The University Grants Commission (UGC) NET Bureau revised its syllabus for UGC NET in Economics in June, 2019 and the same syllabus will be applicable for the upcoming UGC NET / JRF and SET or SLET examination. The detailed syllabus for paper-1 can be found at UGC NET Syllabus for Paper-1. The details of syllabus of Paper-2 can be downloaded in the pdf format from the following link:
Economics UGC NET Syllabus for Paper-2 (New and Updated)
The UGC NET examination old syllabus which was applicable till December, 2018 can be downloaded in the pdf format from the following link. Kindly note that this syllabus is considered as outdated and now not applicable for the upcoming UGC NET examination in Economics. You can use it only for your reference purpose.
Economics UGC NET Syllabus for Paper-2 (Old or Previous)
The detailed UGC NET old syllabus in Economics is given below.
NTA UGC NET/JRF/SET/SLET Syllabus for Economics / Rural Economics / Co-operation / Demography / Development Planning / Development Studies / Econometrics / Applied Economics / Development Economics / Business Economics, Code No: 01 is given below
1. Micro – Economic Analysis
Demand Analysis – Marshallian, Hicksian and Revealed preference approaches.
Theory of Production and Costs.
Pricing and output under different forms of market structure.
Factor Pricing analysis.
Elements of general equilibrium and new welfare economics.
2. Macro – Economic Analysis
Determination of output and employment – Classical approach, Keynesian approach, Consumption hypotheses.
Demand for Money – Fisher and Cambridge versions, Approaches of Keynesian, Friedman, Patinkin, Baumol and Tobin.
Supply of Money, Determinants of money supply, High – powered money, Money multiplier.
Phillips Curve analysis.
Business cycles – Models of Samuelson, Hicks and Kaldor.
Macro – economic Equilibrium – Relative roles of monetary and fiscal policies
3. Development and Planningwww.netugc.com
Economic Growth, Economic Development and sustainable Development – Importance of institutions – Government and markets – Perpetuation of underdevelopment – Vicious circle of poverty, circular causation, structural view of underdevelopment – Measurement of development conventional, HDI and quality of life indices.
Theories of Development – Classical, Marx and Schumpeter; Economic Growth – Harrod – Domar model, instability of equilibrium, Neoclassical growth – Solow’s model, steady state growth. Approaches to development: Balanced growth, critical minimum effort, big push, unlimited supply of labour, unbalanced growth, low income equilibrium trap.
Indicators and measurement of poverty.
Importance of agriculture and industry in economic development – choice of techniques and appropriate technology – Investment criteria – Elementary idea of cost – benefit analysis.
Trade and Aid – International trade as ‘engine of growth’ – Globalization and LDC’s Objectives and role of monetary and fiscal policies in economic development Techniques of planning; Plan Models in India; planning in a market – oriented economy.
4. Public Finance
Role of the Government in Economic activity – Allocation, distribution and stabilization functions; Private, Public and Merit goods.
The Public Budgets – Kinds of Budgets, Zero – base budgeting, different concepts of budget deficits; Budgets of the Union Government in India Public Expenditure – Hypotheses; effects and evaluation.
Public Revenue – Different approaches to the division of tax burden, incidence and effects of taxation; elasticity and buoyancy; taxable capacity Public Debt – Sources, effects, burden and its management.
Fiscal Federalism – Theory and problems; Problems of Centre – State Financial relations in India.
Fiscal Policy – Neutral and compensatory and functional finance; balanced budget multiplier.
5. International Economics
Theories of International Trade: Empirical verification and Relevance International Trade under Imperfect competition Terms of Trade and Economic Growth – Secular Deterioration of Terms of Trade Hypothesis – a critical review.
Equilibrium / disequilibrium in Balance of Payment – Traditional, Absorption and Monetary approaches for adjustment in the Balance of Payments, Foreign Trade multiplier.
Impact of Tariffs, Partial and general equilibrium analysis; Political economy of Non-Tariff Barriers.
Theory of regionalism at Global level – Collapse of Bretton – Wood System – Recent.
Monetary reforms.
Trade Policy and Reforms in India.
6. Indian Economy
Basic Economic indicators – National income, performance of different sectors Trends in prices and money supply.
Agriculture – Institutional and technological aspects, new agricultural policy Industry – New industrial policy and liberalization.
Money and banking – Concepts of money supply, inflation, monetary policy and financial sector reforms.
Public finance – Trends in revenue and expenditures of the Central and State Governments, Public debt; analysis of the Union Budget.
Foreign trade – Trends, Balance of payments and trade reforms.
Poverty, unemployment, migration and environment.
7. Statistical Methods
Measures of Central tendency, dispersion, skewness and kurtosis.
Elementary theory of probability – Binomial, Poisson and Normal distributions.
Simple correlation and regression analysis.
Statistical inferences – Applications, sampling distributions (t, x2 and F tests) sampling of attributes, testing of Hypothesis.
Index numbers and time series analysis.
Sampling and census methods, types of sampling and errors.
The following part of the UGC NET syllabus were previously under UGC NET Paper-3 (Part-A), however, as UGC has now only two papers i.e. UGC NET Paper-1 which is general and compulsory for all subjects and UGC NET Paper-2 on the specific subject (including all electives, without options) instead of previous three papers i.e. UGC NET Paper-1 which was general and compulsory for all subjects and UGC NET Paper-2 and Paper-3 on the specific subject, so, now-a-days, the following part is also considered as part of the UGC NET Paper-2 syllabus.
[Core group]
Unit – I
Theory of Demand – Axiomatic approach, Demand functions, Consumer behaviour under conditions of uncertainty.
Theory of production.
Collusive and non – collusive oligopolies.
Different models of objectives of the firm – Baumol, Morris and Williamson.
Factor pricing.
General equilibrium and Welfare Economics.
Unit – II
Keynesian and post – Keynesian approaches to theory of output and employment; concept of investment multiplier; consumption hypotheses Theories of investment and accelerator.
Theories of demand for money – Keynesian and post – Keynesian.
Different approaches to money supply; money supply; components and determinants; money multiplier.
Output – price determination ( aggregate supply and aggregate demand curve analysis ).
Fleming – Mundell open economy model.
Unit – III
Development and Growth – Role of institutions.
Theories of growth and development – Models of growth of Joan Robinson and Kaldor; Technical Progress – Hicks, Harrod and learning by doing, production function approach to the determinants of growth : Endogenous growth : role of education, research and knowledge – explanation of cross country differentials in economic development and growth.
Theories of development – Classical, Marx, Schumpeter and structural analysis of development – Imperfect market paradigm, Lewis model of development, Ranis – Fei model, Dependency theory of development.
Factors in economy development – natural resources, population, capital, Human Resource Development and infrastructure.
Trade and development – trade as engine of growth, two – gap analysis, Prebisch, Singer and Myrdal views; gains from trade and LDCs.
Unit – IV
Theories of taxation, types, incidence and effects.
Theories of public expenditure – effects on savings, investment and growth Burden of public debt.
Union Finance – Trends in Revenue and Expenditure of the Government of India.
State finance – Trends in Revenue and Expenditure of the State Governments.
Public Debt – India’s Public debt since 1951 – growth composition, ownership pattern and debt management.
Union – State Financial Relations – Horizontal and vertical imbalances; the Finance Commissions.
Fiscal Policy and Fiscal Reforms in India.
Unit – V
Monetary approach’ and adjustment in the balance of payments.
Regional blocs – multilateralism and world trading system.
The Political Economy of imposition of non – tariff barriers.
International trade under conditions of imperfect competition in goods market.
Theory of International reserves.
Optimum Currency Areas – Theory and impact in the developed and developing countries.
WTO and its impact on the different sectors of the economy.
Unit – VI
Components of money supply.
Role, constituents and functions of money and capital markets.
RBI – recent monetary and credit policies.
Commercial banks and co – operative banks.
Specialized financial and investment institutions.
Non – Bank financial institutions and Regional Rural Banks.
Unit – VII
Industrial structure and economic growth.
Pattern of industrialization – Public and Private; large and small industries.
Theories of Industrial location – Indian experience.
Industrial productivity – measurement, partial and total trends Industrial Finance in India.
Industrial Labour – Problems, policies and reforms in India Economic Reforms and industrial growth.
Unit – VIII
Population and Economic development – interrelation between population, development and environment, sustainable development.
Malthusian theory of population, Optimum theory of population, theory of demographic transition, population as ‘Limits to Growth’ and as ‘Ultimate Source’.
Concepts of Demography – Vital rates, Life tables, composition and uses, Measurement of fertility – Total fertility rate, gross and net reproduction rate – Age pyramids, population projection – stable, stationary and quasi – stationary population; characteristics of Indian population through recent census.
Poverty in India – Absolute and relative; analysis of poverty in India.
Environment as necessity – amenity and public goods; causes of environmental and ecosystem degeneration – policies for controlling pollution – economic and persuasive; their relative effectiveness in LDCs; Relation between population, poverty and environmental degradation – microplanning for environment and eco – preservation – water sheds, joint forest management and self – help groups.
Role of State in environmental preservation – Review of environmental legislation in India.
Unit – IX
Role of Agriculture in Indian Economy – Share of Agriculture, interrelationship between agriculture and industry.
Institutional aspects – Land reforms, Green revolution.
Technological aspects – Agricultural inputs and shifts in production function.
Capital formation in the rural sector – Savings, assets and credits.
Strategies for rural development.
Regional disparities in Indian agriculture.
Cooperative movement in India – Organization, structure and development of different types of cooperatives in India.
Unit – X
Application of Differential and Integral Calculus in theories of consumer behaviour, Production and pricing under different market conditions.
Input – output analysis and linear programming.
Application of Correlation and Regression.
Testing of Hypothesis in Regression Analysis.
The following part of the UGC NET syllabus were previously under UGC NET Paper-3 (Part-B), however, as UGC has now only two papers i.e. UGC NET Paper-1 which is general and compulsory for all subjects and UGC NET Paper-2 on the specific subject (including all electives, without options) instead of previous three papers i.e. UGC NET Paper-1 which was general and compulsory for all subjects and UGC NET Paper-2 and Paper-3 on the specific subject, so, now-a-days, the following part is also considered as part of the UGC NET Paper-2 syllabus.
[Elective / Optional]
Elective – I
Single Equation Linear Model:
Assumption and properties of OLS.
Multiple Regression Model – Estimation and Interpretation.
Multi – collinearity – Auto – correlation and heteroscedasticity – Causes, detection, consequences and remedy.
Dummy variables, distributed lags – Need, limitations and interpretation.
Applications in Economics.
Simultaneous Equation models :
Structural and reduced forms.
Endogenous and exogenous variables.
Identification problems and conditions.
Single equation methods of estimations – TSLS, indirect least squares and least variance ratio.
Techniques of Forecasting :
ARMA, ARIMA.
Econometric properties of time series, Unit root, integrated series, random walk and white noise.
Elective – II
Theory of Consumer Behaviour and Theory of Firms.
Theory of Pricing – Monopoly, Monopolistic competition, Duopoly and Oligopoly.www.netugc.com
Theory of Games – Two – person, Zero – sum Game, Pure and Mixed strategy, Saddle point solution, Linear programming and input output analysis.
Static and Dynamic Multiplier and Accelerator, Samuelson – Hicks trade cycle model.
Growth Models – Harrod and Domar, Neoclassical models – Solow, Meade, Kaldor’s Model with technological progress, endogenous growth models.
Employment and output determination with fixed and flexible prices ( IS – LM, Aggregate demand and aggregate supply analysis ).
Elective – III
The Rise and Fall of Bretton – Wood and emerging International Monetary System.
World Trading System – Evolution and Distortions.
Globalization – Developments in Exchange Markets, Euro – Currency Markets, and International Bond Markets, International Debt crisis.
Theory of Foreign Exchange Markets – Exchange Trading, Arbitrage and Market Hedging.
Elective – IV
Growth and Productivity trends in Indian Agriculture.
Development of distributive institutions – Costs and price policies.
Agricultural marketing and credit.
Trends in migration and labour markets. Minimum Wages Act.
WTO and sustainable agricultural development.
Reforms in Indian agriculture.
Elective – V
Planning and Economic Development.
Costs, Prices, WTO and Indian Agriculture.
Globalization, Liberalization and the Indian Industrial Sector.
Infrastructure and Economic Development.
Social Sector, Poverty and Reforms in India.
Women, Environment and Economic Development.
Trade Reforms and Liberalization.
Financial sector reforms.
Fiscal policy and fiscal reforms.
Economics: Economics is the social science that studies the behavior of individuals, households, and organizations (called economic actors, players, or agents), when they manage or use scarce resources, which have alternative uses, to achieve desired ends. Agents are assumed to act rationally, have multiple desirable ends in sight, limited resources to obtain these ends, a set of stable preferences, a definite overall guiding objective, and the capability of making a choice. There exists an economic problem, subject to study by economic science, when a decision (choice) has to be made by one or more resource-controlling players to attain the best possible outcome under bounded rational conditions. In other words, resource-controlling agents must maximize value subject to the constraints imposed by the information the agents have, their cognitive limitations, and the finite amount of time they have to make and execute a decision. Economic science centers on the activities of the economic agents that comprise society. They are the focus of economic analysis. The traditional concern of economics is to gain an understanding of the processes that govern the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in an exchange economy. An agent may have purposes or ends, such as reducing or protecting individuals from crime, on which he or she wants to spend resources. Economics may study how the agent determines the amount of resources to allocate for this purpose, aside from the traditional concern of economics.
The UGC NET in Economics syllabus, question pattern, old examination questions papers along with answer keys (solved questions) can be found at UGC NET in Economics .