ECON 632: Financial Stability and Growth

In this course, you will be studying the interrelationship between our banking, financial systems and markets, and how those systems positively or negatively affect the economy. It begins with a consideration of the hypothesis that the development of a country’s financial system contributes to faster economic growth, and is not only a product of economic growth. The online course then looks at microeconomic and macroeconomic aspects of financial development, including the causes and consequences of crises, determinants of bank efficiency and competition, and the connection between stability, concentration and competition. The final section of the course looks at regulatory issues such as the “Too Big to Fail” debate, Deposit Insurance, Lender of Last Resort and Macroprudential policy issues.

Competencies you are expected to demonstrate in this economics course are:

  • Comprehension of professional literature
  • Basic mastery of panel-data regression techniques
  • Written presentation skills for analytical and policy issues

Course Objectives:

  • Gain familiarity with the major theoretical explanations and empirical evidence about the causes and consequences of financial crisis
  • Understand and implement techniques of panel regression analysis on cross-country data sets and on bank data panels
  • Gain basic knowledge of models of competition and cost-function models, and apply these models to data
  • Understand issues of moral hazard, incentives, and implicit subsidies as they apply to financial system regulation through analysis of empirical literature
  • Gain active knowledge of the implications of macroprudential and regulatory tools to mitigate systemic risk from their direct and indirect effects

In this course you will fully explore the factors of financial hazards and how those hazards are prevented.

This course is taught by Professor Evan Kraft who specializes in the economics of transition, monetary policy and banking issues. His professional experience includes serving as director of the Research Department and Adviser to the Governor of the Croatian National Bank.

His research includes studies of soft-budget constraints and their impacts in former Yugoslavia, macroeconomic stabilization in transition countries, banking efficiency, lending booms, deposit growth and financial stability, and monetary policy under dollarization.

Click here for the official course description from the American University Catalog.

Learn more today. Call us at 855-725-7614 to speak to an admissions representative, or request more information here.