SAM4A Applied Economics

• Topics

  The course demonstrates how theory and tools from microeconomics, macroeconomics, and quantitative methods are combined with data to analyze contemporary economic issues and identify causal relationships.

  The course is structured around an analysis of how value creation, competition, and trade affect economic outcomes. First, it examines how market structure and competitive conditions influence resource allocation, innovation, and value creation. It then analyzes how these factors affect incentives, wage formation, and distribution in the labor market. Finally, the course highlights how international trade and global competition influence market structure, industrial development, and economic transformation.

  Throughout the course, emphasis is placed on formulating testable predictions and combining economic theory with empirical methods to evaluate economic interventions and policy instruments.

• Learning outcome

  Upon completion of the course, the student can:

  Knowledge

  • Understand how economic theory can be used to analyze economic decisions and current socio-economic issues.
  • Understand how economic theory and empirical methods can be combined to identify and measure causal relationships.
  • Explain how market structure and competitive conditions affect resource allocation, innovation, and value creation.
  • Account for how incentives and motivation influence behavior, wage formation, and distribution in the labor market.
  • Explain the importance of international trade for industrial structure, productivity, and the labor market.
  • Understand how different forms of market failure can justify economic regulation and industrial policy.

  Skills

  • Structure and analyze economic problems using relevant theoretical models.
  • Formulate testable predictions based on economic theory.
  • Assess how theory can be combined with different types of data—from experiments and surveys to register data and large datasets.
  • Design and interpret a simple empirical analysis to investigate the effect of an economic intervention or a market change.
  • Discuss how economic policy can affect competition, incentives, and economic transformation.

  General competence

  • Critically reflect on how economic models and empirical methods are applied in the analysis of socio-economic issues.
  • Assess the strengths and weaknesses of empirical studies and the interpretation of economic results.
  • Discuss how market structure, competition, and trade affect economic development and distribution.
  • Participate in professional discussions on economic policy in an analytical and method-conscious manner.

• Teaching

  The course consists of plenary lectures, data labs, and a mandatory group assignment.

  The course offers regular teaching and emphasizes physical interaction between students, as well as between students and the course instructors.

• Recommended prerequisites

  SAM1A, SAM2, and MET2 should be completed no later than the semester before the student begins SAM4A.

  Parts of MET4 are relevant for SAM4A. Ideally, MET4 should be taken before or concurrently with SAM4A.

  In particular, this includes microeconomics (theory of consumer behavior, theory of producer behavior, and market theory), statistics for economists (probability theory, conditional probability, random variables, mean and variance, joint distributions, common probability distributions, estimation and estimators, hypothesis testing, linear regression in one and several variables), and empirical methods (writing scripts in R, interpretation of economic and behavioral data).

• Credit reduction due to overlap

  SAM4

• Compulsory Activity

  Approved case assignment in groups.

  Course requirements approved in SAM4 are valid for SAM4A. Requirements from previous semesters in SAM4A remain valid.

• Assessment

  4-hours digital school exam with access to R.

• Grading Scale

  A-F

• Computer tools

  R

• Literature

  Austan Goolsbee, Steven Levitt, and Chad Syverson. Microeconomics, Macmillan.

  Marc Melitz, Paul Krugman, and Maurice Obstfeld. International Trade: Theory and Policy, Global Edition

  Kjetil Bjorvatn. Mikroøkonomi: en abc på 123

  Norman og Orvedal. En liten, åpen økonomi

• Permitted Support Material

  Calculator

  One bilingual dictionary (Category 1)

  All in accordance with the Supplementary Regulations to the Regulations on Full-Time Studies at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), Chapter 4: https://www.nhh.no/for-studenter/forskrifter/https://www.nhh.no/for-studenter/forskrifter/ og informasjonen som er gitt her: https://www.nhh.no/for-studenter/eksamen/hjelpemidler-ved-eksamen/https://www.nhh.no/for-studenter/eksamen/hjelpemidler-ved-eksamen/

• Retake

  From autumn 2026, SAM4A will be offered in the autumn semester only. Retake is offered early in the following spring semester (first time spring 2027) for students who were registered for the exam at the time of the assessment in the teaching semester, and did not achieve a passing grade. Other students may retake the exam the next time the course is offered.