BCom Economics

Our Vision is to become a leading Economics department in Sub-Saharan Africa, operating at the forefront of the knowledge economy in a digital age.

Our Mission is to equip students with the essential theoretical knowledge and practical skills required to be the next generation of influential economists and policy makers.

Content:

ECO151 Microeconomics - An introductory course into Microeconomics. Designed for economic specialist and non-specialists. Course is designed for students to demonstrate an awareness regarding how the economy operates at a micro level and to demonstrate an informed understanding of basic economic theory and analysis.

ECO152 Macroeconomics - An introductory course into Macroeconomics. Designed for economic specialist and non-specialists. Course is designed for students to demonstrate an understanding of how the various sectors of the economy interrelate using basic macroeconomic tools and theories.

ECO231 Microeconomics - A Microeconomics course based on the foundations established by ECO151. Designed for students to explain Microeconomic principles, apply Microeconomic principles and apply technical analysis to Microeconomic problems within consumer theory, producer theory and market structures.

ECO232 Macroeconomics - An Macroeconomics course based on the foundations established by ECO152. Designed for students to apply Macroeconomic theory in relation to Macroeconomic concepts and the South African economy. It is also designed to explain current developments on domestic and global economies.

ECO242 Basic Econometrics - An introductory Econometrics coursed designed for students to learn methodology of Econometrics, the Classical Linear Regression Model, Ordinary Least Squares, interval and hypothesis testing and different functional forms of the linear regression model. Economic data is analysed mathematically, statistically and economically using Excel.

ECO235 Mathematical Economics - A course designed for students to apply and to solve both linear and non-linear economic problems through differential techniques, integral calculus and matrices. Topics are both of a Microeconomic (e.g. related to consumer and producer theory) and Macroeconomic (e.g. AD-AS and IS-LM curves) nature.

ECO331 Microeconomics (compulsory) - The course is designed for the application and explanation of general equilibrium and welfare analysis. It deals also with market structure, competitive strategy, pricing with market power, game theory and markets with asymmetric information.

ECO332 Macroeconomics (compulsory) - The content includes long run economic growth through various factors such as capital, labour and technology. It deals with modelling and explaining of theories of prices, inflation and unemployment in the short and medium run for an open economy. It also includes policies on fiscal, monetary and exchange rates.

ECO311 Intermediate Econometrics (elective, but required for applying Honours Economics) - A course on conducting, inference testing and hypothesis testing  multivariate regression analysis. It includes usage of dummy variables, remedies to violations of the classic linear regression models (heteroscedasticity, multicollinearity and autocorrelation). Students also deal with model specification and using econometric software.

ECO334 Public Economics (elective) - A course designed in a South African context which covers aspects such as the composition of the local government, different institutions involved, rationale for intervention in a market economy, expenditure priorities given scarce public resources, traditional tax principles and the most important taxes, functions of different levels of government, as well as public policy related to poverty and other socio-economic issues.

ECO335 International Trade (elective) - A course designed to critically evaluate the foundation concepts of international economics and apply tools to analyse international trade. It covers theories on why nations trade, developments in trade theory, instruments and impact of trade policy, economic integration and cooperation and intentional trade in developing countries

ECO336 Development Economics (elective) - A focus on poverty and inequality determination, growth and development experiences by developing countries and agrarian changes and industrial strategies. It is designed for students to model foundational development concepts, analyse statistical data and  the levels and patterns of development of developing countries.