BA in Economics
An understanding of everyday lives and activities that produce and reproduce livelihood and social structures.
Introduction
Economics is an attempt to understand everyday lives, a study of how people interact with each other and the natural environment to produce and reproduce their livelihoods. It is about the various sorts of social dealings that create, coordinate and maintain the structures of our lives: markets, states or social norms. Some of its questions attempt to understand how human beings cooperate and work together, why productive activity takes different forms, and why labour, which we all do in different ways, are treated with different values.
A well-trained economist needs to hone sensibilities and capacities to understand and improve the workings of these facets of life by understanding ideas and concepts that are abstract and technical.
Our programme is designed to provide a strong understanding of the Indian economy, economic theory, tools of analysis and practical application of these skills to current economic issues. We help you make connections between the minute details and larger ideas.
We believe that an understanding of history and philosophical approaches will enable you to think actively about the social and political present.
Core Econ
Our Economics team is part of a group of international institutions that include the Institute for New Economic Thinking (New York) and Sciences Po-Paris that contribute to CoreEcon, which is dedicated to developing an innovative undergraduate Economics curriculum. The CORE project has produced a new introductory undergraduate textbook that will be provided free globally and used by many leading universities in the world. Leading Economists from all over the world have contributed to writing the book.
Living on campus
We believe that learning happens both inside and outside the classroom. In living together, you can meet and encounter diverse people from different social and cultural backgrounds and experiences. Our campus has a range of activities from discussion groups to sports and clubs for our students and faculty to interact with each other and build meaningful relationships over their years of study.
Know more about the Bengaluru campus here.
Know more about Azim Premji University at Bhopal here.
WE BRING YOU INTERDISCIPLINARY OPENNESS
Our degree encourages you to explore and follow your interests. We design our courses to ensure that you can specialise in a subject of your choice while learning a variety of subjects across disciplines.
A COMMON CURRICULUM FOR ALL STUDENTS
You will meet all your classmates at the beginning of your degree to build all the tools you need for your three years of study. This includes foundational courses, an understanding of India, interdisciplinary studies, and a workshop in creative expressions.
WE OFFER ACADEMIC ASSISTANCE
We provide active academic assistance and ensure that you are able to meet the requirements of the academic programme to fulfil your aspirations.
WE ENSURE FINANCIAL SUPPORT
We ensure that no student has to drop out of university because of financial trouble or social disadvantage. We provide financial assistance to deserving students.
Image credit: Dr Sharmadip Basu
Course structure
Our programme ensures that you understand important economic theories, concepts, and tools. You will be able to identify and describe important real-world economic actors and institutions, including those involved in policy-making. We take you through interesting economic issues or problems for which evidence can be evaluated and help you analyse them.
Please visit this page to learn more about our four-year undergraduate programmes.
The Common Curriculum will introduce students to the study of the themes and areas that emphasise and build critical and analytical abilities, and sensibilities for dialogue, reflection and cooperative learning. The Common Curriculum has three sub-components organised as below:
Foundations: Build capacity for critical thinking, reasoning and communication.
Understanding India: India’s history, society and possible futures
Creative Expressions: Explore music, visual art, theatre, dance, martial arts, yoga, pottery, sport, and other creative areas.
How the economy works, why it sometimes does not work well for everyone involved, and how it changes.
History of Economic Thought
Core
Where do current theories of modern economics come from?
Indian Economy
Core
Multiple perspectives on the Indian economy.
Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory
Core
Why do economies grow? How does inflation happen?
Intermediate Microeconomic Theory
Core
Do individuals calculate their actions to suit consequences? Are individual’s choices purely self-interested? How do individual behaviours affect social institutions? And how can policies take heed to these behaviours?
Introduction to Econometrics
Core
What economic, social and political questions can we answer using data? What can we know using simple trends and summary statistics? It turns out, quite a lot!
Introduction to Economics I
Core
Understand "real-world" problems through key economic concepts.
Introduction to Economics II
Core
How does the Indian economy work, and how has it changed over the course of the 20th century?
Introduction to statistics and programming
Core
An introduction to formal statistical approaches used by economists in analysing real world problems by the use of computer programmes.
Political Economy
Core
Why, in the 21st century, are some workers still not entitled to bathroom breaks?
Survey of World Economic History
Core
Why were a handful of European countries able to impose themselves on the rest of the globe and what have the consequences been?
You can choose from a wide variety of topics covering the diversity of economics as a discipline in the last three semesters of your programme.
Electives introduce economic theory and methods, theoretical perspectives, and historical context for theories.
You can also choose from an interdisciplinary set of courses to train you in mathematical reasoning and writing for economics. You can choose two courses from mathematics, biology, philosophy and history.
Applied Game Theory
Elective
How did cooperation evolve? Why do stereotypes persist? Why are degrees considered so important? Why do political parties hold rallies
Computational Economics
Elective
This course seeks to develop core competencies in programming in Python and data manipulation and analysis.
Economics and Ethics
Elective
How do economists tackle open-ended questions about welfare, equality, justice and freedom?
Feminist Economics
Elective
How do gender differences determine social outcomes?
Growth Theory and Policy
Elective
Core aspects of growth theories in economic thought.
Indian and Chinese Economic Development in Comparative Perspective
Elective
Introduction to Climate Change Economics
Elective
Understand climate change through an economic lens
Labour Economics
Elective
Who does work? What kinds of work are there? How does this matter for the economy?
Microeconomic Aspects of Economic Development
Elective
This course discusses various aspects of microeconomics of development using both theoretical and empirical evidence from the literature.
Money, Banking and Financial Markets
Elective
This course seeks to prepare students to better understand money, balance sheets and the particular institutions of the financial world.
Structural Change, Growth and Economic Development
Elective
Why is India’s economy still predominantly agricultural?
Students must be prepared for the world of work at the end of the programme should they choose to enter it. We aim to provide the required skills and competencies for this through a Minor featuring courses in an Occupational or Interdisciplinary theme. These sets of courses are aimed to provide both conceptual understanding and skills and tools that will allow students to contribute through work and further study.
Students can opt for a minor in any one of the indicative areas listed below:
- Education
- Media and Journalism
- Data and Democracy
- Sports and Fitness
- Climate Studies
- Arts
The selection of these indicative areas is based on the availability of courses and our evaluation of the student’s interests and academic needs. For each cohort, a final list of available courses will be announced at the end of their second semester.
Students can craft their own educational experience by selecting courses in the following ways:
- Students will have the option to take additional courses in their Disciplinary major
- Interdisciplinary minor that will enable them for their further higher studies or career pathways.
These courses could also be selected to enhance and broaden their
- Language skills and Quantitative reasoning capacities/programming skills
- Understanding of themes outside their Major subject
You can work closely with a faculty member on a specific topic, and develop a research question to write up a thesis.
To choose this path, you have to have completed credits from classroom courses and a project.
Total 12 credits
