Economics and Management

Code:

EC0010

Acronym:

EGES

Keywords
Classification	Keyword
OFICIAL	Territory Planning and Environment

Instance: 2015/2016 - 2S

Active?	Yes
Responsible unit:	Spatial Planning and Environment Division
Course/CS Responsible:	Master in Civil Engineering

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
MIEC	208	Syllabus since 2006/2007	1	-	4	35	106

Teaching language

Portuguese

Objectives

JUSTIFICATION: 
University students are responsible, in the short/medium term, for the economic and technological development, so their education should be simultaneously generalist and specific, founded not only on a strong multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge, but also on the development of professional, personal and inter-personal competencies and skills. The curricular unit of Economics and Management is specially important to achieve these goals, aimed at the education of the future Civil Engineers able to implement economic-leading projects, and aware of the whole set of inter-relations among different realities, requirements, people, resources and knowledge fields, whichever is their specialization in civil engineering, and at all levels of professional outcomes.

GOALS:
This course aims to:
• Enhance the purposes and methods in the area of Economics and Management and its importance in the Civil Engineering degree.
• Develop basic concepts and methods on macroeconomics and microeconomics, in order to introduce civil engineers to a global environment where the techniques continuously interact with economic and other aspects of the environment.
• Introduce the main tendencies of economic thinking.
• Give an overview on Economics and Management, as well as its main subject and challenges faced by the Portuguese economic policy within the European context, and the surrounding problematic.
• Give students the opportunity to learn how to deal with calculation tools of economic and management analysis, in order to better understand their surrounding world.
• Present the concept of open firm/organization: its main factors (external and internal and respective interactions), tendencies of social-economic evolution that affect its performance, and implications of political, economic, environmental, technological and socio-cultural factors on the management of firms/organizations.
• Stress the importance of different management subsystems, with special emphasis on the financial system (financial and accountability tools of a company).
• Explain the process and methods of strategy formulation and strategic analysis, and characterize different strategies.
• Develop students’ skills on economic and financial analysis of firms/organizations, and their assessment of investment projects.

Learning outcomes and competences

Knowledge – to describe basic concepts of consumer and producer/seller microeconomics, of macroeconomics, and of corporate management, with particular emphasis on the civil construction and public works.
Understanding - to interpret the logic behind the behaviour of consumers and firms/organizations, the relationship between supply and demand and their influences on prices, to identify the impacts of macroeconomic variables on the performance of firms/organizations, to evaluate business decisions given the constraints on their activities; to select instruments for assessing the performance of firms, especially in the construction industry and public works.
Application – to organize information about the environment of firms/organizations to facilitate the critical analysis of their performance, either in absolute terms or in comparison with the performance of other firms/organizations.
Analysis – to analyze the performance of the construction industry and public works in the European context.
Synthesis - to propose alternative strategies to improve the performance of firms/organizations, given their environments, and their vision, mission and objectives.
Evaluation – to critically analyse the behaviour of economic agents and firms/organizations, recommending more efficient and effective alternative actions.

Working method

Presencial

Pre-requirements (prior knowledge) and co-requirements (common knowledge)

The previous knowledge required in this curricular unit was obtained during the secondary studies. Students are further required to adopt a critical stance in relation to their general environment (in economic, social, environmental, political, juridical and cultural terms) and a more focused attention to the specific characteristics of firms/organizations, particularly those belonging to the civil construction and public works areas of activity.

Program

Chapter 1- Concepts and basic principles of Economics. A brief overview on economic thinking.
Chapter 2 -The economic problem and its solutions. The behaviour of economic agents and market mechanism.
Chapter 3 -Analysis of consumer and producer theories: Basic elements. The general equilibrium model.
Chapter 4 -Presentation of the main macroeconomic aggregates: product, expenditure and revenue.
Chapter 5 - The economic cycles: Characteristics and demonstrations. The mechanism of the cycle. Periods of the cycle and its characterization. The Keynesian approach. The role of the government on the economic recovery
Chapter 6- Economic policy: budget policy, monetary policy and exchange policy. Brief reference to the different perspectives of the neoclassical and the Keynesian school.
Chapter 7- The integration of Portugal in the Economic and Monetary Union and its consequences on the economic policy.
Chapter 8- Characterization of the sector of construction and public works within the Portuguese, European and International scope.
Chapter 9- Basic concepts of company/organization.
Chapter 10 – Strategic management of a company/organization; methods of strategic analysis and alternative strategies. General strategies and competitive strategies.
Chapter 11 – The financial role in the firm/organization. Financial information and its main characteristics.
Chapter 12. The Balance-Sheet: structure, components and main balances.
Chapter 13 The Profit and Loss Statement. Structure, components and characteristics.
Chapter 14 - Methods of financial analysis. Analysis of liquidity, activity, solvency and profitability.
Chapter 15 - Analysis of investment projects. Main criteria for project evaluation: period of capital recovery, liquid present value, and internal rate of return.

Scientific component - 75%
Technological component - 25%

DEMONSTRATION OF THE SYLLABUS COHERENCE WITH THE CURRICULAR UNIT'S OBJECTIVES:
University students are responsible, in the short/medium term, for the economic and technological development, so their education should be simultaneously generalist and specific, founded not only on a strong multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge, but also on the development of professional, personal and inter-personal competencies and skills. The curricular unit of Economics and Management is especially important to achieve these goals, aimed at the education of the future Civil Engineers able to implement economic-leading projects, and aware of the whole set of inter-relations among different realities, requirements, people, resources and knowledge fields, whichever is their specialization in civil engineering, and at all levels of professional outcomes.

Mandatory literature

Paul A. Samuelson, William D. Nordhaus; Economia. ISBN: 972-8298-83-8
Paul A. Samuelson; Les grands Courants de la Pensée economique, Presses Universitaires de Grenoble
João Luís César das Neves; Introdução à Economia, Verbo
J. D. Lecaillon; J. M. Page; C. Ottavi ; Économie du Monde Contemporain, Les éditions d´organisation
Edwin Mansfield ; Economie appliquée à la Gestion, Economica
José da Silva Lopes ; A Economia Portuguesa desde 1960, Gradiva
A. Mendonça Pinto ; União Monetária Europeia- Portugal e o Euro, Universidade Católica Editora
António de Sousa; Introdução à Gestão - uma abordagem sistémica
Idalberto Chiavenato; Administração de Empresas - uma abordagem contingencial, MacGrawHill
H. Martinet ; Estratégia, Sílabo
J.P.Helfer ; Gestão: as funções da empresa, Sílabo
Luís Cardoso ; Gestão Estratégica das Organizações – como vencer os desafios do século XXI, Verbo
Henry Mintzberg ; The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, Prentice Hall
João Carvalho das Neves; Análise Financeira: métodos e técnicas, Texto Editora
Fernando Abecassis; Análise Económica, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian

Complementary Bibliography

George Frederik Stanlake ; Introdução à Economia, McGraw Hill

Teaching methods and learning activities

In the theoretical classes important concepts and results of the different subjects handled will be presented, emphasizing its importance in the upcoming professional activity of civil engineering, and turning to clear examples and case studies. Appeal to the understanding of the concepts and their application and inter-relations, and to the interpretation of different economic, financial and management information. In the practical classes, the student is lead, in a first stage, to the interpretation of economic and management information from different sources, and to the resolution of selected problems, and in a second stage, to the integrated application of the concepts learned in order to assess case studies that require decision making processes considering concrete strategic management problems firms/organizations can potentially face.

DEMONSTRATION OF THE COHERENCE BETWEEN THE TEACHING METHODOLOGIES AND THE LEARNING OUTCOMES:
The applied teaching methodologies appeal to the understanding of the concepts and their application and inter-relations, and to the interpretation of different economic, financial and management information. The application of these methods allows students to organize information about the environment of firms/organizations to facilitate the critical analysis of their performance, either in absolute terms or in comparison with the performance of other firms/organizations and to propose alternative strategies to improve the performance of firms/organizations, given their environments, and their vision, mission and objectives.

keywords

Social sciences > Economics > Management studies > Management of enterprises
Social sciences > Economics > Microeconomics
Social sciences > Economics > Management studies > Financial management
Social sciences > Economics > Construction economics

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation with final exam

Assessment Components

Designation	Weight (%)
Exame	50,00
Teste	50,00
Total:	100,00

Amount of time allocated to each course unit

Designation	Time (hours)
Frequência das aulas	42,00
Total:	42,00

Eligibility for exams

Achieving final classification requires compliance with attendance at the course unit, according to the MIEC assessment rules. It is considered that students meet the attendance requirements if, having been regularly enrolled, the number of absences of 25% for each of the classes’ types is not exceeded.

Calculation formula of final grade

The components of distributed evaluation are:

Test 1: Test on the subject of Economics; 10 values

Test 2: Test on the subject of Management; 10 values

Tests 1 and 2 are compulsory.If the student doesn´t carry out one of the tests, but carried out the other one, he/she can choose to carry out only the lacking test in the recourse examination.

The Final Classification is computed through the following formulae:

CF = Test 1 + Test 2

Special assessment (TE, DA, ...)

Students that undergo special evaluation will accomplish an exam covering all the matters (Economics and Management ones)

Classification improvement

Students already approved may improve their classification just once, after registering in the academic services, in one or two (normal or resource) exam seasons immediately after the one where they were approved.

Observations

Working time estimated out of classes: 2 hours