Nijmegen, Netherlands
DEGREE TYPE
MSc
DURATION
1 year
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
01 Jul 2025*
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2025
TUITION FEES
EUR 2,601 / per year **
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* final deadline for EU students | deadline for EU students who want to get assistance with housing: 1 May 2025 | deadline for non-EU students: 1 Apr 2025
** Statutory fee for EU/EEA students | Institutional tuition fee EU/EEA: €13.784 | For non-EU/EEA students: €18.404
Key Summary
Introduction
We face complex tasks when designing a policy that is effective, and also when assessing its impact. How do we define and measure welfare? And how do we design more effective policies? This specialisation starts with mainstream economic theory and incorporates a variety of perspectives from psychology, sociology, public choice, political economy, culture, and philosophy. By introducing behavioural insights into complex policy questions, we prepare you to understand and design successful policies in your future career as a policymaker, manager, analyst or consultant, in public or private organisations.
This specialisation deals with a broad spectrum of policy issues, ranging from innovation policy, voter and consumer behaviour, to issues such as policy for gender equality or happiness. Our programme develops skills needed for data-driven and behaviour-proof economic policy, embedded strongly both in theory and practice. You will learn the methods and tools needed to design and evaluate policies that will make a difference in people’s lives. You will gain a strong background in both mainstream and heterodox (i.e. non-mainstream) economic theories, augmented by behavioural insights. In this way, your perspective on economic policy, and how to make it more effective, will be expanded by knowledge from disciplines that include psychology, public choice, and sociology. This specialisation combines learning with research: your lecturers are researchers who incorporate the latest findings into their teaching. As a student, using behavioural insights, you will carry out research, analyze, design and debate economic policy.
Facts and figures
- Degree: MSc in Economics
- Faculty: Nijmegen School of Management
- Croho code: 66401
- Duration: 1 year (60 EC), full time
- Start month: September
- Language: English
- Enrolled students: 120-150 per year
- Contact hours: 5-10 hours per week
Admissions
Curriculum
Specialisations
Economics, Behaviour, and Policy is a specialisation of the Master’s programme in Economics. The other specialisations are:
- Accounting and Control
- Corporate Finance and Control
- Financial Economics
- International Business
- International Economics and Development
- International Political Economy
Gallery
Scholarships and Funding
Ideal Students
Master's specialisation Economics, Behaviour, and Policy: something for you?
- Learn to make smarter, more effective policy, based on behavioural economics, sociology, public choice, and psychology.
- Work on current economic policy issues.
- Instead of focusing on a single domain, you study a broad spectrum of policy issues.
- Interact with your professors in small seminar groups.
Career Opportunities
Career prospects
In this programme, you will learn to make smarter, more effective policy, based on behavioural economics and psychology. The recent rise of Behavioural Insights Teams across Europe and the world has resulted in a demand for the skills offered in our programme. We will provide you with a toolbox filled with the skills and knowledge needed to tackle a whole array of economic problems, ranging from the role of consumers in a complex economy, through policy impacting the decisions of firms, to analysis of the government’s role in economic policy.
Our graduates devise behaviour-informed policies and learn to analyze critically which solutions are most likely to work in a specific economic and social context. They regularly find employment in government as well as business. Your career prospects are broad. Our graduates are active as policymakers for government and semi-government organisations, in ministries, national banks, NGOs, think tanks, the UN and the EU, as well as national and international labour organisations, or work as consultants in the industry.
Labour market information in the Netherlands Studiekeuze123*
From the graduates of the Master’s programme in Economics, 84% found a job within their field. The gross starting salary based on 37 hours a week is €2,550. (Source: www.studiekeuze123.nl)
Radboud Career Service
We can help you with finding internships, provide career advice and offer tips and guidance when you apply for a job.