MSc Public Financial Management

Public Financial Management: Planning and Performance

This module aims to introduce you to the theory and practice of public finance, with special reference to how governments raise and use revenues. It is concerned with taxation, borrowing and aid. There are economic principles that bear on the issues of financing public expenditure and these are covered in the module. At the same time, however, we recognise that decisions on taxation, borrowing and aid are not taken solely with reference to economics but also to politics, and the module raises relevant political and social issues too. While the module has some emphasis on taxation in poorer countries, they are not its exclusive concern.

This course has been specially designed to increase the depth of your understanding of macroeconomics by focusing on the relationship between financial markets and macroeconomics. We place the subject in a real-world context, aiming to show how theoretical and empirical knowledge of macroeconomics and financial markets provides ways to analyse the salient problems faced by modern macroeconomic policy makers.

This module introduces the core accounting concepts and explores the financial reporting framework and guidelines currently available to international companies. It will use a range of examples and case studies to illustrate the theoretical principles and assist you to understand and apply financial reporting in the international context.

Privatisation and Public-Private Partnerships

The module covers an extensive range of issues and, in the next eight weeks, you will study a wide spectrum of topics associated with the relationship between the IMF and macroeconomic stabilisation. Because the subject matter is vast, I have tried to focus on some of the key themes and provide some indications as to where this subject matter can be studied in greater detail if or when you have time to do so.

Research plays an essential role in business and in public policy and management. Increasingly, organisations undertake small-scale research projects, to find out about matters relating to the concerns of their organisation or to critically evaluate existing policies. Both commercial firms and government institutions rely upon research to inform their decisions, to test the effectiveness of existing policies, to predict the effects of intended future policies, to understand management processes and decisions and to gain insights into public preferences and opinions about public services.

Whether you are studying this module in order to carry out research in your professional role, to commission and project-manage research conducted by others or to complete a dissertation for your MSc qualification, your ability to appropriately and rigorously design, execute report, and evaluate research is essential.

The dissertation is a supervised piece of research on a topic that we will agree with you. The length will be 10,000 words. Before we can consider a proposal to submit a dissertation we will need to review your academic performance so far. Students wishing to take the Dissertation should ideally do so in their second or third year of study.

The module has been designed to introduce you to some of the key concepts, principles and practices in modern banking regulation and the resolution of modern banking crises. The literature on these subjects is vast so, in approaching the material, we will focus on a selection of key issues of relevance to the topic.

Governments regularly transfer cash or make concessionary loans to other governments in order to promote economic and social development, improve the welfare of the recipient governments’ citizens, or help out with humanitarian assistance after a natural or human-created disaster. The transfer process is managed through a medium-sized industry that includes governmental organisations and their aid agencies, international bodies (eg various parts of the United Nations and the European Union), development banks (eg the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank) and a large number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), all supported by consultants and experts, including those in the academic institutions training and educating their staff. This module enables you to look at the evidence for the impact of these aid efforts and examine the flows of funds, the organisations involved in aid delivery, and the processes of allocating aid and designing aid programmes.

Public Financial Management: Audit and Compliance

This module is about financial and economic appraisal of projects. The project is a very specific element of the public policy and management mix. It normally consists of an investment, that is the creation of an asset which will generate benefits, financial and non-financial over a period of more than one year. This is not universally applicable as a working definition, as ‘project’ is often used to describe a set of discrete activities that do not always involve a capital investment, to achieve some specific goals. In this module, however, we will be dealing with capital investments. This course is both specific and technical, and will enable you to carry out financial and economic appraisals. It will give you enough theory to understand the financial and economic processes involved in such an appraisal, but the emphasis is on practice, with some critique of the methods involved.

Project, Programme and Policy Evaluation