ECON4921 – Institutions and Economic Systems

Course content

The lectures are built around the questions: How do different institutions and organizations work? Why do particular institutions come into existence? How may certain institutions complement each other? How are economic systems affected by competitive forces?

Topics

  • Institutions and Economic Performance.

  • Organization of the Firm.

  • Organized Interest and Ownership.

  • Complementarity of Institutions.

  • Institutions and Commitment.

  • Bureaucracy.

  • Fiscal Federalism.

  • System Competition.

Learning outcome

Knowledge

You should know

  • how various institutional arrangements work, with an emphasis on economic and political institutions
  • recent empirical work that aims at evaluating and quantifying the mechanisms of the models we study
Skills

You should be able to

  • use economic models to explain how various institutional arrangements work and be able to discuss the assumptions, relevance, and limitations of these models
  • discuss recent empirical contributions critically
Competence

You should

  • be able to read and understand project reports and journal articles that make use of the concepts and methods that are introduced in the course
  • be able to make use of the course content in your own academic work, for example in analyses that are part of the master’s thesis

Admission to the course

Students admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.

Students not admitted to the Master’s programme in Economics or the Master’s programme in Economic Theory and Econometrics (Samfunns?konomisk analyse), can apply for admission to one of our study programmes, or apply for guest student status.

Formal prerequisite knowledge

You must fulfill one of these prerequisites:

Overlapping courses