The course will introduce students to selected topics in Economics as decided by the instructor.

The course is aimed at developing an understanding of the basics in Public Economics and Public Finance. Public economics is the study of government policy from the points of view of economic efficiency and equity. The course deals with the nature of government intervention and its implications for allocation, distribution and stabilization. Inherently, this study involves a formal analysis of government taxation and expenditures. The subject encompasses a host of topics including public goods, market failures and externalities. The course is divided into two sections, one dealing with the theory of public economics and the other with the Indian public finances.

Micro versus macroeconomics. Theory of consumer behavior and demand. Consumer preferences. Indifference curve. Consumer equilibrium. Demand function. Income and substitution effects. The Slutsky equation. Market demand. Elasticities. Average and marginal revenue. Revealed preference theory of firm. Production functions. Law of variable proportions. Laws of return to scale. Isoquants. Input substitution. Equilibrium of the firm. Expansion path. Cost function. Theory of costs. Short Run and Long run costs. Shape of LAC. Economies and diseconomies of scale. Market equilibrium under perfect competition. Equilibrium under alternative forms of market. Monopoly: pure and discriminating. Monopolistic competition. oligopoly.

Major economic problems. National income accounting. Expenditure and income approaches to GNP. Measuring inflation and unemployment. Determination of the equilibrium level of income. Consumption function. Investment demand. Aggregate demand and equilibrium output. The multiplier process. Government sector. Fiscal policy. Tax receipts and Transfer payments. Foreign spending. Money, interest and income. Functions of money. Definition of money. Reserve Bank of India and Commercial Banks. Creation of money. The instruments of monetary control. The demand for money. Investment expenditure and rate of interest. The IS curve. Money market and the LM curve. Liquidity trap. The IS-LM model. Derivation of the aggregate demand curve. Monetary and fiscal polices. Keynesian versus monetarist views. The aggregate supply function: Keynesian and classical. Inflation and unemployment. Stagflation. The Phillips curve. The long-run Phillips curve. Inflation expectations. The rational expectations.

Current economic problems. Alternative economic systems. An overview of the economy. The market mechanism. National product and income. Consumption, savings and investment. Determination of national income. Aggregate demand and supply. Fiscal policy. The nature of money and monetary policy. Inflation and unemployment. Basic concepts of price theory. Determination of price by supply and demand. Elasticity of demand and supply. Theory of production. Theory of costs. Pricing in competitive and monopoly markets. The gains from international trade. Theory of exchange rates. Balance of payments. Economic growth, and development. Inequality and poverty.

Basic concepts of national income accounting, money, and balance of payments; output and exchange-rate determination under fixed and flexible exchange-rate regimes; fiscal and monetary policies in an open economy; international capital movements and their impacts; Case Studies: East Asian crisis, global financial crisis; theories of international trade including factor-proportions and economies of scale; the international trading regime and its implications for developing countries.

The course is aimed at developing an understanding of the economic issues in a range of economic activities in the Indian economy. The themes that can be covered include performance of the Indian Economy since 1951, agricultural growth in India, inter-regional variation in growth of output and productivity, farm price policy, recent trends in industrial growth, industrial and licensing policy, policy changes for industrial growth, economic reforms and liberalization, population growth, unemployment, food and nutrition security, and education. It will also include some contemporary issues.

Basics of sample survey; variance and covariance; correlation coefficient; simple regression analysis; Gauss-Markov theorem; estimation of regression coefficients; confidence intervals and hypothesis testing in regression analysis; type-I and type-II errors; transformation of variables; multiple regression analysis; multicollinearity, heteroscedaticity, dummy variables, basics of time-series analysis.

Though empirical questions are central in motivating the issues on distribution, this course will mostly draw from theory. Papers published in established journals will cover the major references for this course. It will start from some empirical pattern of development (Kuznet‘s hypothesis), country experiences, etc. to motivate the subject. Then it will try to understand the process of distribution, growth and structural change using standard macroeconomic models. This course will be heavily dependent on Mathematics - mainly calculus.

This module introduces students in economics and other social sciences to game theory, a theory of interactive decision making. This module provides students with the basic solution concepts for different types of non-cooperative games, including static and dynamic games under complete and incomplete information. The basic solution concepts that this module covers are Nash equilibrium, subgame perfect equilibrium, Bayesian equilibrium, and perfect Bayesian equilibrium. This module emphasizes the applications of game theory to economics, such as duopolies, bargaining, and auctions.