A curriculum that equips you to solve real-world policy challenges
The Policy Economics specialisation within the MSc Economics and Business provides a rigorous and applied curriculum that prepares you to become a policy economist capable of addressing today’s most pressing economic issues. The programme combines theoretical depth, empirical analysis, and practical application across five blocks.
Programme structure
- Core courses provide a strong foundation in public economics, macroeconomics, and econometrics. You will take courses such as Advanced Public Economics, Applied Econometrics, and Advanced Macroeconomics, along with a choice between Economics of Organisations, Industrial Organisation, or Advanced Money, Credit and Banking.
- Electives allow you to explore specific policy areas, including Policy Issues in Public Spending on Labour, Education and Health, Advanced Political Economy, and Advanced Development Economics.
- Seminars are a central part of the programme. In the first seminar, you can choose between Policy Evaluation - focused on applied research techniques such as policy evaluation, cost-benefit analysis, and field experiments- and Quantitative Macroeconomics, which trains you to analyse and estimate modern macroeconomic models. In the second seminar, you will choose between Economic Policy—which focuses on current policy debates—or Economics of Migration, which studies policy issues about migration.
- Master thesis is written individually in the final phase of the programme, based on your own research and under close supervision.
Curriculum overview
- 29% Applications
- 33% Theory
- 38% Empirics
In class
You will work on real-world assignments that reflect the complexity of modern policy-making. For example:
How should a country design its income tax system?
In Advanced Public Economics, you will use the optimal tax model developed by Nobel laureate James Mirrlees to calculate income tax rates for a country of your choice. Working in pairs, you will use Excel to model the tax schedule and explain the economic rationale behind your results.
Study schedule
The Take-Off is the introduction event for all new students of Erasmus School of Economics. During this interesting introduction event, you will be provided with useful practical information and receive an introduction to your studies, meet your fellow students and our School.
- Sampling
- Regression and Prediction (OLS, Lasso, etc.)
- Causal Inference (Differences-in-Differences, Instrumental Variables, Regression Discontinuity)
- Panel Data (Random Effects, Fixed Effects, Dynamic Panels)
- Limited Dependent Variables (Probit, Logit, Poisson, etc.)
This course is concerned with normative public economics. A choice is made each year from the following topics:
- The first and second welfare theorems
- The theory of second-best and dead-weight loss
- Optimal non-linear income tax
- Optimal participation taxes
- Optimal indirect taxes
- Optimal capital income taxes
- Optimal participation taxes
- Optimal taxes/subsidies on human capital and provision of education
- Optimal provision of public goods and social cost-benefit analysis
- Optimal corrective (environmental) taxes/regulation
- Optimal minimum wage policies
The course links the optimal tax principles to actual policy discussions, for example, the flat-tax debate, the optimal progressivity of the income tax, the top rate of the income tax, taxation of capital incomes, greening the tax system, discussions on the optimal size of the public sector, the role of the government in (higher) education, etc.
Students choose one of the listed courses:
- Advanced Money, Credit and Banking
- Economics of Organisations
- Industrial Organisation
- Advanced Political Economics
Students choose one of the listed courses and one of the remaining Electives 1 or 2 or one other Economics and Business master’s course, with the exception of the core courses from the specialisation Data Science and Marketing Analytics:
- Advanced Development Economics
- Policy Issues in Public Spending on Education, Health and Labour
- Taxation of Multinationals
- Inequalities and Discrimination in Labour Markets
- The macroeconomics of consumption and saving
- Modern macroeconomic business cycle analysis
- Modern macroeconomic models
Students choose one of the listed seminars:
- Seminar Cases in Policy Evaluation
- Seminar Quantitative Macroeconomics
Students choose one of the listed seminars:
- Seminar Economic Policy
- Seminar Economics of Migration
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.
Find all the courses in the Course catalogue.
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.