The study programme in a nutshell
A curriculum designed for Real-World impact
The Economics of Sustainability specialisation offers a unique and interdisciplinary approach to understanding and addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The programme is structured across five blocks, combining academic depth with hands-on experience and collaboration with external experts.
Programme structure
- Block 1
You begin with an introduction to sustainable development (4 ECTS), exploring the complexity of the SDGs, their interconnections, and the challenges of balancing short- and long-term solutions across different levels of policy intervention. The real-world cases on which you will work during the following blocks - such as climate change, migration, and healthy ageing - are introduced, with external case owners joining the classroom to present their topic and share their experiences.
You also follow Applied Microeconometrics (4 ECTS) to strengthen your empirical skills and choose an elective- Blocks 2 and 3
You select your seminar electives (18 ECTS) from a curated set of options, allowing you to shape your own learning path. During these blocks, you also work in teams on the real-world cases introduced earlier. Supported by the case owners and teachers, you explore relevant literature, reports, and conduct expert interviews. - Block 4
You participate in an intensive seminar (10 ECTS) focused on policy interventions for sustainable development. You prepare a comprehensive report on your case, shifting from problem analysis to solution design. Interaction between teams ensures that you gain insights into all four cases presented in the programme. At the end of the block, you will present your final report to the case owners. - Blocks 4 and 5
You complete your master thesis (16 ECTS), ideally related to the case you studied throughout the year. You are supported by a mentor and a study group of peers working on similar topics.
A teaching approach that mirrors real sustainability challenges
Sustainability issues are complex, cross-border, and deeply interconnected. That is why this programme brings together expertise from across economic disciplines, including:
- Micro- and macroeconomics
- Health and environmental economics
- Urban and regional development
- National and international policy analysis
To reflect the complexity of real-world challenges, you will work on an impact case throughout the year. In this long-term assignment, your team is asked by an external case owner - typically a Dutch ministry, major corporation or international organization such as the OECD - to develop a policy plan for a specific sustainability issue. This collaboration ensures the real-world relevance and potential impact of your work, as the academic knowledge you gain is continuously linked to practical insights from professionals. Your final report thus provides actionable input for the case owner in their policy design.
What the programme entails
In teaching about sustainability challenges, we use a different teaching approach than other master programmes. Sustainability challenges are complex, do not stick to national boundaries, and are deeply interconnected. Therefore, our master programme brings together expertise across economic disciplines: from micro- to macro-economics, from health to environmental economics, from regional and urban development to national polities and international trade. When talking about sustainability challenges, there are a lot of different opinions on the issues and the solutions. How do you design solutions when everyone seems to disagree on the problem? To train you on working in such situations, we have designed the impact case. In this assignment, that runs throughout the year, you and your team will be asked by an external case owner to develop a policy plan for a specific sustainability challenge. This guarantees that the scientific knowledge you build up during the year is combined with the practical knowledge from experts working daily on these cases.
Testimonials
Course overview
Disclaimer
The overview below provides an impression of the curriculum for this programme for the academic year 2025-2026. It is not an up-to-date study schedule for current students. They can find their full study schedules on MyEUR. Please note that minor changes to this schedule are possible in future academic years.
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.
The aim of this course is to introduce the students to the societal issues that the SDGs tackle, the complexities of these issues and how these issues manifest themselves in our economic system. The course is divided in two parts. In week 1 to 5, the students will dive deeper into the societal issues behind the SDGs. After a first introduction, each week one of four themes will be discussed: a) climate change; b) immigration; c) social inequalities; d) healthy aging. For each theme, the following questions are answered:
- What are the societal issues within the theme?
- What are the main causes of these societal issues and how are they related to the characteristics of our economic system?
- What are the economic consequences of these societal issues?
- Why are these societal issues so complex to tackle? What are barriers in our economic system/thinking that hinder ‘solving’ these issues?
- What economic policies are currently in place for these societal issues and why might they not be sufficient?
This course provides students with knowledge of econometric methods which are relevant for applied economics. In particular, it first refreshes the essentials of the standard regression model. It then covers methods that can be useful when the dependent variable of interest is endogenous: instrumental variables and linear panel data models. Finally, the last part of the course covers methods for binary outcomes.
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.
This course consists of four parts:
- Linear regression models (linear regression; conditions for causality; specification tests, model selection).
- Endogeneity and instrumental variables estimation (causality, identifying and dealing with endogeneity)
- Linear panel data models (random effects models; fixed effects models; difference-in-differences).
- Models for binary outcomes data.
Students choose two of the listed courses:
- Urban Economics
- Advanced Political Economics
- Advanced Development Economics
- Policy Issues in Public Spending
- Advanced Empirical Methods
Topics covered include:
- How is discrimination in labor markets and organizations identified?
- How are inequalities and discrimination related?
- How do inequalities in education lead to inequalities in labor markets?
- What are firms’ incentives to hire or promote the most productive workers?
- What are stereotypes and biases, and how do they impact employment-related decisions?
- What types of policies can organizations implement to increase diversity and inclusion?
- What types of policies reduce inequalities?
Students choose one of the listed seminars:
- Seminar Cases in Policy Evaluations
- Seminar Applied Behavioural Economics
- Seminar Sustainable Firm Strategy
- Seminar Health Economics
In this seminar, the emphasis will be on the policies governments and other stakeholders introduce to respond to the SDGs. Students will investigate how policies are implemented in their case, which stakeholders are impacted by the policies, how these policies affect the SDG’s and what possible change in policies are resulting in better reaching the SDGs. They use the knowledge build up in the first three blocks and present what they learned about the adopted case. This investigation will lead to weekly presentations of the literature and a group assignment in which the case groups report on the implementation of policy options related to their case.
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.