The objective of education in the Robert Owen College of Economics is to provide students with basic methods to understand various and complicated socio-economic developments of our society in a systematic way. In considering developments in economic society, it may use historical methods mathematical or statistical methods, and so on. Students are required to master the basic methods of those disciplines and ways of applying the methods to practical issues.

The Robert Owen College of Economics provides students with various economic theories that are useful in understanding the workings of the economic system. The College also teaches students how to apply those theories to practical problems in our society. For example, how macroeconomic variables such as GDP, the unemployment rate, the inflation rate, and real growth are determined is one important topic taught in this department. The College also takes up some issues related to resource allocation and its control, economic distribution and inequality, etc.

Economic phenomena are so complex and so diverse that it is impossible to understand them without some abstraction. The purpose of economic theory is to provide a framework that enables us to see the fundamental structures and essential causalities beneath the apparently chaotic motions of actual economies. Economic Theory Branch offers core lecture courses on microeconomics, macroeconomics and econometrics to all Master's students in order to ensure that they acquire the basic knowledge of orthodox economic theory before beginning their own research work.

It also offers a variety of advanced courses on such fields as general equilibrium theory, game theory, contract theory, empirical macroeconomics, and macroeconomic dynamics. The time-honored tradition in our College is its openness to heterodoxy. The Economic Theory Branch also offers a set of courses that are devoted to the Marxian perspective to economics. The Branch offers courses on economic principles, economic methodology, political economy, economic anthropology, and others. It is expected, that most of the students in this Branch concentrate on either one of these two approaches.

Economic research requires not only thorough knowledge of theoretical models and statistical tools but also deep understanding of institutional structures and historical facts specific to each problem. The aim of this College is to train researchers and specialists to be capable of applying current economic theories to practical issues and policy designs in various aspects of contemporary economies.

The diversity of subject matters constitutes the very distinct characteristic of this department. In deed, it deals with a wide variety of special fields, such as Accounting, fiscal policy and public economics, financial institutions and monetary policy, industrial organization and economics of law, international trade and global finance, labor economics and social policy, urban studies and transportation economics, economic development and area studies. Students in this department are, however, expected to choose a few of these special fields and work on them intensively after having mastered the basics of economic theory and statistical analysis.

If you feel after reading this text that you could be more interested by the business  aspect of this faculty, please take look at the programmes that the Adam Smith School Of Business is offering you for this year.

List of programmes offered at the Robert Owen College of Economics