IIT JAM Economics

About the exam:

• Conducted by one of the IITs every year
• Conducted in Computer Based Test (CBT) mode only
• It is a Joint Admission Test for masters (JAM)
• Allows you to get direct admission into postgraduate courses offered
by various IITs, NITs, IISc, etc.
• Candidates can appear for either ONE or TWO papers
• Candidates can get more information by visiting the official website of
conducting institute
About the exam:
• Currently, MSc in economics is being offered by the following
institutes:
1. IIT Delhi
2. IIT Roorkee
3. IIT Kanpur (offers MSc and E- Masters programme)
Eligibility:
•In IITD, candidates need to have a Bachelor’s degree i.e. B.A. / B. Sc./
B.Com/ B.Stat./ B.Math./ B.Tech/B.E. or equivalent. The Bachelor’s
degree or equivalent qualification must be of a minimum duration of
three years of education after completing higher secondary schooling
(10+2) or equivalent
•In IITR, candidates need to have a Bachelor’s degree i.e. B.Tech/B.E./
B.Sc. (PCM)/ B.Stat. and B.A./ B.Com. with Mathematics as one of the
subjects in the whole program
•In IITK, students from both Economics and non-Economics backgrounds
will be admitted into the program. The minimum eligibility criterion is
first class in the applicant's undergraduate degree.
Exam Pattern and duration:
• Exam consists of 60 questions divided into three sections
Section - A : MCQ
Contains a total of 30 Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs). Each MCQ
has four choices out of which only one choice is the correct answer

No. of Marks of each Negative marks

questions MCQ

10 1 1/3
20 2 2/3
Exam Pattern and duration:
Section-B : MSQ
• Contains a total of 10 Multiple Select Questions (MSQs).
• Each MSQ is similar to MCQ but with the difference that MSQ may
have one or more than one correct choice(s) out of the four given
choices.
• The candidate is awarded full credit only if all the correct answer(s)
and no wrong answers are selected

No. of questions Marks of each Negative

MCQ marks
10 2 0
Exam Pattern and duration:
Section-C : NAT
• Contains a total of 20 Numerical Answer Type (NAT) questions
• For NAT questions, the answer is a signed real number, which needs
to be entered using the virtual numeric keypad displayed on the
monitor.
• No choices will be shown for NAT questions.
• There is no negative marking for NAT.

No. of questions Marks Negative Marks

10 1 0
10 2 0
Books to read:
At Ecoholics we have carefully picked the “must have” reference books to mentor you
towards your journey. Knowing what to read and what not to, is an art, but why fear when
Ecoholics is here to guide you…

1. Microeconomics Theory : Hal Varian or HL Ahuja

2. Macroeconomics: Richard T Froyen or Macroeconomics by HL Ahuja
3. Mathematical Economics: Sydsaetar and Hammond or AC Chiang
4. Statistics : Jay L Devore
5. Econometrics : Damodar N Gujrati
6. International Economics: Dominick Salvatore or HL Ahuja
7. Indian Economy Performance and Policies : Uma Kapila
8. Growth & Development: Macroeconomics by HL Ahuja

These are just reference books and you might have to consider reading and restructuring
your thoughts to complete your study. Also, there are plenty of economics e-books available
on Ecoholics App for free to take second opinions.
Syllabus for the exam
Microeconomics
• Consumer theory: Preference, utility and representation theorem, budget
constraint, choice, demand (ordinary and compensated), Slutsky equation, revealed
preference axioms
• Theory of production and cost: Production technology, isoquants, production
function with one and more inputs, returns to scale, short run and long run costs,
cost curves in the short run and long run
• General equilibrium and welfare: Equilibrium and efficiency under pure exchange
and production, welfare economics, theorems of welfare economics
• Market structure: Perfect competition, monopoly, pricing with market power, price
discrimination (first, second and third), monopolistic competition and oligopoly
• Game theory: Strategic form games, iterated elimination of dominated strategies,
Nash equilibrium, mixed extension and mixed strategy Nash equilibrium, examples:
Cournot, Bertrand duopolies, Prisoner's dilemma
• Public goods and market failure: Externalities, public goods and markets with
asymmetric information (adverse selection and moral hazard)
Macroeconomics
• National income accounting: Structure, key concepts, measurements, and
circular flow of income - for closed and open economy, money, fiscal and foreign
sector variables - concepts and measurements
• Behavioural and technological functions: Consumption functions - absolute
income hypothesis, life-cycle and permanent income hypothesis, random walk
model of consumption, investment functions - Keynesian, money demand and
supply functions, production function
• Business cycles and economic models (closed economy): Business cycles-facts
and features, the Classical model of the business cycle, the Keynesian model of
the business cycle, simple Keynesian cross model of income and employment
determination and the multiplier (in a closed economy), IS-LM Model, Hicks' IS-
LM synthesis, role of monetary and fiscal policies
Macroeconomics
• Business cycles and economic models (open economy): Open
economy, Mundell-Fleming model, Keynesian flexible price (aggregate
demand and aggregate supply) model, role of monetary and fiscal
policies
• Inflation and unemployment: Inflation - theories, measurement,
causes, and effects, unemployment - types, measurement, causes,
and effects
• Growth models: Harrod-Domar, Solow and Neo-classical growth
models (AK model, Romer model and Schumpeterian growth model)
Mathematical Economics
• Preliminaries and functions: Set theory and number theory,
elementary functions: quadratic, polynomial, power, exponential,
logarithmic, functions of several variables, graphs and level curves,
convex set, concavity and quasiconcavity of function, convexity and
quasi-convexity of functions, sequences and series: convergence,
algebraic properties and applications, complex numbers and its
geometrical representation, De Moivre’s theorem and its application
• Differential calculus: Limits, continuity and differentiability, mean
value theorems, Taylor’s theorem, partial differentiation, gradient,
chain rule, second and higher order derivatives: properties and
applications, implicit function theorem, and application to
comparative statics problems, homogeneous and homothetic
functions: characterisations and applications
Mathematical Economics
• Integral calculus: Definite integrals, fundamental theorems, indefinite
integrals and applications
• Differential equations, and difference equations: First order
difference equations, first order differential equations and
applications
• Linear algebra: Matrix representations and elementary operations,
systems of linear equations: properties of their solution, linear
independence and dependence, rank, determinants, eigenvectors and
eigenvalues of square matrices, symmetric matrices and quadratic
forms, definiteness and semidefiniteness of quadratic forms
Mathematical Economics
• Optimization: Local and global optima: geometric and calculus-based
characterisations, and applications, multivariate optimization,
constrained optimization and method of Lagrange multiplier, second
order condition of optima, definiteness and optimality, properties of
value function: envelope theorem and applications, linear
programming: graphical solution, matrix formulation, duality,
economic interpretation
Statistics and Econometrics
• Probability theory: Sample space and events, axioms of probability and their
properties, conditional probability and Bayes’ rule, independent events,
random variables and probability distributions, expectation, variance and
higher order moments, functions of random variables, properties of
commonly used discrete and continuous distributions, density and
distribution functions for jointly distributed random variables, mean and
variance of jointly distributed random variables, covariance and correlation
coefficients
• Mathematical statistics: Random sampling, types of sampling, point and
interval estimation, estimation of population parameters using methods of
moments and maximum likelihood procedures, properties of estimators,
sampling distribution, confidence intervals, central limit theorem, law of
large number
Statistics and Econometrics
• Hypothesis testing: distributions of test statistics, testing hypotheses
related to population parameters, Type I and Type II errors, the power
of a test, tests for comparing parameters from two samples
• Correlation and regression: Correlation and types of correlation, the
nature of regression analysis, method of Ordinary Least Squares
(OLS), CLRM assumptions, properties of OLS, goodness of fit, variance
and covariance of OLS estimator
Indian Economy
• Indian economy before 1950: Transfer of tribute, deindustrialization
of India
• Planning and Indian development: Planning models, relation
between agricultural and industrial growth, challenges faced by Indian
planning
• Indian economy after 1991: Balance of payments crisis in 1991, major
aspects of economic reforms in India after 1991, reforms in trade and
foreign investment
• Banking, finance and macroeconomic policies: aspects of banking in
India, CRR and SLR, financial sector reforms in India, fiscal and
monetary policy, savings and investment rates in India
Indian Economy
• Inequalities in social development: India’s achievements in health,
education and other social sectors, disparities between Indian States
in human development
• Poverty: Methodology of poverty estimation, Issues in poverty
estimation in India
• India’s labour market: unemployment, labour force participation
rates