Recommended Study Sequence

This is an introductory law unit designed to introduce the fundamentals of law in a commercial context. The unit introduces students to the basic principles of law and the legal system as well as examining some of the major areas of law that impact on commercial dealings. This unit examines the structure of the legal system, the way law is made, legal reasoning and problem solving. The main areas of law covered include contracts, torts and agency.

The development of business skills in the form of the application of information collection, analysis and evaluation, logical reasoning skills and communication skills relevent to business and economic issues.

This unit is an introduction to economic concepts and contemporary economic issues. It introduces students to basic concepts such as markets and their operation, the behaviour of firms, the efficiency and potential failings of free markets, the role of government, key macroeconomic variables and problems such as unemployment. It illuminates these concepts via application to contemporary economic issues and debates over different theoretical perspectives. This unit also exposes students to recent developments in economics via presentations by specialist guest lecturers.

Introduction to Economic Methods will cover basic concepts in Mathematics and Statistics to help their understanding of subjects like accounting, management, marketing, finance, and economics. In addition, the analytical techniques, concepts and models that will be discussed in this unit will play a foundation role in a Business degree. Topics include: Use of summation signs; financial mathematics; differential calculus and its application in business; collection, analysis and interpretation of data using simple descriptive statistical methods; probability distributions, and hypothesis testing.

This Level 1 unit introduces the basic concepts and techniques of statistics that are particularly relevant to problem solving in business. It also provides a sound base for more advanced study in statistics and forecasting in subsequent sessions. Topics include: presentation of data; descriptive statistics; the role of uncertainty in business decision making; hypothesis testing; and basic forecasting.

For information on this unit please contact the Unit Coordinators: Sharon Taylor (Blacktown and Campbelltown Campuses) and Jean McCartney (Parramatta Campus). This unit provides exposure to financial and management accounting information from a user viewpoint. The unit aims to provide breadth of awareness and knowledge in relevant fields of accounting essential to decision making for managers.

This unit is a survey of the marketing process, introducing students to the marketing concept, strategic and marketing planning, marketing research, consumer and customer behaviour, issues of market segmentation, targeting and positioning as well as all the elements of the marketing mix (product/service, pricing, distribution and marketing communication strategies).

This unit provides an opportunity for students to engage with the dynamics of the management of organisations. Students will be introduced to the connection between the way work and systems are organised and managed and their impact on individuals and societies. This is achieved by using case based opportunities to examine real life contexts. This is an essential unit for business students that can be taken by any student needing a broad initial understanding of management.

This unit is an introduction to macroeconomic concepts, analysis and issues in the Australian context. Basic concepts introduced and applied include: national income accounting, economic structure, price indexes and inflation, the balance of payments, and labour market aggregates. These concepts are applied in describing and explaining the recent evolution of the Australian economy in terms of growth, structural change, price stability, and employment. This leads to a discussion of major policy issues such as the role of governments in managing economic fluctuations, and the implications of Australia’s foreign liabilities. The course ends with a brief introduction to modelling income determination.

Macroeconomic Theory aims to provide alternative theoretical explanations of the working of the macroeconomy. The unit will be based on the analytical narratives of macroeconomic developments taught in Australian Macroeconomy. Starting from the basic IS-LM model, it derives the aggregate demand (AD) curve and examines the components of commodity and money markets. It also analyses the labour market and derives the aggregate supply (AS) curve of an economy. Using the AD-AS model, it examines the interdependent nature of macroeconomic problems (e.g. inflation, unemployment), and the effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policies within a closed economy context. The basic model is then extended to analyse open economy issues (e.g., exchange rates and balance of payments, external shocks and international interdependence). Whenever appropriate, alternative approaches to macroeconomics are evaluated.

The investment, financing and risk management decisions that all firms make are implemented by creating and trading financial instruments in financial markets, often with the involvement of a variety of institutions. Using the Australian financial system as an illustration, this unit introduces students to the theory and functions of financial intermediaries and the operation of financial systems. Students also develop an understanding of the role and functions of markets in equities, debt, foreign exchange, options and futures, and theories of interest rate determination and the term structure of interest rates.

This unit introduces the fundamental concepts of finance theory and the tools of financial decision making in the context of the Australian institutional environment. These concepts relate primarily to the time value of money, risk and return, capital budgeting and capital structure. The unit's purpose is to develop an understanding of the basic practices of financial management from the perspective of a firm (both large and small). Students examine the investment, financing and dividend decisions of corporations.

This unit builds on concepts explored in Introduction to Economic Methods. The unit broadens the application of the stochastic linear model in econometrics, exploring its use in the estimation of economic models and in the testing of economic hypotheses associated with these models. The emphasis is on learning by doing in small group workshops.

This unit describes the theory and practice of investment decision making. The general objective of the unit is to introduce students to finance theory and to the tools of financial decision making by providing a conceptual framework within which the key financial decision of investment can be analysed.

The first part of this unit develops an understanding of the relationships between industry structure, the conduct of firms, and market performance. Alternative theories of the firm and strategic market behaviour are considered. The unit then examines the characteristics and operation of particular markets, including public goods and utilities, human resources, and natural and environmental resources. The analysis developed in the unit is used to provide insights into applied policy areas such as competition policy, regulation of public enterprises, microeconomic reform and industry policy.

This unit will provide students with exposure to problems with which economists and finance professionals are confronted in their daily work. They will be confronted with the multi-dimensional nature of the issues addressed by economists and finance professionals in real-life. Students will need to consider the nature of the problems as well as how realistic the solutions they are proposing are, and will learn how to systematically reflect on their contribution to the industry or community setting with which they engage.

This unit builds on the econometric methods of Economic Modelling. The focus is on the linear model in econometrics in its application to economic and financial time series. The emphasis is on learning by doing in small group workshops.

The general aim of this unit is to examine how financial and non-financial firms use key foreign exchange and interest rate products to manage the risk associated with their international investment and financing decisions. This unit complements other aspects of managerial decision-making, including the marketing and production decisions of the international firm.

This unit covers the contemporary theory of portfolio analysis and management. Topics include: risk and diversification; the two and n security case; the Markowitz efficient frontier; investor indifference curves and optimal portfolios; CML and optimal portfolios; beta, SML and the discount rate re-visited; Sharpe single index model and APT asset allocation; investments to the portfolio and portfolio strategies; measuring portfolio performance and security selection decisions; active portfolio management; international diversification; process of portfolio management; and risk management and hedging.

Macroeconomic Issues builds on concepts examined in earlier units in macroeconomics and applies them to selected areas of debate concerning macroeconomic policy formulation. The unit examines key areas of debate within macroeconomic theory and develops an understanding of approaches used in the theoretical and empirical modelling of key macroeconomic aggregates. Macroeconomic policies are analysed for an open economy with special reference to the Australian economy. Major policy areas considered include inflation, unemployment and labour markets, exchange rate adjustments and the current account, the role and effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policy, and Australia’s recent economic growth performance.

The aim of this unit is to extend students’ knowledge of microeconomic theory developed in the unit Industry Economics and Markets. After a more formal presentation, the rather idealistic assumptions used in the context of the perfectly competitive markets will be relaxed in order to model typical situations encountered in the business world. The theory of choice will be extended to situations where individuals face uncertainty regarding the outcome of their own actions. In terms of market structure, we will investigate the consequences in terms of price, quantity and consumer’s surplus, of monopoly, oligopoly or duopoly markets. As some of these market structures imply that the individuals’ decisions might strongly affect or be affected by a limited number of other decision makers, an introduction to Game Theory will be presented. Finally, our concerns for investigating more realistic economic situations will lead us to make a brief incursion into markets characterised by asymmetric information, the presence of public goods or the existence of externalities.

This unit provides students with a unifying theoretical perspective on the most important concepts in the field of finance. The presentation is rigorous and students develop their ability to critically evaluate the principal theoretical results in the finance literature.

Traditional theories of finance are based the assumption that investors are both rational and utility maximizing. The Efficient Markets Hypothesis in particular has assumptions about investor behaviour which underpin its key predictions. The tenants of beharioural finance disputes the validity of these assumptions. This unit challenges traditional theory by examining how decision making and investor behaviour may be driven by personal and market psychology.