COURSES OF STUDIES SYLLABUS

COURSES OF STUDIES (SYLLABUS)

M.A. (Previous) & M.A. (Final) Examinations in

ECONOMICS

For External Candidates

M.A. Economics (Previous)

Paper I	Micro Economics	Compulsory
Paper II	Public Finance	Compulsory
Paper III	Advanced Economic Statistics	Compulsory
Paper IV	Economics of Planning	Compulsory
Paper V-A	Economics of Agriculture	Optional
Paper V-B	National Income Analysis & Accounting	Optional
Paper V-C	Mathematical Economics	Optional
Paper V-D	Comparative Economics Systems	Optional
Paper V-E	Economics of Islam	Optional

M.A. Economics (Final)

Paper I	Macro Economics	Compulsory
Paper II	International Economics	Compulsory
Paper III	Monetary Economics	Compulsory
Paper IV-A	History of Economic Thought	Optional
Paper IV-B	Economics of Labour	Optional
Paper IV-C	Econometrics	Optional
Paper IV-D	Development Economics	Optional
Paper IV-E	Management Economics	Optional
Paper V	Essay	Compulsory

Notes:

1. The previous examinations consist of five papers. Papers I to IV are compulsory and one optional from Paper V.
2. The final examinations consist of five papers. Paper I to III and V are compulsory and one optional from Paper IV.
3. Each paper shall be of 100 marks and of 3 hours' duration.

M.A. ECONOMICS (PREVIOUS)

PAPER I

MICRO ECONOMICS

1. Utility and preferences

A survey of the contribution of Utilitarian Economists. Marshall’s theory of utility. Pareto and indifference curves. The ordinal character of utility – Need for a theory consistently based upon ordinal concept of utility. Marginal rate of substitution. Diminishing marginal rate of substitution

Preference in a two-commodity world. Choice in a two-commodity world. Changes in the data (budget changes ) (price changes ). Three or more commodities. One commodity and money. The validity of this theory. Demand curves and various elasticities.

2. General equilibrium of exchange

• Rational economics and equilibrium. Quesnay's Tableau Economique. The Classics: Marshall and J.B. Clark. Functional equilibrium, genetic, causal equilibrium. Pareto’s system as basis of study.
• Problems of general equilibrium. Conditions of stability of general equilibrium. Character of Hicksian conditions of stability. Equilibrium and disequilibrium.

3. Value

A survey of the contributions of economists towards value theory – Classical, neo-classical, up-to-date background of value theories. Place of prices in a modern economy.

4. Market structures and equilibrium

Equilibrium of the firm and industry under perfect competition. Monopolistic competition. Monopoly and all its aspects. Oligopoly with its problems and solutions.

5. Introduction to game theory

An introduction to game theory

6. The theory of factor prices

Marginal productivity theory. Wages: theories & problems. Interest: theories & problems. Profit: theories. Rent: theories.

7. Welfare Economics

PAPER II

PUBLIC FINANCE

PART I

Government Activities and Expenditure

1. Role of government in an economy
   Basic economic decisions. The market economic and the attainment of economic goals. The consideration which have led to the understanding of government activity.

2. Optimum levels of government activities
   Application of the marginal rule. Use of price system by government. Measure of community benefits. Estimation and measurement of costs and benefits. Use of optimum techniques.
3. Government expenditure
   Patterns and trends (with special reference to Pakistan). Major purposes in government expenditures. Causes of real increases in government expenditures. Effects and policies of government expenditures.
4. Financing of government expenditures
   Sources of government revenues:
   Sale of goods and services. Taxation, borrowing. Developments and nature of principal taxation.
   Taxation of income:
   Income tax deductions and exemption. Income tax rate structure and tax administration – the time period problem – economic consequences of income shifting and incidence – sales taxation.

PART II

Government Borrowing and Fiscal Policy:

Economics of government borrowing. Introduction to fiscal policy and analysis. Anti-inflationary fiscal policy. Fiscal policy and unemployment, debit management in periods of inflation.

PART III

Budget and Modern Government

Development of modern budgeting. Budget classification. Specialised budget problems. Three objective of budget policy – the allocation branch – the distribution branch and the stabilisation branch.

PAPER III

ADVANCED ECONOMIC STATISTICS

1. Historical development of statistics. The scope of economic statistics, misuse of statistics, collection, classification tabulation and interpretation of data. Census of population and agriculture, methods f measuring national income
2. Importance of diagrams and graph bars, sub-divided rectangles, circles, graphs of time series and frequency distributions, histograms, frequency polygon and curve, cumulative, frequency curve, percentage frequency curve, Lorenz curve, Pareto's law of income distribution
3. Measures and dispersion, co-efficient of variation, relative importance of different averages.
4. Idea of normal curve and its importance properties.
5. Measures of the shape of distribution: First four moments, Sheppard's correction, skewness, and symmetry, calculation of coefficient of skewness, kurtosis.
6. Coefficient of correlation: Calculation of the coefficients of correlation of grouped and ungrouped data. Rank correlation and idea of non-linear regression.
7. Index numbers, weighted index number, Fisher's ideal formula tests of index numbers. Cost of living numbers.
8. Analysis of time series, methods for measuring short time oscillation
9. Regression: Method of least squares. Fitting a straight line and a parabolic curve of the type y = a + bx & y = ab – x + cx². Theory of sampling, random, stratified, multi-stage and purposive sampling.
10. Sampling distribution, standard error and probable error. Sample illustration theory of probability.
11. Interpolation by the use of lag range and Newton's formula. Use of logarithms and practice on Newton's formulae.

PAPER IV

ECONOMICS OF PLANNING

1. Principles of Planning:

1. Theories of economic development and their application.
2. Definition and techniques of planning
3. instruments of planning and role of various policy variables.

2. Evaluation of planning for the acceleration of development process.

1. Development experience in Western European countries
2. Development experience in socialist countries
3. Development experience in under developed countries

3. Patterns of development planning

1. Indicative planning, socialist planning and comprehensive planning in a mixed economy
2. Annual planning, five-year planning and perspective planning.

4. Preparation of development plan in an underdeveloped economy

1. Assessment of country's resources
2. Minimum of country's resources
3. Need for foreign assistance
4. Plan strategy and target consistency
5. Sectoral allocations and interdependence
6. Input-output exercise

5. Implementation of a development plan

1. Private sector:
   Guidelines and government policies with special reference to fiscal, monetary and foreign trade policies
2. Public sector:
   (i) Financing of the public sector development project via:
   (a) Taxation
   (b) Inflation, and
   (c) Foreign aid

(ii) Public sector expenditure on:

(a) Infrastructure
(b) Social service, and
(c) Commodity production

6. Evaluation of planning experience with special reference to:

1. Targets vs. achievements
2. Agriculture vs. industry
3. Public vs. private sector
4. Balanced vs. unbalanced growth
5. Growth vs. distribution

PART II

Planning in Pakistan

• Evaluation of planning process in Pakistan
• Objectives and techniques of planning. Use of models in programming.
• National resources and targets for national plans
• Price structure: choice of policy instructions
• The role of public and private sector
• Estimation of capital requirements
• Sources of capital formation
• Public and private sector, foreign capital inflow
• Method of allocation of investment resources
• Obstacles arising for investment choices sectoral constency
• Strategies of growth, balance of payment and foreign aid
• Manpower resources and its utilisation
• Regional balance

PAPER V-B

NATIONAL INCOME ANALYSIS AND ACCOUNTING

PART 1

1. Introduction
   Macro vs. micro economics. Static vs. dynamic concepts. Micro-economic equilibrium. Analysis and techniques
2. National income concepts

• Real and money income
• Circular flow of income, its components
• Ways of calculating national income
• Gross and net product

3. Conceptual problems in the estimation of national income

• Products to be included
• Final and intermediate products
• Valuation of the production

4. Accounting framework and national income aggregate

• Income and production statement of the firm
• Sector account: National income aggregate as:

1. GNP and GNI
2. NNP at market price
3. GNP and income
4. NNI at factor cost and National Income
5. Personal income and outlay
6. Disposable income

• Their definitions and uses for comparative analysis

1. Structural
2. Comparative analysis
3. Over space

• Criticism of national income accounting

5. Other system of economic accounting

• Input-output techniques, analytical consideration and form of input-output accounting table, uses of analysis based on input-output relationship.
• Flow of fund accounting, rational of accounting procedure, system of sector account & uses.
• Use of national income analysis for changes in:

1. Population
2. Production
3. Productivity
4. Prices
5. Employment

PART II

6. National Accounting System of Pakistan

• Methods of national income estimates in Pakistan.
• Identification of problems and suggested solution

PART III

7. Component of National Aggregate:

• Simple income determinations multiplier
• Factor affecting consumption expenditure
• Federal policy and income consumption expenditure
• Government expenditure, taxation, the equilibrium level of income.
• Level of investment
• Discounting and the present value of an asset. The inducement to invest.
• Factors affecting investment in spending
• Money and interest
• Interest and investment
• General equilibrium
• Level of employment

1. Factor's market and classical doctrine
2. Keynesian economics and the level of employment
3. Money wages rates employment. Full employment

M.A. ECONOMICS (FINAL)

PAPER I

MACRO ECONOMICS

1. Development of macro-economics. Micro economics vs. Macro economics
2. The classical macro economics
   Say's law and quantity theory – Wages, prices. Employment and production. Savings, investment and the role of interest. Wicksell's formulation and monetary and fiscal policy.
3. The Keynesian macro economics
   Obstacles of full employment. Liquidity preference significance. The liquidity trap. Monetary management and the role of interest. The consumption function. Short run consumption behaviour, other influences on consumption spending. Keynesian model and its application. Comparison of Keynesian and Classical models.
4. Equilibrium
   Income, output and employment – systems and effects of changes in price level.
5. Acceleration and multiplier
   Working of acceleration, its efficiency effects and coefficient. Static and dynamic multi sector multiplier, employment and foreign trade multipliers.
6. Growth and fluctuation
   Growth, investment and employment. Stagnation or exhilaration. Cyclical fluctuations.
7. Employment policy
   Changes in monetary and fiscal policies, effect on investment limitation and alternative policies. Static and dynamic multi sector multiplier, employment and foreign trade multiplier.

PAPER II

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS

1. Evolution of international trade theory: from Ricardo to Haberler. Measurement of cost to assess gain from trade.
2. Pure theory international trade
   Supply: The derivation of the transformation curve from the production function. Factor-price equalisation.
   Demand: The offer-curves and their derivation from trade indifference curves. Consumption pattern and trade. Foreign trade multiplier.
   Terms of trade: Various concepts, their role in measuring gain from trade. Factors affecting terms of trade of advances and developing countries.
   Trade and welfare: Trade as instrument of welfare under multilateralism and various restrictive variants.
   Trade and economic growth: Trade and growth. Different implication of these inter-relationships for specialised economics. Diversification of the economy for increased growth.
3. Balance of payments (Changes and their adjustment)
   The balance of payments statement. Elements in the adjustment process. Elasticities and propensities of trade. The working of price and income effects in the payment mechanism. Interrelation between monetary and fiscal policies and prices income changes. Discriminatory trade and payment restrictions and balance of payments adjustment. Concept of balance of payments in the short and long terms. Variation in payments. Disequilibria in industrialised and developing economies. Gold standard and the payment mechanism.
4. International investment and foreign aid
   Foreign exchange: Market short terms and long terms. Capital movements. The transfer process.
   Foreign aid: Change in the concept. Terms and volume of aid. Problems of donor and recipient countries. Absorption capacity and flow of funds.
5. Commercial policy
   Trade restrictions and the structure of world trade since the end of the World War I. Tariffs, quotas, commodity agreements, state tradings, exchange control. These restrictions should be studied from the point of view of their impact on the direction, composition and volume of world trade and its effects on the economic growth and welfare of various regions.
6. International monetary problems and institutions
   Evolution of payment system in Western Europe since the World War II. Payment problems of developing countries. Dollar shortage, its changing character, causes and cure. The position of dollar as reserve currency, its significance for industrialised and under developed countries. Sterling area: its changing role in the postwar period. IMF, World Bank, GATT and other international economic institutions.
7. Regional economic integration
   Customs union issue from Jacob Viner's own words. Attitude of GATT. Regional cooperation in Western Europe. Rational integration and economic development. Regional arrangement in developing areas, with special reference to RCD.

PAPER III

MONETARY ECONOMICS

1. Supply of money

1. Definition of money
2. Process of the creation of money
3. Institutional determinants of supply of money, government, commercial bank, non-banking financial intermediaries (NBFIs) and central bank.

2. Demand of money

1. Classical view
2. Keynesian extensions
3. Recent extensions
4. Chicago school
5. Don Patinkin
6. Gurley Shaw

3. Purchasing power of money

1. The quantity theory of money
2. The fundamental equations
3. The conditions for stability
4. The theories of inflation and deflation

4. Monetary theory
   Integration of real sector with monetary variables:

1. Theory of interest – classical, neo-classical, Keynesian, recent contributions
2. Theory of wages – classical, neo-classical, Keynesian, recent contributions
3. Theory of prices – classical, neo-classical, Keynesian, recent contributions

4. Monetary policy
   Objectives of monetary policy:

1. Price stability
2. Fostering of rapid growth in the economy
3. Generation of employment
4. Maintenance of balance in international payments.

4. Monetary management
   The mechanism and instruments of monetary management:

1. Mechanism of monetary management

1. Interest rate mechanism
2. Availability doctrine
3. Portfolio approach

2. Tools of monetary management

1. Re-discount rate
2. Open market operations
3. Reserve requirements
4. Selective credit controls

4. External value of money

1. Gold standard
2. Purchasing power parity theory
3. Balance of payments theory
4. Manipulation of exchange rules

4. International liquidity

1. International Monetary Fund (IMF)
2. International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)
3. International Development Association
4. International Finance Corporation
5. Need for an international currency

4. Monetary management in Pakistan

PAPER IV-A

HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHTS

A history of the following main schools of thought and main lines of development since about 1700 till about 1960. mercantilism. Classical physiocrats. Historical socialist and marginal utility schools. Marshallian economics. Growth of welfare economics. Stockholm school and monetary theory. Neoclassical school and theory of imperfect competition and consumer behaviour. Growth in the theories of business cycles and international trade. Monetary theory up to 1936. the new economics and J.M. Keynes.

PAPER IV-B

ECONOMETRICS

1. Introduction to the theory of econometrics. An outline of procedure and main discoveries.
2. Elements of matrix algebra, matrices, determinants, vectors and vector differentiations, characteristic roots and vectors.
3. Errors in Variables

• The two-variable linear case
• The classical approach
• Prediction problems
• Grouping of observations
• Use of instrumental variables

4. Auto Correlation

• The two-variable case
• Consequences of auto-correlated disturbances
• Generalised least squares
• Estimation methods
• Prediction problems
• Multicollinarity
• Hetroscedasticity
• Lagged variables, dummy variables.

5. Simultaneous equation problems

• Simultaneous equation system
• Identification
• Limited information sign equation (LISE)
• Lease variance ratio (LVR)
• Two stage least squares
• k-class estimator
• Tests of identifying restrictions
• Full informations maximum likelihood (FIML)
• Three-stage least squares.

6. Technical economic relations

• Micro-economic cost curves
• Technical development

7. Econometric model

• The description of complete systems
• The movements of complete systems
• The purpose and logic of economic policy.

PAPER IV-E

MANAGEMENT ECONOMICS

PART I

1. Unified concept of management

Planning, organisation, coordination, motivation, control

2. The organisational hierarchy

The board of directors, the chief executive, the supervisor

3. Departmentation

Basic departmentation, the assignment of activities

4. Staff and line relationship
5. Centralisation and decentralisation
6. Problems of management

PART II

1. Product strategy

Opportunities for multiple products. Policy on adding new products. Policy on dropping old products.

2. Pricing strategy

Pricing lasting products. Pricing perishable products. Pricing standard when competitors are few. Cost plus pricing. Cyclical pricing. Product line pricing.

3. Promotional strategy

The economics of advertising. Methods of determining total advertising budget. Cyclical fluctuations of advertising. Measuring economic effects of advertising.

4. Introduction to operational research and managements

Linear programming. Queueing theory, critical path scheduling and PERT analysis. Theory of games. Dynamic programming and replacement. Policy ranking techniques simulations.

5. Problems of management in underdeveloped countries
6. Project evaluation

Public investment. Private investment.

7. Business structure and management methods in Pakistan

PAPER V

ESSAY

The paper shall comprise all the subject taught as compulsory and optional papers at the M.A. Economics examinations in the University of Karachi.

Please refer to the original 'Courses of Studies' (Syllabus) issued by University of Karachi for the books prescribed and for the syllabus of other optional subjects, which are not listed here