Economic Challenges for a Resource Based Economy

The course addresses key challenges for resource based economies in general, and for the Norwegian economy in particular. The course gives particular emphasis to the interaction between the oil economy and technology, what determines competitiveness and how the emergence of industrial clusters interacts with the technological development. The main method of the course is the analysis of analytical economic models.

Knowledge
You learn
- about the challenges of oil dependence
- why some oil countries perform well while others perform poorly
- about key developments of the international economy and the consequences for Norway
- how the oil technology contributes to economic growth in other industries
- what determines Norwegian competitiveness and what we can do to influence it
- how we should align the fiscal policy; change taxes or change spending? Use more or less of oil money?
- about the monetary policy of the central bank of Norway, especially about the tradeoffs between how the interest rate influences economic activity and competitiveness and other factors such as inflation and housing prices
- why industrial clusters occur and why value creation is greater here compared to other forms of economic activity
- whether technological progress makes industrial clusters more or less dominant over time

Skills
You should be able to
- use analytical economic models to analyze the effects of economic policy in a resource based economy
- use the economic theories to understand the development in the Norwegian economy and discuss the interaction between an oil economy, technology and industrial clusters

General competence
You should be able to
- follow economic reasoning related to the course in the public debate and professional reports

2 hours of lectures every week, and 2 hours of practical assignments every other week. In order to take the exam, one compulsory term paper must be submitted and approved. The term paper may be written as a joint project by up to four students. The course will be given by lecturers from the Department of Economics with research expertise from the field. The reading material will be in both Norwegian and English. The course is taught in Norwegian and does not require any previous knowledge.