Political Economy

Code:

D102

Acronym:

EPOL

Keywords
Classification	Keyword
OFICIAL	Economics

Instance: 2003/2004 - A

Active?	Yes
Course/CS Responsible:	Law

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
D	128	Official Study Plan - LD	1	-	13	-

Objectives

Based on the principal teaching this course, the POLITICAL ECONOMY PROGRAM is divided into three main areas:
1.Getting students to think about the economic reality underlying all human behaviour. There is a pressing need for students to understand the reasons why scientific knowledge (particularly economic science) is constructed;
2.Getting students to understand as fully as possible the economic reality that permeates the daily lives of everyone and, therefore, of the future graduate in Law;
3.Getting students to produce an accurate discourse on economic science. It is essential not to confuse the discourse of common sense with the discourse of science, when and where it may be necessary to explain economic phenomena (one of the aspects of the explanation of human phenomena).
In short: the POLITICAL ECONOMY SUBJECT has been designed to prepare students to be able to permanently exercise their intelligence, using the memory only as support tool, as the objective awareness of the comprehension of whom it reflects, the perpetual search for a correct discourse.

Program

PART I – INTRODUCTION
1.Introductory concepts;
2.The economist’s mode of thinking;
3.Interdependence and exchange.

PART II – MICROECONOMICS
1.Market forces;
2.State intervention in the market;
3.The public sector;
4.Motivations of demand in perfect markets;
5.Factors affecting investment and supply in perfect markets;
6.Time and risk factors;
7.Competition equilibrium;
8.The maximisation of profits in imperfect markets;
9.Goals other than profit maximisation;
10.Allocation of earnings and the factors’ market;
11.Inequality and poverty;
12.Redistribution and taxation;
13.State intervention in the markets;

PART III – MACROECONOMICS
1.Basic topics in macroeconomics;
2.National accounting;
3.Macroeconomic problems in an open economy;
4.Macroeconomic models of full employment;
5.Inflation and unemployment. The Phillips curve approach;
6.Priorities in the fight against inflation and unemployment;
7.The Keynesian model;
8.Fiscal and monetary policies;
9.Monetary and financial systems;

PART IV – HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
1.Pre-Smithian economic theory and mercantilism;
2.Adam Smith;
3.From Ricardo to Stuart Mill,
4.Socialism and Karl Marx;
5.Marginalism;
6.The neoclassic orthodoxy, from Marshall to Pareto;
7.Keynes and Schumpeter;
8.Post-Keynesian;
9.New orthodoxies and heterodoxies.