Economics

Please note that in Germany, a distinction is made between economics (Volkswirtschaftslehre) and business administration (Betriebswirtschaftslehre): Economics studies how people and societies allocate scarce resources, focusing on the "big picture" of the broader economy and on policy design from the societal perspective. By contrast, business administration focuses on the specific management of a single organisation, teaching the skills needed to plan, organise, and manage the day-to-day operations, resources, and people within a company. The Master's programme in Economics at Osnabrück University is offering students a broad-based education in economics whilst also providing them with opportunities for individual specialisation. The programme offers a wide range of advanced modules in fields as diverse as microeconomics, macroeconomics, public finance, international economic policy, statistics/econometrics, and environmental economics. Depending on their subject combinations, students will have the option of specialising in either Empirical Economics or Sustainability, Behaviour and Environmental Policy. Empirical Economics Modern economics is increasingly using empirical methods in its research. The School of Business Administration and Economics is particularly strong in this field, as the three chairs of macroeconomics, international economic policy and statistics/econometrics all follow an empirical approach and together make up the Institute of Empirical Economic Research. Our specialisation in Empirical Economics offers students research-based teaching, which provides them with both a solid methodological foundation in the fields of statistics and econometrics as well as a practical focus in their education in which they examine a number of key economic policy issues. One distinctive aspect of the programme is that students engage in independent empirical research and carry out their own statistical inferences, for example, in the context of a broader project seminar. Sustainability, Behaviour and Environmental Policy This specialisation is directed at students interested in understanding the connection between environmental issues, human behaviour and economics, in learning about potential policy approaches to address current environmental challenges, and who are looking to make a personal contribution to steering society towards greater sustainability in their future careers. The unique feature of this specialisation lies in its combination of environmental economics with findings from behavioural economics. The latter lies at the nexus between economics and psychology and goes beyond the traditional model of the "homo economicus" to open the way for a broader understanding of human behaviour, for example by accounting for constraints on rationality and willpower, for the role of values and social norms, and innovative political instruments such as so-called “nudges”. At the same time, environmental economics offers important insights into the role and design of economic incentive tools in environmental policy (e.g. CO2 pricing) and into the correlation between economic growth, emissions and environmental quality. Of course, the transformation to sustainability also requires students to possess a solid understanding of our economic system.