Why not take your interest in economics further by registering for a course with the Open University?

DD202 - Economics and Economic Change is a new course that deals with today's economic issues and problems. It is designed to help you to understand economic debates in the UK and in the global economy and tackles questions such as:
• Are we living through a new industrial revolution?
• What makes firms competitive and how can economic policy help?
• What makes an economy successful in the age of globalization?
• Do the poor gain from trade in the international economy?
• Do governments really have the will and the capacity to redistribute income?
• What can be done about unemployment?
• Is continued economic growth compatible with protection of the environment?
• Why do economists have such trouble forecasting what will happen in the economy next year?

D319 – Understanding Economic Behaviour: Households, Firms and Markets is an economics course with a difference. It concentrates on ‘households' and ‘firms' as the building-blocks of a market economy but recognizes that these economic agents interact in different ways in different economies.

The course:
• examines questions both about the behaviour of such agents and about the relative success of different kinds of economy. For example, this approach is applied to why economies differ in their rates of adaptation to new technologies and how they adopt different investment policies.
• analyses arguments about labour markets and considers what determines whether an economy follows a high-wage/high-skill path or a low-wage route to competitive success.
• explores differences between economies in their provision for children and the future, crucial to the continuing prosperity of any economy.

For further information on these and other courses available, take a look at the OU courses page.