Behavioural Macroeconomics ECON5156

  • Academic Session: 2025-26
  • School: Adam Smith Business School
  • Credits: 10
  • Level: Level 5 (SCQF level 11)
  • Typically Offered: Semester 2
  • Available to Visiting Students: No
  • Collaborative Online International Learning: No
  • Curriculum For Life: No

Short Description

The course offers a modern treatment of Behavioural Macroeconomics, according to which macroeconomic outcomes are the aggregates of optimising agents' decisions. These agents, however, and contrary to more narrowly economic accounts, are affected by cognitive, psychological and cultural factors in their decision-making process. The course illustrates how, for example, notions of fairness, confidence, representativeness, social structure, herd behaviour, even the salience of stories shared among people, matter for the formation of their expectations and ultimately their decisions. To bring the material to life, the course draws heavily on historical incidents where such factors have been argued to play a significant role in explaining both relatively short-lived and transitory phenomena of the business cycle, as well as phenomena with long-term implications.

The course lectures and assignments are for the most part conceptual. In part of the course, students will be familiarised with foundational versions of epidemic mathematical models to enhance their intuition on topics covered. Such models are very useful with applications in multiple contexts even outside of the course (e.g. in marketing).

Timetable

Lectures: 5x2 hours lectures. These are interactive lectures for which asynchronous activities will be included both during the lecture (e.g., Mentimeter) and for preparation (e.g., online quizzes on Moodle).

Tutorials: 2x2 hours

On campus.

Requirements of Entry

Students must be registered on one of the associated programmes listed in this course specification.

Excluded Courses

None.

Co-requisites

None.

Assessment

ILOs

Assessment

Weighting

Word length/Duration

1,2,3

Online Degree Exam

75%

90 minutes

1,2

Oral Group Presentation

25%

15 minutes

 

Main Assessment In: April/May

Are reassessment opportunities available for all summative assessments? No

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. Where, exceptionally, reassessment on Honours courses is required to satisfy professional/accreditation requirements, only the overall course grade achieved at the first attempt will contribute to the Honours classification. For non-Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

 

Normally, the group-based assessment listed above cannot be reassessed.

Course Aims

The course aims to

■ Introduce key cognitive, psychological and cultural factors relevant for the macroeconomy, and to 

■ Highlight their importance for real-world economic outcomes, both for the business cycle and long-term growth. 

Intended Learning Outcomes of Course

By the end of this course students will be able to:

1. Explain the role of key cognitive, psychological and cultural factors for the macroeconomy

2. Examine the role of such factors in specific historical contexts

3. Solve mathematical models describing such factors 

Minimum Requirement for Award of Credits

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.