Quantitative Methods, 7.5 credits

In order to explain relationships between various economic phenomena and to foresee what is going to happen in the future economists use models. For example, a model of a market shows the relationships between supply, demand and price and also how price is affected if demand and/or supply changes. Although most models can be described verbally, they can normally be represented more precisely in graphical or mathematical form. This implies that mathematics is an important tool in order to apply the economic models. Therefore, a number of mathematical elements are presented in the course. The mathematics is not an end in itself in the course; focus is more on applications within micro, macro and financial economics, where mathematics is functioning as a tool. The course also covers elementary statistics and regression analysis to show how the economic relationships can be estimated.