Your written assignment will be an essay selected from the provisional titles below and must comply with the general instructions for the submission of assignments. It must be submitted on the date as stated in the course calendar. Failure to comply with this instruction may result in a reduction of the overall grade. Your essay should be 2500 words in length (excluding any tables and diagrams). Please note that your assignment will be down-graded for excessive quoting, the absence of a bibliography, and unreasonable length. The questions should be addressed from an economic view point.
The assignment titles will be related closely to one or more newspaper articles, lectures or seminar topics on the programme. The most relevant teaching sessions may occur late on in the programme and so you must keep one eye on the submission date when selecting your assignment.
1) Evaluate whether having its own currency will be in Scotland’s best interest
FT.com August 25, 2014 8:32 pm Three big questions for Scotland
BBC May 2014 Last updated at 16:55 No UK trade benefit from EU membership – Civitas report
BBC 12 September 2013 Last updated at 00:18 Is it 1997 all over again for South East Asia? By Jonathan Head
FT.com May 14 17:36 On the complexities of introducing ScotlandCoin
FT.com The Treasury power play John McDermott Feb 13 14:10 46
FT.com Poles and Hungarians count cost of Swiss franc mortgages By Jan Cienski in Warsaw and Kester Eddy in Budapest November 11, 2013 9:19 pm
FT 8 8 14 Report warn on lack of lender of last resort
Recommended Reading
The Financial Times
Gray D Financial Update 14/15 (2014) Harlow, Essex, Prentice Hall Blackwell’s
Most Other Updates are in the library
Griffiths and Wall Applied Economics, 12th ed., (2012) Harlow, Essex, Prentice Hall
Dicken Global Shift 6th edition (2011) Sage: London
plus
Sloman Hinde Garratt Business Economics, 5th ed., (2010) Harlow, Essex, Prentice Hall.
Begg D, Fischer S and Dornbusch R Economics 9th ed., (2008) McGraw-Hill
A thematic approach focusing on competition and the market may be followed, illustrating the complexities and challenges posed for enterprises by a global market environment. The following topic areas could be addressed:
International Trade
The law of comparative advantage; Heckscher-Ohlin
New theories of international trade; Porter’s competitive advantage of a nation
Economic integration and aspects of trade
Free trade areas; Customs Unions; WTO and protectionism.
International financial flows.
Exchange rate systems; Balance of payments constraint hypothesis
The international firm and international finance.
Direct Foreign Investment and its effects on host countries. New International Division of Labour, Development vs. dependency; Outsourcing and competitive advantage
The industrial context for contemporary business issues
Explanations of structural change, Long waves and restructuring, Economic performance and industrial structure. Deindustrialisation and changing employment patterns.
Business Structure and Competition
Competing perspectives of competition, the firm and its goals; Value discrepancy hypothesis, Market power hypothesis, Transactions costs
Contemporary issues for Government
Quasi Markets; Regional problems, unemployment and non-employment; Housing markets and inflation; choice, information and rationality