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You'll be equipped with the powerful tools required to understand the rapidly changing, complex and uncertain modern world economy.
Term 1
In the summer before you start the MSc Economics degree, you'll complete an online, self-paced course in Mathematics and Statistics to lay the foundations for the rest of the degree and prepare you for research in economics or for work as a professional economist. You'll have online review sessions during the week before term begins and before the core module teaching begins.
Core modules
You'll take three core modules in Term 1, each consisting of 3 hours of lectures and a 1 hour small-group class per week.
Term 2
Research Methods - Preparation for the Dissertation
You will attend weekly meetings to support the production of your dissertation proposal and to prepare you for the dissertation project. You will practice academic reading and writing skills, empirical and econometrics skills, and general programming and data management best practices.
Optional modules
You will take four optional modules from across List A and List B below.
If you are considering studying at PhD level we advise that you take two or more modules from List B.
Please note that the list of modules given here is indicative. This information is published a long time in advance of enrolment and module content and availability is subject to change.
List A: Applied options
- Public Microeconomics - ECON0061
- Topics in Labour Economics - ECON0062 (*n.b. this will be added to the UCL Module Catalogue soon)
- Topics in Money and Finance - ECON0063
- Economics of Development - ECON0105
- Health Economics - ECON0069
- Empirical Industrial Organisation - ECON0072
- Behavioural Economics - ECON0102 (module not offered in 2025-26)
- International Trade - ECON0120
- Macroeconomic Policy - ECON0073
- International Political Economy - PUBL0004
- Programme Evaluation for Users - ECON0070
- Environmental Economics: Principles and Policy - ECON0077 (module not offered in 2025-26)
- Data Science Theory - ECON0125
- Machine Learning in Economics - ECON0126
List B: Advanced core options
- Advanced Macroeconomic Theory - ECON0057
- Time Series Econometrics - ECON0058
- Advanced Microeconomic Theory - ECON0059
- Advanced Microeconometrics - ECON0060
Term 3 - Exams
Your core and optional courses will assessed by final exams in April/May, during Term 3. Some Term 2 modules in the list above feature additional summative assessments in Term 2. For the foundational Maths and Stats course, you'll take the final examination in the first week of the programme, in September.
Although weekly problem sets are marked and feedback is given, they do not play any part in the final assessment.
June - September
In the three summer months, you will complete your lightly supervised dissertation.
You can find out more about these key sections via the links below:
Research methods: covering academic writing skills, Empirical and Econometric skills and support with programming languages and software (for example, R, Matlab, Python and Stata).