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Monk® Prayogshala®’s Intensive 5-Weekend Certificate Course Curriculum for

Training for the UGC-NET in Economics (Papers II and III)

 

1. MICRO–ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

  • Demand Analysis – Marshallian, Hicksian, and Revealed preference approaches.
  • Theory of Production and Costs; Theory of Firms
  • Pricing (theory of pricing) and output under different forms of market structure: Collusive and non – collusive oligopolies. Monopoly, Monopolistic competition, Duopoly and Oligopoly.
  • Factor Pricing analysis.
  • Elements of general equilibrium and new welfare economics.
  • Elementary idea of cost–benefit analysis.
  • Theory of Demand – Axiomatic approach, Demand functions; Theory of Consumer Behaviour: Consumer behaviour under conditions of uncertainty.
  • Different models of objectives of the firm–Baumol, Morris and Williamson.
  • Microeconomics and Game Theory
  • Theory of Games – Two–person, Zero–sum Game, Pure and Mixed strategy, Saddle point solution, Linear programming and input output analysis.

 

2. MACRO–ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

  • Determination of output and employment – Classical approach, Keynesian approach, post-Keynesian approaches, Consumption hypotheses; Theories of investment and accelerator; Concept of Investment Multiplier
  • Demand for Money – Fisher and Cambridge versions, Approaches of Keynesian, Friedman, Patinkin, Baumol and Tobin.
  • Supply of Money, Money supply, Determinants of money supply, high–powered money, Money multiplier.
  • Phillips Curve analysis.
  • Business cycles – Models of Samuelson, Hicks and Kaldor; Samuelson-Hicks Trade Cycle Model
  • Macro–economic Equilibrium – Relative roles of monetary and fiscal policies.
  • Indian Economy: Money and banking – Concepts of money supply, inflation, monetary policy, and financial sector reforms.
  • Employment and output determination with fixed and flexible prices (IS – LM, Aggregate demand and aggregate supply analysis ).
  • Fleming–Mundell open economy model.
  • Macroeconomics and Business Cycles
  • Static and Dynamic Multiplier and Accelerator,
  • Growth Models – Harrod and Domar, Neoclassical models – Solow, Meade, Kaldor’s Model with technological progress, endogenous growth models.

 

3. GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT, AND PLANNING

  • Economic Growth, Economic Development and sustainable Development – Importance of institutions – Government and markets – Perpetuation of underdevelopment – Vicious circle of poverty, circular causation, structural view of underdevelopment – Measurement of development conventional, HDI and quality of life indices.
  • Theories of Development – Classical, Marx and Schumpeter; Economic Growth – Harrod–Domar model, instability of equilibrium, neoclassical growth – Solow’s model, steady state growth. Approaches to development: Balanced growth, critical minimum effort, big push, unlimited supply of labour, unbalanced growth, low income equilibrium trap.
  • Indicators and measurement of poverty.
  • Importance of agriculture and industry in economic development – choice of techniques and appropriate technology – Investment criteria.
  • Objectives and role of monetary and fiscal policies in economic development; Techniques of planning; Plan Models in India; planning in a market – oriented economy
  • Theories of growth and development – Models of growth of Joan Robinson; Technical Progress – Hicks, Harrod and learning by doing, production function approach to the determinants of growth: Endogenous growth : role of education, research and knowledge – explanation of cross country differentials in economic development and growth.
  • Theories of development and structural analysis of development – Imperfect market paradigm, Lewis model of development, Ranis – Fei model, Dependency theory of development.
  • Factors in economy development – natural resources, population, capital, Human Resource Development and infrastructure.
  • Planning and Economic Development.

 

4. PUBLIC FINANCE

  • Role of the Government in Economic activity – Allocation, distribution and stabilization functions; Private, Public and Merit goods.
  • The Public Budgets – Kinds of Budgets, Zero–base budgeting, different concepts of budget deficits; Public Expenditure – Hypotheses; effects and evaluation.
  • Public Revenue – Different approaches to the division of tax burden, incidence and effects of taxation; Theories of Taxation and Types; elasticity and buoyancy; taxable capacity Public Debt – Sources, effects, burden and its management.
  • Fiscal Federalism – Theory and problems; Problems of Centre–State Financial relations in India; Horizontal and vertical imbalances; the Finance Commissions.
  • Fiscal Policy – Neutral and compensatory and functional finance; balanced budget multiplier.
  • Public finance – Trends in revenue and expenditures of the Central and State Governments, Public debt; analysis of the Union Budget; Budgets of the Union Government in India
  • Theories of public expenditure – effects on savings, investment and growth Burden of public debt.
  • Public Debt – India’s Public debt since 1951 – growth composition, ownership pattern and debt management.
  • Fiscal Policy and Fiscal Reforms in India.

 

5. INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS

  • Theories of International Trade: Empirical verification and Relevance International Trade under Imperfect competition Terms of Trade and Economic Growth; Trade and Aid – International trade as ‘engine of growth’ – Globalization and LDC’s – Secular Deterioration of Terms of Trade Hypothesis – a critical review.
  • Equilibrium/disequilibrium in Balance of Payment – Traditional, Absorption and Monetary approaches for adjustment in the Balance of Payments, Foreign Trade multiplier.
  • Impact of Tariffs, Partial and general equilibrium analysis; Political economy of Non-Tariff Barriers.
  • Theory of regionalism at Global level – Collapse of Bretton–Wood System – Recent Regional blocs – multilateralism and world trading system – evolution and distortion; emerging International Monetary Systems
  • Monetary reforms.
  • Trade Policy and Reforms in India; Foreign trade – Trends, Balance of payments and trade reforms.
  • International trade under conditions of imperfect competition in goods market.
  • Theory of International reserves.
  • Optimum Currency Areas – Theory and impact in the developed and developing countries.
  • WTO and its impact on the different sectors of the economy.
  • Two – gap analysis, Prebisch, Singer and Myrdal views; gains from trade and LDCs.
  • Globalization – Developments in Exchange Markets, Euro – Currency Markets, and International Bond Markets, International Debt crisis.
  • Theory of Foreign Exchange Markets – Exchange Trading, Arbitrage and Market Hedging.
  • Costs, Prices, WTO and Indian Agriculture.
  • Globalization, Liberalization and the Indian Industrial Sector.
  • Trade Reforms and Liberalization.

 

6. STATISTICAL METHODS

  • Measures of Central tendency, dispersion, skewness and kurtosis.
  • Elementary theory of probability – Binomial, Poisson and Normal distributions.
  • Simple correlation and regression analysis.
  • Statistical inferences – Applications, sampling distributions (t, x2 and F tests ) sampling of attributes, testing of Hypothesis.
  • Index numbers and time series analysis.
  • Sampling and census methods, types of sampling and errors.
  • Quantitative Economics
  • Application of Differential and Integral Calculus in theories of consumer behaviour, Production and pricing under different market conditions.
  • Input – output analysis and linear programming.
  • Application of Correlation and Regression.
  • Testing of Hypothesis in Regression Analysis.
  • Econometric Methods
  • Single Equation Linear Model:
  • Assumption and properties of OLS.
  • Multiple Regression Model – Estimation and Interpretation.
  • Multi–collinearity – Auto – correlation and heteroscedasticity – Causes, detection, consequences and remedy.
  • Dummy variables, distributed lags – Need, limitations and interpretation.
  •  Applications in Economics.
  • Simultaneous Equation models:
  • Structural and reduced forms.
  • Endogenous and exogenous variables.
  • Identification problems and conditions.
  • Single equation methods of estimations – TSLS, indirect least squares and least variance ratio.
  • Techniques of Forecasting :
  • ARMA, ARIMA.
  • Econometric properties of time series, Unit root, integrated series, random walk and white noise.

 

7. INDIAN ECONOMY

  • Basic Economic indicators – National income, performance of different sectors; Trends in prices and money supply.
  • Agriculture – Institutional (Land reforms, Green revolution). and technological aspects (Agricultural inputs and shifts in production function), new agricultural policy; Industry – New industrial policy and liberalization.
  • Poverty, unemployment, migration, and environment.
  • Industrial structure and economic growth.
  • Pattern of industrialization – Public and Private; large and small industries.
  • Theories of Industrial location – Indian experience.
  • Industrial productivity – measurement, partial and total trends Industrial Finance in India.
  • Industrial Labour – Problems, policies and reforms in India Economic Reforms and industrial growth.
  • Infrastructure and Economic Development.
  • Agricultural Economics in India
  • Role of Agriculture in Indian Economy – Share of Agriculture, interrelationship between agriculture and industry.
  • Capital formation in the rural sector – Savings, assets and credits.
  • Strategies for rural development.
  • Regional disparities in Indian agriculture.
  • Cooperative movement in India – Organization, structure and development of different types of cooperatives in India.
  • Growth and Productivity trends in Indian Agriculture.
  • Development of distributive institutions – Costs and price policies.
  • Agricultural marketing and credit.
  • Trends in migration and labour markets. Minimum Wages Act.
  • WTO and sustainable agricultural development.
  • Reforms in Indian agriculture.
  • Monetary Economics
  • Components of money supply.
  • Role, constituents and functions of money and capital markets.
  • RBI – recent monetary and credit policies.
  • Commercial banks and co – operative banks.
  • Specialized financial and investment institutions.
  • Non – Bank financial institutions and Regional Rural Banks.
  • Financial sector reforms.

 

8. DEMOGRAPHY

  • Population and Economic development – interrelation between population, development and environment, sustainable development.
  • Malthusian theory of population, Optimum theory of population, theory of demographic transition, population as ‘Limits to Growth’ and as ‘Ultimate Source’.
  • Concepts of Demography – Vital rates, Life tables, composition and uses, Measurement of fertility – Total fertility rate, gross and net reproduction rate – Age pyramids, population projection – stable, stationary and quasi – stationary population; characteristics of Indian population through recent census.
  • Poverty in India – Absolute and relative; analysis of poverty in India.
  • Social Sector, Poverty and Reforms in India.

 

9. ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS

  • Environment as necessity – amenity and public goods; causes of environmental and ecosystem degeneration – policies for controlling pollution – economic and persuasive; their relative effectiveness in LDCs; Relation between population, poverty and environmental degradation – microplanning for environment and eco – preservation – water sheds, joint forest management and self – help groups.
  • Role of State in environmental preservation – Review of environmental legislation in India.
  • Women, Environment and Economic Development.