Master’s programme in Economic Growth, Population and Development

Economic History (track 1)

Knowledge of the past is essential for understanding today’s world and shaping the future. In this track, you will develop advanced insights into the long-term development of societies. By combining analytical tools from economics and the social sciences with a contextual understanding of conditions in the past, you will become able to use the accumulated human experience to solve current-day problems.

Lund University is renowned for its research in economic history. As a student, you can take full advantage of this thriving environment, getting access to state-of-the-art research in your education. Core courses cover thematic fields such as the global economy, population and living standards, institutional change as well as research design, and the application of scientific methods. In addition, you can tailor your degree from our broad range of topics covered in elective courses and tutorials.

Economic Demography (track 2)

Changes in population have an impact on everything from taxes, school systems, labour markets and health care to marketing and sales of products and services. Economic demography explores the relationship between population and economy and how they influence one another. It includes the study of the size, structure and distribution of populations, and how populations change over time due to births, deaths, migration, and ageing.

This track will provide you with theory, methods and skills necessary to explain a number of social and economic phenomena. Key topics include mortality and the demographic transition, the labour market, migration patterns and health issues. It enables you to better understand and tackle global issues tied to employment, welfare and public health.

We offer quality teaching by some of the world’s leading researchers in the field of demography. The courses are designed to help you apply the concepts in real life with individual investigations, projects, team work and live presentations.

Economic Development (track 3)

Economic development is a dynamic process of change over time leading to sustained improvements in general standards of living and increased opportunities for individuals to lead a life of his or her choosing. One of the most pressing global problems is that this process has been slow in many parts of the world. At the same time, the global economy is under transformation, providing potential opportunities for developing countries to catch up. In order to analyse and understand the possibilities for and hindrances to progress in human life conditions across the developing world today, there is a need for a thorough empirical and theoretical understanding of these processes of economic change.

Within this track, many of the most hotly-debated topics in the current discussion on economic development are thoroughly dealt with. These include the relation between economic growth, poverty reduction and income inequality, the role of institutions for long-term development, the relevance and dynamics of structural change, development lessons from Asia-Pacific, the role of the state, and the potential of development assistance. All topics are discussed in an historical and comparative perspective, applying both quantitative and qualitative techniques depending on the problem at hand.