Unit name | Communicating Economics |
---|---|
Unit code | EFIM30049 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | H/6 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
Unit director | Professor. Spielmann |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
For 19/20
For 20/21 onwards |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | School of Economics |
Faculty | Faculty of Social Sciences and Law |
Economists need to be able to communicate their expert analysis and advice to different audiences, via a range of media. In this unit, students will explore the challenges of communicating a technical and quantitative subject – and how to overcome them.
The course will run as a series of interactive sessions. Students will reflect on how to communicate economic knowledge and will gain hands-on experience in how to use different media (including writing economic briefs and blogs, making videos and producing infographics) to communicate messages to decision-makers and wider public audiences. External speakers will provide advice and experience.
The unit aims to:
The course trains students to communicate complex economic ideas to different non-specialist audiences.
By the end of the course, students will
14 x 2-hour workshops
Interactive workshops that will offer a mix of reflective workshops and skills sessions.
This unit is assessed by 100% summative coursework.
Students will be assessed on a portfolio that might include the following:
There is no single textbook for this course.
Students will be required to read and communicate the findings from research papers and will be offered a range of papers to choose from.
A reading list will also contain useful information and guides for how to communicate. The following are illustrative of the type of materials:
https://www.communicatingeconomics.com
Blastland, M. and Dilnot, A. (2007) The Tiger that Isn’t: Seeing Through a World of Numbers
McCloskey, D (2019): Economical Writing, third edition
Rodrik, D. (2015) Economics rules
Fourcade, M., Ollion, E. and Y. Algan (2015) The superiority of economists, Journal of Economic Perspectives
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/
https://www2.deloitte.com/tl/en/pages/finance/articles/weekly-economicbriefing.