MSc Global Central Banking
and Financial Regulation

This module will commence from 7 October 2019.

In this module, you will explore and discover why central banks have different mandates, objectives, governance and operating procedures and thereby you will gain an understanding of the scope of possible policy choices. You will learn to draw comparisons between a broad selection of developed and emerging country systems operating under different monetary regimes.

The module will also touch on all of a central bank’s typical roles including monetary policy; financial stability; balance sheet and reserves management; market operations; banknotes; lender of last resort, supervision and regulation; and other regulatory issues such as market conduct and payments.

This module is led by Paul Fisher, the Former Executive Director of the Bank of England, and Diarmuid Murphy, the Head of Function - Banking Authorisations at the Central Bank of Ireland.

This module will commence on 10 February 2020.

This module provides a rigorous discussion of the role of money, banks and other financial institutions in a modern economy.

You will study the fragilities in fractional reserve banking, the role of the central bank, the foundations of inflation targeting and the weaknesses of inflation targeting and the weaknesses caused by the shadow-banking sector. You will also explore the causes of historic bank failures and systemic crises, as well as developing the necessary analytical tools from macroeconomics to understand the role of monetary policy in the macroeconomy. 

This module will commence from 8 June 2020.

In this module you will study the rationale behind financial regulation and supervision, such as what are the market failures which regulators are addressing and which tools are used.

Your learning will be structured around critical, policy relevant questions in financial regulation which, have seen scholarly study, such as the benefits of narrow banking; the threat of competition to financial stability; managing the tension between deposit insurance and moral hazard; too-big-to-fail; remuneration and incentives; and resolution challenges.

This module will commence from 8 June 2020.

On this module, you will investigate the analytical and empirical tools from macroeconomics and econometrics to understand the role of monetary policy and how monetary policy is implemented. The module emphasises the interaction between the financial system and the macroeconomy; and critiques post Global Financial Crisis policy responses.

You will cover topics including Optimal Inflation targeting; Quantitative Easing; the credit cycle; global financial imbalances; and unconventional monetary policy making in practice. Through these topics you will learn the use of basic econometric tools for monetary policy such as the linear regression model; basic time series models; vector auto regression and forecasting in monetary policy.

Through this module, you will cover the fundamental concepts of international finance, emphasising the operation of the spot and derivative securities in international markets as well as the financial architecture of exchanges and the promise of FinTech. You will consider the management of foreign exchange risk for multinationals and study financial instruments as well as regulatory aspects. 

Covering international banking and the stability of the global financial system, you will explore risk categories such as market or credit risk and you will be introduced to the necessary tools required to manage those risks. 

As part of the Behavioural Finance part of the module, you will develop an understanding of key deviations from rationality that have been documented in behavioural science, and learn how these deviations can affect the economy, and in particular central banks' analyses across their macroeconomic, macro-prudential; and micro-prudential responsibilities.

As part of the Big Data part of the module, you will be introduced to recent advances in data science, the basics in big data analytics and you will have the opportunity to discuss current debates on the validity of the descriptive, predictive and prescriptive claims of big data analytics.  

The aim of this module is to build an ethical leadership capacity in critical areas of banking, and in particular financial conduct. You will explore what ethics in business are, and should be, by first taking an economic approach and exploring how incentives and industrial structure may alter the propensity to malpractice.

You will study ethical leadership from all angles; academic, through practice and via peer learning, as well as exploring financial conduct, covering the regulatory rules, and the enforcement tools available if ethics are poor.

You will be equipped with the knowledge and general research tools to correctly execute a project such as a Masters dissertation. 

In your dissertation, you will identify and investigate a current research topic that will help to develop your theoretical and practical understanding.