Communication
• PLO4 : Teamwork
• PLO6 : Global and Cultural Competence
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CLO2 : Articulate the relevance of historical conceptions of economics to current
socioeconomic problems and subfelds of economic research
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• PLO1 : Business Knowledge
• PLO2 : Problem Solving
• PLO3 : Business Communication
• PLO4 : Teamwork
• PLO6 : Global and Cultural Competence
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CLO3 : Compare a range of different
disciplinary paradigms (e.g., economic,
psychological, and legal) and their relative usefulness when analysing different social problems
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• PLO1 : Business Knowledge
• PLO2 : Problem Solving
• PLO3 : Business Communication
• PLO4 : Teamwork
• PLO5 : Responsible Business Practice
• PLO6 : Global and Cultural Competence
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CLO4 : Chart the present subfelds of
economic research and the main frontiers of economic understanding
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• PLO1 : Business Knowledge
• PLO2 : Problem Solving
• PLO3 : Business Communication
• PLO4 : Teamwork
• PLO5 : Responsible Business Practice
• PLO6 : Global and Cultural Competence
• PLO7 : Leadership Development
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Course Learning Outcomes
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Assessment Item
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CLO1 : Describe the historical development of economics as a science
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• Written assignment
• Course Journal
• Composite performance / participation (partly peer-assessed)
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CLO2 : Articulate the relevance of historical conceptions of economics to current
socioeconomic problems and subfelds of economic research
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• Written assignment
• Course Journal
• Composite performance / participation (partly peer-assessed)
|
|
CLO3 : Compare a range of different
disciplinary paradigms (e.g., economic,
psychological, and legal) and their relative usefulness when analysing different social problems
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• Oral Presentations 1 (partly peer-assessed) & 2
• Written assignment
• Course Journal
• Composite performance / participation (partly peer-assessed)
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CLO4 : Chart the present subfelds of
economic research and the main frontiers of economic understanding
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• Oral Presentations 1 (partly peer-assessed) & 2
• Written assignment
• Course Journal
• Composite performance / participation (partly peer-assessed)
|
Learning and Teaching Technologies
Moodle - Learning Management System | Echo 360
Learning and Teaching in this course
Lectures
Lectures in Weeks 1 - 4 will focus on concepts pertaining to microeconomics, while those in Weeks 5, 7, 8, and 9 will focus on concepts pertaining to macroeconomics. Material in both sections is organised around big ideas in economics, the times and thinkers giving rise to them, and how they are used today in understanding and approaching socioeconomic problems and disciplinary frontiers. Lectures in both sections will provide guidance in how to think, evaluate arguments and evidence, and produce work in line with the standards of modern economic science.
Lectures will contain a mix of lecture material delivery and Q&A time within the lecture.
Tutorials
Tutorials are an integral part of this course and will beheld for 1.5 hours each week, except in week 6. Please note that unlike many other courses, tutorials for this course start in Week 1. All tutorial streams will beheld face-to-face on campus.
Tutorial discussions and activities will be extremely hands-on, structured on a “fipping the classroom” model and building on material that students have prepared. You should attend tutorials having done the week's readings. There is free and easy access to electronic or hardcopy versions of both textbooks and all assigned readings and associated materials for each week. Tutorials in some weeks will include pre-announced debates about economic policy, for which preparation will be required before class.