Students

We offer courses for the following Bachelor degree programs:

• “Business Administration and Economics”
• “Governance and Public Policy”
• “International Cultural and Business Studies”
• “Lehramt Gymnasium” and "Bachelor Realschule"
• "Mathematics"

Market Failures and Economic Policy (winter semester)

The module Market Failures and Economic Policy covers foundations of welfare economics. We deal with the question under which conditions markets do work in the sense that individually rational decisions result in a collective optimum, and under which conditions markets fail. The focus is placed on the analysis of common market failure problems and the justification of government intervention. In particular, we analyse public goods (free rider problems in individual decision making and public provision, tragedy of the commons and theory of clubs), external effects (pollution and environmental policy), asymmetric information (moral hazard, adverse selection and the social security system) and natural monopolies (network industries and regulation). In a final introduction to political economy, the role that different voting schemes play in collective decision-making is shown.

Public Finance (summer semester, in English) 

This module provides an economic analysis of taxation and public debt. We start by investigating the development and structure of public expenditures and public revenues, before we introduce the concept of social welfare functions and several ideas about a fair distribution of the tax burden. Then, we look at the design of taxes and discuss linear, regressive and progressive taxes and their relation to inequality. In the core of this module is the analysis of the impact of taxes on individual decisions and resulting welfare effects, the question of who bears the tax burden (tax incidence), as well as optimal taxation as a trade-off between equity and efficiency. In an aside, we deal with the German income tax schedule and introduce a simple economic model of tax evasion. Finally, we study the development of public debt and deal with the question to which degree public debt is sustainable. We discuss in which cases financing government expenditures by public debt rather than by increased taxes might be justified and to which degree excessive public debt might create problems.

Topics in Public Economics: Environmental Economics (summer semester, in English)

Negative externalities such as environmental pollution result in a suboptimal allocation of ressources in free markets. Specific environmental policies can in principle bring about Pareto improvements for the society. However, not all well-intented policies have positive effects; some might even be counterproductive. This seminar provides a comprehensive introduction to the field of Environmental Economics. Starting from the question why and how we should evaluate the environment, we deal with the monetary and non-monetary costs of climate change, air pollution, water pollution and natural desasters. Based on these insights, we evaluate traditional evironmental policies such as carbon taxes, emission trading schemes, road pricing, the expansion of public transit but also non-price measures inspired by behavioral insights. In two introductory sessions, we will present to you the various topics in detail and make you familiar with the basics of academic writing. In a further session, we show you how to use the library system for your literature research. A feedback session allows you to present the outline of your thesis at an early stage. The seminar ends with a compact course at the end of the semester when students present their thesis and discuss a fellow student's thesis.

We offer courses for the following Master Bachelor degree programs:

• "International Economics and Business"
• “Business Administration”
• “Governance and Public Policy”
• “International Cultural and Business Studies”
• "Development Studies"

Natural and Field Experiments (winter semester, in English)

This course provides an introduction to applied microeconometric program evaluation and thereby creates a valuable basis for understanding a wide range of empirical work not only in economics but also in management, sociology, or political science. Understanding how specific policies/historical events/institutions affect human beings is at the very heart of empirical research in social sciences. Although these questions appear universally, the answers are complicated by the fact that the clean identification of cause and effect goes far beyond the demonstration of naive correlations. This course introduces empirical methods that explicitly aim at distinguishing naive correlation from actual causation. Among the methods discussed are fixed effects strategies, difference-in-differences approaches, instrumental variable techniques, regression discontinuity designs, and field experiments with random assignment to treatment. After a theoretical introduction to the respective methods, seminal empirical research papers applying these methods are discussed in detail. These research papers improve our understanding of how we can apply microeconometric techniques to answer policy relevant questions in a causal way.

Behavioral Public Economics (winter semester, in English)

The model of homo oeconomicus, a rational perfectly informed and self-interested individual who maximizes her utility, sometimes fails to provide an adequate picture of individual decision-making processes. In some circumstances, individuals make systematically wrong decisions. This lecture demonstrates which implications can be drawn from behavioral economic insights for the field of public economics. Amongst the topics covered in the lecture are time-inconsistent behavior (hyperbolic discounting) and its implications for the taxation of sin goods such as alcohol or unhealthy food, mental accounting and its implications for labelling social transfers, the salience of information and its implications for attitudes and behavior, reference points and loss aversion and its implications for labor supply, and the role of default options for retirement and health insurance.

Advanced Microeconomics (winter semester, in English)

This course provides students with the core elements of microeconomic theory. We start by studying consumer theory including welfare evaluation. In this part of the module, we assume that choices result in perfectly certain outcomes. We relax this assumption in the second part of the course, when we analyse choice under uncertainty. We finally focus on game theory, where we apply what we learn in choice under uncertainty to the study of simultaneous- and dynamic-games. Although the focus of the course is theoretical, empirical applications of the models will also be discussed.

Economics of Education (summer semester, in English) 

Human capital is a key factor for growth and prosperity of nations. Due to the crucial role of education, Germany’s bad performance in recent international school achievement tests has induced heated debates on problems of the current school system and necessary reforms. The first part of this lecture deals with the role of education for the economic development of countries and the effects of schooling on wages and the risk of getting unemployed. Apart from these labor market related impacts, we also look at the effects of schooling on health, crime, and social engagement. It becomes apparent that education is not only about cognitive but also about non-cognitive skills. The second part of the lecture evolves around the question how school systems should be designed in order to provide the best possible results for children and youths. In addition to the investigating effects of early childhood education, we focus on the effects of class size, (early) educational tracking, school autonomy as well as the role of teachers. This analysis is based on an in-depth inspection of current empirical research papers.

Population Economics (summer semester, in English)

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, Western countries experienced a massive decline in fertility and mortality rates. In the second half of the 20th century, we observe a further decline in fertility, which is often ascribed to the emergence of the birth control pill. At the same time, education and female labor supply substantially increased, and the age at which people married increased. Family policies have been adapted to enhance the reconciliation of work and family life and thus support females’ position in the labor market. Moreover, international migration plays an important role in population dynamics and changing labor markets. This lecture starts with an in-depth analysis of the driving forces behind the great demographic transition. Then, we deal with economic theory and empirical evidence on decisions in families concerning fertility and the division of labor, economic effects of the birth control pill, discrimination in the labor market, and the evaluation of family policies with respect to the reconciliation of work and family life. Finally, we investigate who selects into migration and why, and which impact international migration has on destination countries' labor markets.

Economics of Crime (summer semester, in English)

This module introduces students to the theoretical and empirical contributions of economists to the understanding of crime. The economic approach to crime assumes that individuals choose whether to commit a crime based on a rational comparison of its expected costs and benefits. We start by reviewing the theoretical model of crime developed by Becker (1968), which has been the seminal work in the field. After introducing the key elements and implications of this model, we focus on the growing number of empirical studies that have attempted to test its predictions. More specifically, the module covers topics such as the role of policing, imprisonment, labour market opportunities, education, immigration, drug policy, and guns. We also examine the recent contributions in the subfields of intimate partner violence and organised crime. Throughout the course we will become familiar with a variety of sources of crime data, as well as policy evaluation methods commonly used in these empirical analyses.

Seminar in Public Economics: Replicating Empirical Research (winter semester, in English)

This course introduces students to the replication of empirical research papers. It is divided into two parts. In the first part, students work in groups of two to replicate the main results of a paper. The results of this exercise (including the code developed by the students themselves) are then presented to the rest of the class. In the second part, students individually prepare a short seminar paper in which they extend the replication of the paper by conducting further analyses. The research papers assigned will be in the broad area of public economics and the software used can either be Stata or R. Details can be found on StudIP.