A curriculum that combines economics, psychology, and real-world application
The Behavioural Economics specialisation within the MSc Economics and Business gives you both a solid training in mainstream economics and the tools to apply psychological insights to improve predictions and design more effective products, strategies, and policies.
You will follow courses in empirical methods, mainstream economics, and behavioural economics. The curriculum is designed to help you understand and influence decision-making in a wide range of contexts.
Core Behavioural Economics courses
You will take three core courses (4 ECTS each) and one seminar (10 ECTS), where you will explore the latest insights in behavioural economics and apply them in interactive settings:
- Advanced Behavioural Economics
- Experimental Economics
- Seminar Applied Behavioural Economics
The seminar explores behavioural analysis—why people behave the way they do and which psychological and contextual factors influence their decisions. You will learn how to apply behavioural insights to encourage desirable behaviour in real-world settings.
Empirical methods and data skills
Two courses focus on working with different types of data and introduce you to widely used statistical software such as STATA and R.
Choose your track
You can tailor your programme by selecting one of three economics track, each aligned with another specialisation within the MSc Economics and Business:
- Financial Economics track
- Strategy Economics track
- Marketing track
Each track includes courses and seminars from the corresponding specialisation.
You may also choose a behavioural elective, such as Advanced Behavioural Finance or Economics of Negotiations, depending on your selected track.
Curriculum Overview
- 50% Behavioural Economics (22 ECTS)
- 32% Track-specific courses (14 ECTS)
- 18% Empirical methods
The core coursework consists of approximately 40% theory (mainly in lectures) and 60% application (mainly in the seminar).
In class
Examples of practical applications discussed in class:
- Eneco: Encouraging customers to use more electricity during daytime hours and reduce consumption during peak times (before and after work).
- IKEA: Increasing customer engagement through the app to enhance usage and interaction.
- ING: Promoting safer digital behaviour among customers, such as avoiding phishing emails.
- Ministry of Economic Affairs – Behavioural Insights Team:
- Motivating SMEs to start sustainability reporting.
- Encouraging neighbourhood residents to collaborate on sustainability initiatives.
Study schedule
The Take-Off is the introduction programme for all new students at Erasmus School of Economics. During the Take-Off you will meet your fellow students, get acquainted with our study associations and learn all the ins and outs of your new study programme, supporting information systems and life on campus and in the city.
In this course we provide students with knowledge of econometric methods which are relevant for applied economics. In particular, this course first refreshes the essentials of the standard regression model, and subsequently it covers methods that can be useful when the dependent variable of interest is endogenous. The last part of the course introduces models that are useful when the dependent variable is binary.
Students follow a hands-on approach to understanding empirical econometric methods, in this way getting the opportunity to develop experience with the application of these methods in their own field of specialization.
The course consists of lectures, exercise lectures and group practical work. The lectures present and discuss each method and relevant applications. In the exercise lectures, students are taught how to implement the methods themselves. The main student activity consists of practical empirical applications, where the methods are applied to real-world datasets in applied economics.
Economic agents often do not behave as the rational Homo Economicus. In behavioral economics the standard economic models and theories are adapted to incorporate the economically most relevant findings from psychology. Thereby, behavioral economic research strives to develop models with a higher predictive power than standard economic models. The challenge for behavioral economics is to maintain the balance between predictive power and complexity of the models.
This course will give an up-to-date overview of the most relevant behavioral economic models. Students will learn the differences between the various models. This will enable them to recognize which type of model is most appropriate in specific contexts.
* Students choose one of the Tracks listed below.
- Strategy Economics Track
- One of the following courses
- Economics of Organisations
- Economics of Strategy
- Economics of Negotiations
- Seminar Global Firm Strategy
- One of the following courses
- Financial Economics Track
- One of the following courses
- Advanced Corporate Finance and Strategy
- Advanced Investments
- any other Financial Economics elective
- One of the following courses
- Advanced Behavioural Finance
- Economics of Negotiations
- One of the following seminars
- Seminar Advanced Corporate Finance: Private Equity
- Seminar Risk Management
- Seminar Advanced Money, Credit and Banking
- Seminar Finance for Sustainability
- Seminar Advanced Corporate Finance: Corporate Governance
- Seminar Behavioural Finance
- Seminar Institutional Asset Management
- Seminar Topics in FinTech
- One of the following courses
- Marketing Track
- One of the following courses
- Branding
- Sales & Account Management
- Economics of Negotiations
- One of the following seminars
- Seminar Developing and Marketing New Products
- Seminar Customer Intelligence and CRM
- Seminar Global Brand Strategy
Experiments are an increasingly important tool in economics. They are, for instance, used to understand why financial investors spend too little on stocks, why consumers are reluctant to change brands, and in the analysis of labor market decisions. This course deals with the following questions:
- Why are experiments such a powerful tool to discover the causal effect of a treatment?
- What exactly are economic experiments?
- Why should incentives be given in economic experiments work? Do they always work?
- How can utility be measured with experiments?
- What kind of statistical analyses are needed for experimental data?
- What is the optimal sample size to discover the causal effect of interest?
- Are results found in the laboratory predictive of behavior in the real world?
- How can we test lab-field generalizability by means of field experiments?
Course ID FEM11164
Behavioural economics models systematic deviations from the standard economic model. This seminar will show how to take into account these deviations to improve the design and implementation of business strategies and public policies.
The course will consist of guest lectures and case studies in partnership with companies and public organization.
Students need to write a thesis on a behavioural economics topic. The thesis is an individual assignment about a subject from your Master's specialisation. More information about thesis subjects, thesis supervisors and the writing process can be found on the Master thesis website.
Disclaimer
This overview provides a general impression of the 2026-2027 curriculum. It is not the current study schedule. Enrolled students can find the most up-to-date version on MyEUR. Please note that minor changes may occur in future academic years.