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ECON42190

Academic Year 2024/2025

Health and Welfare Economics (ECON42190)

Subject:
Economics
College:
Social Sciences & Law
School:
Economics
Level:
4 (Masters)
Credits:
5
Module Coordinator:
Professor David Madden
Trimester:
Spring
Mode of Delivery:
On Campus
Internship Module:
No
How will I be graded?
Letter grades

Curricular information is subject to change.

This is a Masters level module in Applied Welfare Economics with a specific slant towards health related examples. Students will first of all cover some basic issues in welfare economics such as measurement of welfare and welfare change and how these concepts are applied in a health context. The module will discuss how to incorporate heterogenous health reporting into measures of health and will also briefly examine multi-dimensional measures of welfare. The module will then cover issues such as equivalence scales, inequality, mobility and poverty, once again with specific health applications. The socioeconomic gradient of health will be covered via concentration curves and the concentration index and these concepts will also be explored in a dynamic setting, investigating issues such as health and income mobility. In all cases, where possible, illustrations will be provided using Irish data from sources such as the Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC), Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) and The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing.

About this Module

Learning Outcomes:

On completion of this module students should:

1. have a basic understanding of measurement of welfare and change in welfare
2. understand how these concepts are applied in a health setting
3. understand how to measure inequality, poverty and equivalence scales in a health and multi-dimensional setting
4. be able to analyse the socioeconomic gradient of health outcomes in a static and dynamic setting using concentration and mobility indices

Student Effort Hours:
Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

24
Autonomous Student Learning

100
Total

124

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
This course will be delivered via face to face lectures. Class sizes are typically small enough to permit discussion/debate of issues and this is encouraged but is not explicitly included in the module delivery or assessment. Applied examples typically using the Stata package are provided for most of the content.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is of growing concern in education. UCD is monitoring developments closely but does not yet have a formal policy. The use of AI to support learning in this module is permitted and students are encouraged to learn how such tools can be used.

The main form of examination is a written exam at the end of term and AI tools have no bearing on this.

Students can use AI to ask answer questions they may have about course material. Student should, however, be mindful of the limits of AI tools in providing useful answers in all circumstances and should be aware of the relevance of framing questions carefully in order to elicit sensible answers.

Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations
Learning Recommendations:

It is strongly recommended that students who take this course should at the least have completed an advanced undergraduate course in microeconomics, ideally they should have taken the semester 1 course in Microeconomics in the MEcon Sc programme or equivalent. A knowledge of undergraduate econometrics is also desirable.

It is also recommended that students be familiar with the statistics/econometrics package Stata as examples using this package will feature throughout the module and the assignment will also be based around the package.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 

Assessment Strategy
Description Timing Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade In Module Component Repeat Offered
Exam (In-person): Mid term exam Week 9 Alternative linear conversion grade scale 40% No
25
 No
Exam (In-person): Final exam End of trimester
Duration:
2 hr(s)
 Alternative linear conversion grade scale 40% No
75
 No

Carry forward of passed components
No
 

Resit In Terminal Exam
Summer No
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 

Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Individual feedback will be provided to students on request.

Timetabling information is displayed only for guidance purposes, relates to the current Academic Year only and is subject to change.
Spring Lecture Offering 1 Week(s) - 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 Wed 11:00 - 12:50
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