Below are the course contents offered by the Department of Economics at TOBB ETÜ. Along with the course names, the credit, ECTS information, and the language of instruction are provided respectively (credit / ECTS / language of instruction). Approximately 70% of the courses offered by the Department of Economics are conducted in English.
COMPULSORY COURSES
İKT 105 - Introduction to Economics (3 / 6 / TR)
Introduction to microeconomic analysis and its fundamental concepts: consumer choice, supply and demand, elasticity, production and cost analysis. Market structures: Perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition and oligopoly. Macroeconomic analysis and its fundamental concepts: national income accounting, growth, business cycles, unemployment, inflation, aggregate demand and aggregate supply. The multiplier model. Fiscal policy and the financial sector. Demand for money and the monetary policy. International trade and finance.
İKT 110 - Economic Analysis and Applications (3 / 6 / ENG)
Introduction to R programming. Vector, matrix definitions and R programming software. Control structures, For and While loop in R softwares, Data structures, Graphics and their interpretations. Input-output analysis. Microeconomic applications.
İKT 213 - Microeconomic Theory I (3 / 6 / ENG)
Introduction to consumer theory. Budget constraint. Utility concept and utility maximization problem. Intertemporal budget constraint and choice, present value, interest rate and inflation. Exchange, general equilibrium and efficiency, Pareto efficiency, Edgeworth box problems. Uncertainty, expected value and expected utility, risk aversion. Introduction to producer theory, cost curves, profit maximization and cost minimization. Perfect competition and monopoly.
İKT 214 - Microeconomic Theory II (3 / 6 / ENG)
Non-cooperative games (extensive and normal form games) and solution concepts (dominance, minimax method, pure and mixed strategy Nash equilibria, rationalizability). Repeated games. Non-cooperative bargaining. Cooperative bargaining. Cooperative games, applications (oligopoly, information economics, auction theory).
İKT 233 - Macroeconomic Theory I (3 / 6 / ENG)
Closed-economy Macro. Macroeconomic data. Money and Inflation. Unemployment. Economic Growth. Economic fluctuations and crisis. Aggregate demand. Aggregate Supply. Macroeconomic Policy: Monetary, fiscal. Money demand and supply. Micro-based macroeconomics: consumption, investment.
İKT 234 - Macroeconomic Theory II (3 / 6 / ENG)
Open-economy Macro. Aggregate demand in open-economy. Foreign exchange market and determination of exchange rate. Exchange rate regimes and determination of optimal exchange rate. Current account and balance of payments.
Monetary and fiscal policy in open-economy. Transfers and economic growth. Foreign exchange crisis.
İKT 253 - Statistics (3 / 6 / ENG)
Descriptive statistics and data summarization. Graphical analysis of data. Probability theory. Random variables. Discrete probability distributions, continuous probability distributions, normal distribution, sampling distributions. Point estimation and interval estimation. Hypothesis testing: confidence interval approach, test of significance. Applications regarding real life problems with the help of statistical software.
İKT 261 - Mathematics for Economics and Business I (3 / 6 / ENG)
Set theory and introduction to logic. Closed functions. Introduction to optimization, Weierstrass theorem, implicit function theorem, unconstrained and constrained static optimization and economic applications. Homothetic and homogeneous functions. Integrals and applications from economics.
İKT 311 - International Economics I (3 / 6 / ENG)
Basic international trade theories. Comparative advantage and costs. Relative prices, factor ratios and comparative advantage. The welfare and income distribution effects of trade. Economic growth and international trade. Protectionism and international trade policies. Economic integration theories. Intra-industry trade.
İKT 313 - Public Economics (3 / 6 / ENG)
Efficiency. Welfare theorems. Efficiency and equity. Market failures. Public goods: efficient provision of public goods, models of the optimal provision of public goods. Externalities. Social choice: public mechanism for allocating resources, the problem of transition from individual preferences to common preferences, Lindahl equilibrium, various voting methods and their problems, Arrow's impossibility theorem, the median voter, vote trading, politics and economics. Taxation. Taxation and income distribution: efficiency, equity and taxation, personal taxation and behavior, corporate taxation and behavior and economic decisions.
İKT 335 - Money and Monetary Policy (3 / 6 / TR)
Functions of Money. The evolution of payments systems. Money supply. Money demand. Monetary transmission mechanism. Inflation. Determination of interest rates. Determination of exchange rates. Currency substitution and dollarization. The goals and instruments of monetary policy. Political business cycles and central bank independence. Interaction of fiscal and monetary policies. Monetary policy regimes. Vulnerability dominance. Financial crises.
İKT 338 - Financial Markets (3 / 6 / TR)
Basic finance concepts, financial market structures and functions, financial intermediation and regulation. Interest Rates: risk and maturity, yield curves. Asset demand; supply, demand and interest rates in the bond market. Asset pricing models, application of asset market approach to commodities markets (gold). Efficient market hypothesis. Behavioral finance. Central Bank operations, market liquidity. Markets: money, bonds, stocks, mortgage, foreign exchange.
İKT 351 - Econometrics I (3 / 6 / ENG)
Ordinary least squares method and its basic assumptions and desired properties. Bivariate and multivariate regression models and various related estimation and inference topics. The maximum likelihood estimation. Dummy variable regression. Matrix approach to classical linear regression model.
İKT 472 - History of Economic Thought (3 / 6 / TR)
An overview of the main schools of economic thought, classical economic analysis, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Marxian analysis, neoclassical economic analysis, Keynesian and post-Keynesian economic analysis.
ELECTIVE COURSES
İKT 315 - Labor Economics (3 / 6 / ENG)
Factors that affect labor supply and demand. Perfect and imperfect competition in the labor market. Reasons for wage differentials, compensating wage differentials, human capital model, factors behind the increase in wage inequality. The definition and types of unemployment, job search model, efficiency wages, Phillips curve. The main characteristics of the Turkish labor market and the unemployment problem.
İKT 332 - International Economics II (3 / 6 / ENG)
Basic open-economy macroeconomic models. Balance of payments, current account, capital account, saving-investment balance in open economy. Exchange rate market, exchange rate regimes, the determination of exchange rate. Expectations, exchange rate-interest rate relationship and uncovered interest rate parity. International monetary system, monetary union and the European monetary system. Capital flows and crises.
İKT 395 - Industrial Organization (3 / 6 / ENG)
Market structure and organization, perfect competition, monopoly, homogenous products and services markets, differentiated products and services markets, market concentration, entry-exit and mergers. Technology and market structure, research and development, compliance and standards. Marketing, advertisement, quality, pricing and marketing strategies. The role of knowledge, management, compensation mechanisms, regulations, price discrimination and search theory. Industrial sector based analysis.
İKT 396 - Topics in Public Economics (3 / 6 / ENG)
Individuals and the government, fiscal functions, fiscal policy and its tools, fiscal policy and its effects on the economy. Public goods and characteristics of public goods, government expenditures, government expenditures and economic growth, government debt and its theories, stabilization policies and rules, government finance, taxation and tax system, taxation and income distribution, budget theory, the Turkish fiscal policy and system.
İKT 401 – Topics in Advanced Microeconomic Theory (3 / 6 / ENG)
Selected topics from Microeconomic Theory will be covered.
İKT 402 – Topics in Advanced Macroeconomic Theory (3 / 6 / ENG)
Selected topics from Macroeconomic Theory will be covered.
İKT 411 - Principles of Economic Development (3 / 6 / ENG)
The concept of development, indicators of development. Theories of growth; the neoclassical growth model, human capital and growth, technological progress and growth. Expectations and economic development. Inequality, the link between growth and inequality. Poverty and undernutrition. Population growth. Finance and development. Institutional quality.
İKT 415 - Game Theory (3 / 6 / ENG)
Normal-form and extensive-form noncooperative games under perfect information: Pure-strategy Nash equilibrium, mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium, dominant-strategy equilibrium, rationalizability, subgame-perfect equilibrium. Bayesian noncooperative games and extensive-form noncooperative games under imperfect information. Repeated noncooperative games. Noncooperative bargaining. Cooperative games. Cooperative bargaining.
İKT 416 - Experimental Economics (3 / 6 / ENG)
Historical origins of experimental perspective in economics. Setting and testing hypothesis. Theoretical and experimental analysis of individual’s decisions. Comparison of theoretical and experimental results in game theory. Experimental analysis of social manners, division, equity and reciprocity. Experimental results about public goods and coordination failures. Computer programming of experiments and laboratory applications.
İKT 422 - Energy Economics (3 / 6 / ENG)
Fundamentals of energy, its resources, production, and price dynamics. Energy demand and supply. International energy markets: oil market and OPEC, natural gas market, LNG monopsony, coal market. Nuclear energy. Energy derivatives for managing risk: futures, options and swaps. Energy policies and regulations: electricity generation, transmission and distribution. Energy, environment and sustainable development. Global warming. Renewable energy resources. Managing the multicultural world of energy. The energy market and policies in Turkey.
İKT 424 - Economics of Regulation and Antitrust (3 / 6 / ENG)
The theory of government regulations and antitrust policies. Mergers and acquisitions, contractual arrangements, monopoly and oligopoly, price discrimination, optimal pricing, natural monopoly, rate of return regulation. Property rights and efficiency. Market failures, externalities and their implications on competitiveness. Analysis of public utilities: telecommunication, electricity and natural gas. Analysis of financial market regulations.
İKT 425 - Auctions: Theory and Applications (3 / 6 / ENG)
Fundamental Auction Methods: Open and closed auctions, private value auctions, revenue equivalence theorem, risk averse bidders, budget constraints, reservationprice, resale auctions, dependent value auctions, Winner’s curse, collusion in auctions, multiple-object auctions, auction design in practice, spectrum auctions, ınternet auctions, search engine advertising auctions.
İKT 426 - Economics of Information and Mechanism Design (3 / 6 / ENG)
Key topics in the fields of information economics, mechanism design, and contract theory; market failures and inefficiencies caused by information asymmetry among economically interacting agents; contract design.
Applications: Optimal contract design in insurance and labor markets, tax design, voting rules, etc.
İKT 427 - Social and Economic Networks (3 / 6 / ENG)
Analysis of economic relations within the framework of network structure; social network theory and methods, fundamental characteristics of network structures. Small-world networks, clustering, degree distribution, random networks, centrality, social capital, and information diffusion.
Applications: Analysis and visualization of economic networks using R and Gephi.
İKT 431 - Public Finance (3 / 6 / ENG)
Analysis of government expenditures and public revenues, the income redistribution role of the government, the principles and techniques of taxation, government debts, the political decision making mechanism and the rationalization of the budgetary process, debt management, public finance of municipal governments.
İKT 434 - Turkish Economy (3 / 6 / TR)
Analysis of the Turkish economy from a periodical point of view. Sectoral developments, development plans, crises and the stabilization measures, incentives, privatization, the transformation of the Turkish economy after 1980, the EU customs union process.
İKT 435 - Contemporary Issues in Turkish Economy (3 / 6 / TR)
Overview of the Turkish economy from a macroeconomic and microeconomic perspective. The economic transformation in the process of financial liberalization and globalization. Macro and micro based policy analysis. Governance.
İKT 437 - Financial Institutions (3 / 6 / TR)
Fundamentals of financial institutions, transaction costs, asymmetric information problem, financial development and growth, financial crises. Banks and financial institutions management, bank balance sheet and performance, banking regulations, banking crises. Mutual funds, hedge funds, insurance companies and pension funds, investment banks, brokers and dealers, venture capital firms, other finance companies. Risk management in financial institutions, hedging with financial derivatives. Special emphasis on financial institutions and the crisis experience in Turkey.
İKT 439 - Topics in Macroeconomics (3 / 6 /TR)
Competitiveness analyses in the context of international competitiveness, economic growth, and sustainable development. Competition indicators, effects of foreign trade, quality competition, and industrial development processes. Evaluation of competitiveness at the country and sectoral levels using economic indicators; policy analyses.
İKT 441 - Applied Macroeconomics (3 / 6 / ENG)
Study of selected topics from macroeconomics using basic econometric tools, and with special emphasis and applications on Turkey and the global financial architecture: business cycles, money and inflation, employment and unemployment, consumption and investment, exchange rate regimes, economic crises, asset markets.
İKT 442 - Interpreting Macroeconomic Indicators (3 / 6 / TR)
Concepts related to production, employment, and growth; internal and external balance; monetary policy; fiscal policy; examination of a set of concepts related to structural reforms. Basic flow-stock relations. The interpretation of real and financial indicators and balance sheets related to these indicators.
İKT 443 - Macroeconomics for Turkey and Emerging Economies (3 / 6 / TR)
Macroeconomic models, theories, and policy discussions specific to emerging market economies. Topics include policy-insensitive contractions, exchange rate effects, borrowing constraints in local currency, and balance of payments constraints. Model-based analyses and policy evaluations drawn from the academic literature on Turkey and similar economies.
İKT 451 - Applied Econometrics (Time Series Analysis) (3 / 6 / ENG)
Introduction to time series analysis, basic time series models, stationary and non-stationary processes, structural break tests, seasonality, forecasting and prediction, state-space models and filtering methods, analysis of financial time series, conditional heteroskedasticity models.
İKT 452 - Applied Econometrics (Microeconometrics) (3 / 6 / ENG)
Panel data analysis: linear unobserved effects model. Nonlinear estimation methods: maximum likelihood method and generalized method of moments. Some nonlinear econometric models: probit and logit models, Tobit model, sample selection and attrition problem, estimating average treatment effects, count data and related models, duration analysis.
İKT 457 - Artificial Intelligence for Economics and Finance I (3 / 6 / ENG)
Artificial intelligence and machine learning methods in economics and finance; supervised and unsupervised learning techniques. Regression, classification, clustering (hierarchical, k-means), principal component analysis. Logistic regression, linear discriminant analysis, resampling (bootstrap, cross-validation), model selection, tree-based methods, and support vector machines.
İKT 458 - Artificial Intelligence for Economics and Finance II (3 / 6 / ENG)
Artificial intelligence and machine learning methods; big data, visualization, and applications in Turkey. Nonlinear discriminant analysis, Bayesian neural networks, deep learning, advanced tree-based methods. Computer-aided analysis using economic and financial datasets; development of a term project.
İKT 481 - Analytical Writing for Economists (3 / 6 / ENG)
Study of selected texts and cases toward developing the skills for analytical thinking, self-expression, and employing the tools of economics for analyzing economic and social cases. Preparation of documents in the form of memos and briefs addressing hypothetical senior executives. Examination of good writing examples and different writing formats.
İKT 495 - Advanced Microeconomic Theory (3 / 6 / ENG)
Welfare: fair division, cardinal and ordinal welfarism. Social choice and voting, cooperative bargaining, introduction to cooperative games and the core concept, mechanism design, auctions theory, matching theory. Introduction to behavioral and experimental (and neuro) economics.
İKT 496 - Advanced Macroeconomic Theory (3 / 6 / ENG)
Theoretical and empirical analysis of business cycles. International business cycles. Determinants of global crises. Optimal monetary policy, monetary models, Taylor rule. Inflation targeting, macroeconomic effects of inflation targeting. Monetary policy and fiscal policy interaction, theoretical analysis of optimal fiscal policy.
İKT 497 – Practical Training in Economics I (3 / 6 / ENG)
Teaching experience for third- and fourth-year students aiming for an academic career; active involvement in course support activities. Practical teaching experience under the guidance of an instructor in specific course sections. Development of skills such as problem solving, reviewing course material, solving questions, giving presentations, and teaching.
İKT 498 – Practical Training in Economics II (3 / 6 / ENG)
Teaching experience for third- and fourth-year students aiming for an academic career; active participation in course support activities. Hands-on teaching experience under the supervision of the course instructor in designated course sections. Development of skills such as problem-solving, course review, question solving, making presentations, and teaching.
İKT 499 - Independent Research (3 / 6 / ENG)
The process of conducting academic research: determining a research topic, literature review, analysis, and academic writing. Reading relevant literature, making oral presentations, and developing research and evaluation skills. An individual project conducted under the supervision of a faculty advisor; writing an academic paper in the form of original research or a literature review.
COURSES OFFERED TO THE OTHER DEPARTMENTS
İKT 103-İ Introduction to Economics (4 / 8 / ENG)
Introduction of basic economic schools of thought; basic institutions and concepts in international economics: comparative advantage; gains from foreign trade; economic growth and international trade; causes and effects of protectionism; foreign exchange market; exchange rate determination; exchange rate systems; balance of external payments; international monetary system; international trade and finance organizations; monetary union and the European monetary system.
