| ECO901 |
Pricing |
5 |
The course helps in the understanding of the decision making process of firms and individuals. In a way, the course introduces tools to understand the basics of Modern Economic Analysis. The approach is different from a typical traditional introduction. From the beginning of the course, the focus has been set on Pricing.
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- ● Problem Solving and Decision Making
- ● Simple Pricing
- ● Monopoly, Monopsony, and Price Discrimination
- ● Strategic Games and Pricing
- ● Making Decision with Uncertainty
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| ECO902 |
Economics and Financial Data Analysis |
5 |
The primary objective of this course is to equip the participants with various statistical tools and techniques along with their applications used in Economics and Finance. Through this course, the participants will develop an ability to analyze the data by applying appropriate quantitative methods.
This course serves as a prerequisite for future courses such as Machine Learning, Advanced Financial Econometrics, Probability and Stochastic Systems, and Program Evaluation. The course also involves use of statistical software such as R to demonstrate the various concepts.
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- ● Descriptive Statistics
- ● Correlation
- ● Simple and Multiple Linear Regression
- ● Time Series Analysis
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| ECO903 |
Introduction to Finance and Accounting |
5 |
The module focuses on the fundamentals of finance and accounting. It prepares you for advanced knowledge of electives and real-life applications.
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- ● Time value of money
- ● Fundamentals of portfolio construction, mean-variance framework, capital allocation and optimization with multiple assets
- ● Fixed income securities
- ● Introduction to derivatives
- ● Fundamentals of accounting
- ● Financial analysis techniques
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| ECO904 |
Game Theory and Strategy |
5 |
Strategic interactions are pervasive in all walks of life. This module aims to systematically study these strategic interactions, focusing on their applications in Businesses and Public Policy.
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- ● Tales of Strategy and Basic Ideas: Choice, Chance, and Strategic Moves
- ● Sequential games and Simultaneous Moves: Making Strategies Credible
- ● Interpreting and Manipulating Information
- ● Applications: Voting, Auction, Adverse Selection, and Signaling
- ● Mechanism Design
- ● Cooperative Games and Bargaining
- ● Using Game Theory to Shape Strategy and Other Case Studies
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| ECO905 |
Money and Banking |
5 |
The module aims to provide a broad understanding of the different instruments of money markets and banking operations.
The module will help the participants develop an interest in the banking sector and short-term money market operations.
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- ● Overview of the Indian financial system
- ● Money and its forms
- ● Banking sector
- ● Interest rate analysis
- ● Central bank and monetary policy
- ● Financial regulation
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| ECO906 |
Global Economy and International Finance |
5 |
This course examines the economics of international markets, and how international considerations affect financial economic models. The objective is to equip students, policy makers and decision makers with the analytical tools needed to make informed financial decisions and to create awareness of issues that arise in today’s competitive global environment.
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- ● Globalization and International Trade
- ● Foreign Exchange Market
- ● Forward Markets and Exchange Risk
- ● Balance of Payments
- ● Exchange Rate Systems
- ● Interest Rate Parity Conditions
- ● Exchange Rate Determination
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| ECO907 |
Applied Macroeconomics |
5 |
The course provides tools to analyze economies subject to macroeconomic influences, both foreign and domestic. The focus is on developing insights to aid in sensible policy advice as well as investment decisions.
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- ● Real Economic Activity
- ● Inflation, Relative Prices and Expectations
- ● Monetary Policy and Accounts
- ● Fiscal Systems
- ● Financial Stability
- ● External Accounts
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| ECO908 |
Applied Corporate Finance |
5 |
This module provides an in-depth understanding of some of the critical topics in corporate finance, and it is also an extension to ECO903.
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- ● Basics of corporate finance
- ● Capital Budgeting
- ● Stock valuation
- ● Return and Risk through systematic risk models
- ● Cost of capital
- ● Long-term financing
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| ECO909 |
Economics of Platforms |
5 |
Digital platforms such as Amazon, Zomato, Uber, Netflix and Facebook have become an essential part of our life.
This course is an attempt to systematically study the economics of these platforms, emphasizing their applications
in Public Policy and Businesses.
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- ● What are Platforms?
- ● The Role of Ratings and Recommendations
- ● A Primer on Network Goods
- ● Platform or Not Platforms?
- ● Platform Pricing
- ● Platform Design
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| ECO910 |
Machine Learning Applications |
5 |
This course will cover advanced Machine Learning (ML) algorithms for Economics, Finance and Public Policy. A variety of Machine Learning tools such as the Linear Regression, Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machines, Discriminant Analysis and several others will be studied followed by their rigorous analysis.
Another important aspect of the program is to study data pre-processing techniques such as Principal Component Analysis for feature selection. Furthermore, other schemes will also be discussed for clustering, such as K-means, Probabilistic Clustering, Naïve Bayes and Decision Tree Classifiers.
It is also intended to cover algorithms from modern Probabilistic Inference, Online Learning and Probabilistic Graphical Models to comprehensively analyze their performance. These will involve concepts such as Likelihood Maximization, Bayesian Learning and Independent Component Analysis.
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- ● Linear Models:
- Linear Regression
- Logistic Regression
- ● Classification & Analysis:
- Support Vector Machines
- Linear Discriminant Analysis
- Naive Bayes
- Decision Tree Classifiers (DTC)
- ● Clustering Techniques:
- K-Means
- Probabilistic Clustering
- ● Data Preprocessing:
- Principal Component Analysis
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| ECO911 |
Advanced Financial Econometrics |
5 |
The primary objective of this course is to equip the students with various tools and techniques and their applications for better understanding and investment decisions. Through this course, the students will develop an ability to analyze the data by applying appropriate quantitative methods.
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● Overview of financial econometrics, statistical foundations:
- Data, the data, descriptive statistics and data summary, visualizing and describing data
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● Role of linear regression in financial data modeling:
- Assumptions, violations, diagnostics, two-stage procedures
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● Introduction to time series:
- Autocorrelation and forecasting techniques
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● Fixed effects and random effects:
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● Logit, Probit, Tobit and other variants and their applications
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● Monte Carlo simulations:
- Variance reduction techniques, bootstrapping and random number generation
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| ECO912 |
Probability and Stochastic Systems |
5 |
An understanding of probability is critical to study a world replete with randomness and uncertainty. This course will give students tools needed to understand data, economics and finance. Students will learn not only how to solve challenging technical problems but also be exposed to various ways in which probability is applied in the real world.
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- ● Probability
- ● Random Variables
- ● Limit Theorems
- ● Markov Chains and Poisson Processes
- ● Statistical Inference
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| ECO914 |
Contemporary Issues in the Indian Economy |
5 |
The primary aim of this module is to equip the students with the knowledge of how the Indian economy functions. Basic concepts will be explained, along with exposure to relevant data. Policy implications will be discussed keeping in mind the latest developments in the Indian scenario.
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● Introduction to basic macroeconomic indicators of the Indian economy
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● Budget analysis and fiscal frameworks
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● Sectoral understanding
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● Monetary and financial developments
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● Socio-economic analysis
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● External outlook
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| ECO915 |
Program Evaluation |
5 |
This course aims to equip the participants with principles and techniques for causal inference in social science. These tools and techniques find wide application in policy evaluation. This is particularly useful to the bureaucrats and industry experts involved in the grassroots-level monitoring and implementation of public policies.
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● Overview of Causal Inference
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● Foundations of Randomized Control Trial (RCTs)
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● Non-randomized designs (IV and DID)
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● Further topics (RDD, Synthetic control)
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| ECO916 |
Public Finance |
5 |
The module covers different dimensions of public finance and is expected to provide a practical understanding of public finance from policy making to its implications. The model answers the why and how of public finance.
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● Basics about public finance:
- Understanding key terms: decentralization, taxes, deficits and debts, interventions, and regulatory role of the government
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● Utility maximization techniques:
- Utility mapping and budget constraints, social welfare and social inefficiencies, and competitive equilibrium
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● Understanding relevant quant models in public finance
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● Introduction to government budgeting:
- Fiscal rules, cash vs capital accounting, static vs dynamic scoring, short-run and long-run aspects of government
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● Externality theory:
- Negative and positive aspects, public sector remedies to externalities, approaches of handling externalities, public goods – public and private provisions
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● Foundations of political economy:
- Lindhal pricing, preference aggregation, voter models, basics of public choice and fiscal federalism
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| ECO917 |
Project I |
5 |
Project I |
- ● Capstone Project:Capstone Project
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| ECO918 |
Innovation Systems and Policy |
5 |
The course will delve into what it takes to develop a national innovation ecosystem— to make firms competitive at world-scale, move away from low technology to high-end technology, invest higher in R&D, public funding of research for private sector, using Indian demand as a leverage for innovation, prioritizing research in higher education system through Governmental funding, creating and leveraging large scale high-quality researchers.
The course also studies existing policy frameworks for innovation including the Nation S&T Policy, Startup India, Digital India and Make in India Programmes, Atal Innovation Mission and the gaps in the current National Innovation System. The course would also delve into innovation and technology demands of high tech areas of current interest including Semiconductors, Artificial Intelligence, Quantum, Minerals and Blue Economy. The Course will use Case Studies and practical experiences from the field to create insights and understandings.
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● Breaking the Middle Income Trap through Innovation:
- Middle Income Trap; Moving from service to innovation led economy; Firm as a focal point of Innovation
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● Theoretical Perspectives:
- Blue Ocean-Red Ocean Strategy; Disruption Theory (Clay Christensen), Porter’s 5 forces of innovation and other theoretical frameworks
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● Innovation Systems - Global Perspectives:
- Learnings from experiences of other countries (Japan, South Korea, China, US and others)
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● India tasters innovation:
- India’s successes in innovation IT, Healthcare and Biotech, Defense Case Study: Aadhaar, UPI, DEPA Case Study: iDEX
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● Government Policies and Innovation:
- Leveraging India’s Innovation Policy Framework - Make in India, Digital India, Startup India, Fund of Funds, Other Funding Programmes, Atal Innovation Mission, National S&T Policy, Venture Capital funds, Data sharing and open data initiative, tax structure and incentives, Government procurement etc.
- Case Study: Map Policy and the Drone Rules
- Case Study: Medical devices regulation - approval of Indian designed ventilator
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● Technology trends and Innovation for leadership in emerging technologies:
- Why Critical and Emerging Technologies are important? Innovation in semiconductor, Artificial Intelligence, UAV, Quantum computing, Critical minerals and Deep Ocean technologies
- Case study: India Semiconductor Initiative
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● Innovation: Intellectual Property:
- Protection of Intellectual Property, Balancing openness and protection. Case Study: Mission Raksha Gyanshakti
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● Developing National Innovation Ecosystem:
- Product Policy Framework Higher Education
- Human Resource Development and Jobs
- Financial Markets and Venture Capital Regulatory framework
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| ECO919 |
How to Read an Economy’s Report-card |
5 |
We encounter news on macroeconomic concepts like GDP, inflation, unemployment etc. every day in the newspapers and magazines of general interest. The objective of this course is to introduce students to look at macroeconomic data critically. Students will be introduced to the key macroeconomic concepts, followed by demonstration of the corresponding data. By the end of the course, students should be able to read and critically assess news pieces concerning macroeconomic concepts and articles from The Economist, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times etc.
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- ● State of the economy
- ● Money, monetary policy, interest rates.
- ● Fiscal policy
- ● The external sector
- ● Social sectors and employment
- ● Inequality and poverty
- ● Institutions
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| ECO920 |
Public Policy and Implementation in Indian Context |
5 |
The module introduces students to the theoretical constructs of public policy and illustrates how it is applied in India with case studies relevant to India. The objective of this analytical course is to prepare students for critical evaluation of public policy issues and to make them informed participants in the related constructive dialogue.
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● Basic Concepts of Public Policy
- Key definitions, features and objectives
- Types and examples of policies
- Main actors/stakeholders
- Public policy cycle
- Key features of good policy making process
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● Checks and Balances among Roles of Different Stakeholders and Institutions
- Legislation
- Government programs and schemes
- Rules and regulations
- Court orders/judgements
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● Agenda Setting
- Decision making processes
- Agenda setting
- Analysis of policy options
- Political agenda
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● Policy Implementation
- Feedback and policy modifications
- Formulation of policy
- Successes and failures of policy implementation
- Examples of good policy bad implementation and good policy good implementation
- Importance of lessons learned during implementation
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● Case Study: Rural Sanitation
- Case of evolving policy, evidence-based policy making, how feedback from field was used to continuously improve the policy to achieve the desired goals
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● Case Study: Aadhaar
- Design of a unique organizational structure
- Implementability - important guiding principles in various initiatives taken by the Aadhaar project
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● Case studies on checks and balances
- SC intervention in vaccination case (executive decision under scrutiny of judiciary)
- ECI appointment case (judicial decision overturned by legislature)
- Prakash Singh case (executive decisions changed by judiciary)
- Missing children case (ensuring implementation of existing laws by executive through judicial scrutiny)
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● Case study on agenda setting
- How an issue gets onto the political agenda
- Example of Chipko movement and focus on environmental issues
- Example of climate change and sustainability initiatives at global level: MDGs, SDGs, Paris agreement
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