Online Course Economics
Winter (December) & Summer (July)

Workload: 15 hours per week
Faculty: M. Rehm and B. Thijssen,  B. Rienties and M. van Wesel
Assessment: participation in online discussion forums, online tests, online final exam (multiple choice and essay questions)

Content and objectives
To make the start of the master programmes as smooth as possible, the purpose of the Online Course Economics is to build basic knowledge about Economics in general and Public Economics in specific. The so-called “Micro-Economics perspective” will is used to analyse principles like utility, budget constraints and. opportunity costs. These concepts will help to understand the mechanism of the supply and demand model. This model is of fundamental importance for strategic decisions of governments and to evaluate how any fiscal policy will effect the participants in a market. Furthermore, the course will introduce the “Public-Economics perspective”, which focuses on a very distinctive group of items and policy tools that require certain modifications of the standard demand and supply model. Moreover, the course will take a “Macro-Economics perspective” and will look at some major economic parameters such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and inflation, which are often used as a starting point for changes in governmental policies.

Literature
Bade, R. and Parkin, M. (2004), Foundations of Economics, Pearson Addison Wesley, 2nd Edition, chapters 1 - 12 and 20
Waldman, D.E. (2004), Microeconomics, Pearson Addison Wesley/Benjamin Cummings, 1st Edition,
chapters 19 and 21