Economics MSc
Behavioural Macroeconomics ECON5156
- Academic Session: 2026-27
- School: Adam Smith Business School
- Credits: 10
- Level: Level 5 (SCQF level 11)
- Typically Offered: Semester 2
- Available to Visiting Students: No
- Collaborative Online International Learning: No
- Curriculum For Life: No
Short Description
The course offers a modern treatment of Behavioural Macroeconomics, according to which macroeconomic outcomes are the aggregates of optimising agents' decisions. These agents, however, and contrary to more narrowly economic accounts, are affected by cognitive, psychological and cultural factors in their decision-making process. The course illustrates how, for example, notions of fairness, confidence, representativeness, social structure, herd behaviour, even the salience of stories shared among people, matter for the formation of their expectations and ultimately their decisions. To bring the material to life, the course draws heavily on historical incidents where such factors have been argued to play a significant role in explaining both relatively short-lived and transitory phenomena of the business cycle, as well as phenomena with long-term implications.
The course lectures and assignments are for the most part conceptual. In part of the course, students will be familiarised with foundational versions of epidemic mathematical models to enhance their intuition on topics covered. Such models are very useful with applications in multiple contexts even outside of the course (e.g. in marketing).
Timetable
Lectures: 5x2 hours lectures. These are interactive lectures for which asynchronous activities will be included both during the lecture (e.g., Mentimeter) and for preparation (e.g., online quizzes on Moodle).
Tutorials: 2x2 hours
On campus.
Excluded Courses
None.
Co-requisites
None.
Assessment
1. Oral assessment & presentation; Group; 15 minutes; 25%; ILOs 1-2.
2. Degree exam: online; Individual; 90 minutes; 75%; ILOs 1-3.
Main Assessment In: April/May
Are reassessment opportunities available for all summative assessments? No
It is the default expectation that all courses will offer opportunities for reassessment or deferred assessment. Where it is not possible to offer this in some assessment components, the grade achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade, and any exceptions for this course are described below.
[No exceptions]
Course Aims
The course aims to
■ Introduce key cognitive, psychological and cultural factors relevant for the macroeconomy, and to
■ Highlight their importance for real-world economic outcomes, both for the business cycle and long-term growth.
Intended Learning Outcomes of Course
By the end of this course students will be able to:
1. Explain the role of key cognitive, psychological and cultural factors for the macroeconomy
2. Examine the role of such factors in specific historical contexts
3. Solve mathematical models describing such factors