GY447 The Economics of Regional & Urban Planning: Pre-sessional Course

An optional intense induction course into microeconomics to lay the foundations for the core course GY447.

Who should attend?
Any RUPS students without a strong background in economics are encouraged to attend this pre-sessional course.

When does this take place?
19 Sept 11:00 - 12:00 STC.6.01B
20 Sept 11:00 - 12:00 STC.6.01B
21 Sept 15:00 - 16:00 STC.6.01B
23 Sept 15:00 - 17:00 STC.6.01B
Click here for a map of the LSE Campus

Do I need to register for this pre-sessional course?
No, there is no action required to register for this course, as a RUPS student you are eligible to attend. Please just turn up for the first session.

You will, however, need to register as usual on Tuesday 20 September from 13.30-14.00 in the Hong Kong Theatre on the ground floor of Clement House.

Welcome from the GY447 Course Manager

Welcome to the programme and welcome to GY477 - I’d like to take the chance to say some introductory words about the purpose and scope of the course before the term starts. The course offers you - as a planner - complementary tools to structure and analyse problems and allows you to understand how economists think - and they will almost inevitably cross your path in the course of your career! Rather than simply providing an economist’s view on current planning issues, the course seeks to provide an introduction to the economic analysis of the spatial structure of cities and regions and typical related planning problems.

The course offers an economic focus on classic questions for urban and regional planners. Why is economic activity distributed unevenly between and within cities and regions? What drives firms and households into cities and what determines the prices they are willing to pay for scarce resources including land and/or housing space? How do these prices emerge from the interplay of demand and supply? Planning operates in an environment where (most) firms try to maximise profits and households their individual utilities. Good planning will acknowledge its direct effects on resource allocation but also its indirect effects on the behaviour of economic actors.

Inevitably, an essential part is of the course is the application of microeconomic theory. We will use formal models to analyse how resources are allocated in free markets and where problems arise. We also look at welfare economics - when and where intervention in the market is likely to be efficient. This is important because welfare economists believe that the point at which markets fail is where planning should start.

It is important to realise that although there is a strong focus on spatial planning issues this is an economics course. Getting into economics can be a challenge and may require hard work, in particular for those of you who join the course with completely different backgrounds. We seek to help you catch up with the material as much as we can. As an essential part of this process, we offer an intense induction course into microeconomics in week zero. The idea is to lay the foundations for a better understanding of the course, i.e. familiarise you with the basic concepts of microeconomics. If you do not have a strong background in economics I would strongly encourage you to participate in the preparation course (although it cannot be a substitute for intense textbook study).

If you would like to begin with some preliminary reading for the course we would recommend the book Microeconomics, 4th edition (1998) by Robert Pindyck and Daniel Rubenfeld (Pearson/Prentice Hall) and the study guide for Microeconomics by Jonathan Hamilton and Valerie Suslow. These books can be found used at online bookstores. Alternatively, you can purchase a newer edition.

Nathalie Picarelli and Kath Scanlon* will give the induction course. Please, take their advice seriously. I’ll do my best to complement the economics induction with supplementary material for some of the more demanding concepts. If you take the preparation for economics seriously, there will definitely be a payoff during the course.
An economics course for an interdisciplinary programme is a challenging but also fascinating experience for both students and teaching staff. With its unique Economic Geography cluster and all the expertise of the Spatial Economics Research Centre, the LSE Department of Geography and Environment is certainly one of the best places for such a learning experience, make the most of it!

Dr Felipe Carozzi
Assistant Professor of Urban Economics & Economic Geography

* Kathleen Scanlon is a Research Fellow at LSE London. She trained as an economist at the US State Department, and was herself a student on the RUPS course some 20 years ago. She has a wide range of research interests including comparative housing policy (across all tenures - social and private rented housing as well as owner-occupation), comparative mortgage finance, and migration. Her research is grounded in economics but also draws on techniques and perspectives from other disciplines including geography and sociology, and aims at improving the evidence base for policy decisions at national or local level. She recently edited Social Housing in Europe, published by Wiley in June 2014. She has worked with a number of national and international institutions including the Council of Europe Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and Denmark’s Realdania foundation. A collector of languages, she speaks Spanish, Italian, Serbian, Danish and a bit of French.

Nathalie Picarelli is a PhD candidate in Economic Geography, working on topics of urban and development economics. Her research mostly focuses on urban inequalities and labour market access in sub-Saharan Africa. She has an MRes in International Economics from Sciences Po Paris and an MPA from Columbia University. Prior to joining the LSE, she worked at the World Bank for two years where she focused on public debt and growth issues in Caribbean countries.