Some of you have asked whether there are previous exam questions available for self-study. There are, but the relevance is not obvious:
- This semester is the first time the course ECON 4515 is offered. Something similar was previously offered under the names SØK 460 or ECON 460. But that course was larger, 15 ECTS points instead of 10, and thus contained more material, in particular on options.
- The curriculum used in ECON 4515 is new. Much of the contents were also contained in SØK 460 / ECON 460, but not all. The textbook of Danthine and Donaldson was first used in SØK 460 / ECON 460 in the fall of 2002.
- The students were allowed six hours for the written exams until 2003.
- Some of the exam questions are only available in Norwegian.
The previous exam questions for SØK 460 / ECON 460 are available here.
Of those questions, the following are relevant:
- Fall (høst) 2002, question 1
- Spring (vår) 2001 delayed exam (utsatt prøve), question 1
- Spring 2001, question 1
- Spring 2000, all questions
- Fall 1999, question 1
- Spring 1999, questions 2(a), 2(b)
- Fall 1998, question 3
- Fall 1996, question 1
- Fall 1995, questions 1, 2
- Spring 1995, question 2
- Fall 1994, question 1 (a)–(d)
- Spring 1993, question 1 (a), (b), (d)
Please do not put much emphasis on the exclusion I have made of lots of exam questions. For instance, the list above does not include many questions related to market efficiency. The reason for this is that most of those questions which have been given on market efficiency, have contained some reference to those texts which were on previous reading lists. Malkiel and Shiller are different, and therefore the previous questions are not relevant any more. This does not imply that market efficiency is not a relevant topic for your exam.
There exist suggested answers in English to the exams from 1993 and 1994 mentioned at the end of the list above. The notation is somewhat different from what you have seen in 2004, but you should be able to interpret it.
Diderik Lund, 4 November 2004