The student who successfully completes the course will be able to demonstrate a solid knowledge of the morpho-syntactic structures of English. He/She will have demonstrated the ability to use the terminology and communicative tools of specialised language, especially economic and business English, but also legal and technical English. The student will have developed both oral and written communication skills in order to be able to interact in professional contexts, make and receive telephone calls, introduce him-/her-self, socialise, present visual information, compile a CV, write a formal letter, a cover letter, an e-mail message, etc. Lastly, he/she will be able to read, understand, analyse and discuss written texts of specialised areas taken from newspapers focusing on international business, finance, economic and political news (The Economist, The Guardian) or from BBC news (Business section). At the end of the course, the student will have attained a B2 level of the CEFR.
The course provides an introduction to economics for undergraduates. Its aim is to investigate the characteristics of economies using historical and cross country comparisons across the major dimensions of economic performance (growth, inequality, stability) and to provide an analytical overview to the core concepts of modern microeconomics.
By taking the main economic actors and showing how they make decisions, the course covers behaviour in goods, labour and credit markets, highlighting the role of the rules of the game (institutions), and showing the sources of market successes and market failures.