Handbook

The major in Macroeconomics and Financial Markets will give you an understanding of both macroeconomics and the workings of the financial markets.  On the macroeconomic side, you will learn how the economy functions at an aggregate level and how governments manage economies to preserve stability and provide optimal conditions for economic growth and flourishing.  On the financial economics side, you will gain an understanding of how financial instruments are priced in markets and how individuals and firms manage financial risk.

Macroeconomic variables like the unemployment rate, the exchange rate, and export/import levels are key inputs to government policy-setting in Australia and the world.  You will learn how these measures are generated, how to interpret them, and how governments use them to craft healthy economic markets and societies, for example via fiscal and monetary policy.

Understanding how the prices of financial instruments are determined in a market is a central concern of financial economics, along with the design of new financial products. In addition to studying the workings of financial markets, financial econometrics can also be studied in this major, exposing you to applications of statistical methods and asset-pricing theories to the study of real-world financial data.

This major provides students with a thorough understanding of the economic principles that underlie macroeconomic analysis, government stewardship of the macroeconomy (both real and financial), behaviour in financial markets, and the pricing and allocative role of all financial assets.  It opens a wide range of careers in the public and private sectors, ranging from government advisor to stock broker.