The pre-master Economics and Business prepares you for the specialisations within our MSc in Economics and Business.
This pre-master is designed for students with a background in economics, business economics or business administration that do not qualify for direct admission to any of the specialisations within the MSc in Economics and Business.
The Take-Off is the introduction programme for all new students at Erasmus School of Economics. During the Take-Off you will meet your fellow students, get acquainted with our study associations and learn all the ins and outs of your new study programme, supporting information systems and life on campus and in the city.
Guidance sessions are meetings of a group of 15-30 students and their mentor. Mentors are senior students. There will be two guidance sessions in which a variety of subjects will be covered including practical information about the university and the study programme.
During the guidance sessions students play educational games to get to know their mentor, fellow students, and the university. Furthermore, they get information about how to complete several onboarding modules on Canvas. In these modules, they learn about important practical matters of studying at the ESE. Students are also offered the opportunity to have one or more individual meetings with their mentor to ask questions and/or discuss expectations.
- Properties of functions
- Differentiation
- Single variable optimisation
- Functions of many variables
- Tools for comparative statics
- Multivariable optimisation
- Constrained optimisation
This course follows on the course on descriptive statistics in Applied Statistics 1 (FEB11005) and prepares the ground for active scientific research in later courses (Methods and Techniques FEB12012, Research Project FEB12013, in seminar and thesis projects, and later in jobs requiring skills in doing and interpreting applied research).
The course treats statistical models and methods that are often applied in economics. The right method depends on the research question of interest and on the nature of the available data. The main topics are the following: testing, contingency tables, ANOVA, non-parametric tests, regression (simple and multiple, time series).
During the tutorials, exercises are solved and discussed, and tutorial points can be earned. In addition, students gain experience in applying statistics by means of software.
- The first part of the course deals with the theory of the consumer. Topics covered include consumer choice under certainty and uncertainty, and individual and market demand
- The second part focuses on the theory of the firm, and includes the topics of firm production and firm cost
- The last part of the course turns to market structures (monopoly, imperfect competition and perfect competition), to the joint analysis of firm and consumer behavior within a market (general equilibrium theory) and to factor markets (especially labor)
The course international economics focuses primarily on the world economy as such and the relationships between countries and trading blocks regarding international trade, capital flows, economic growth, exchange rates and financial crises. Although macroeconomic quantities are at the core of the analysis, these will usually be built up from a microeconomics perspective.
The nature of the analysis implies that international economists frequently find inspiration elsewhere for their applications, for example from economic geography, monetary economics, econometrics, development economics or industrial organization. This approach results in a rich diversity of insights, nonetheless characterized by a remarkable coherence.
During this course we'll study the knowledge necessary to value a firm. The value of the firm influences the prices of its shares en determines the price paid for shares in case of mergers and acquisitions. From the perspective of the financial manager and the financers of the firm Finance 1: valuation will show how investment and financing decisions influence the value of the firm. Besides thinking in terms of classical rational profit maximization thinking, we'll address important developments in behavioural finance and sustainability as well.
Finance 1: valuation encompasses classes, tutorial sessions, webcasts and on-line exercises. During the weekly classes, teacher present knowledge. The tutorial sessions will be focused around real-life case studies, such that students understand how the knowledge is applied for real investment decisions, IPO's and take overs. The webcasts are short films wherein exercises will be discuss and teacher give additional information.
Issues in the methodology of economics, such as how unrealistic models can (and should) be and how we can appraise their explanatory power, and issues in ethics of economics, such as the goal of economic policy, but also inequality, distributive justice and the moral limits of markets, are discussed in the lectures. In five tutorials, ethical issues in business and in the market are discussed and analyzed. By active engagement with these topics, students develop a stronger moral sense and they familiarize themselves with theoretical frameworks that enable them to form their own considerate opinion.
In methods and techniques students will get acquainted with the toolbox for scientific economic research. The focus is on acquiring knowledge and skills useful for fundamental and applied research in both the public and the private sector. The complete cycle of scientific research will be discussed. Research design, conceptual thinking and cross-sectional and time series techniques will be discussed.
Financial accounting topics:
- Accrual accounting
- Inventory accounting
- Tangible and intangible fixed assets
- Current assets and liabilities
- Revenue recognition
- Shareholders' equity
- Dilutive securities & EPS
- Accounting for income taxes
- Cash flow statements
Management accounting topics:
- Management Accounting and Control Systems
- Planning and decision making (e.g. budgeting)
- Evaluating and Managing performance (e.g. variance analysis, responsibility accounting, transfer pricing)
- Recent developments Management Accounting
- Advanced Financial Accounting
- Advanced Management Accounting
- Economics of Markets and Organisations
- Finance 2
- Introduction to Strategy Economics
- Introduction to Urban and Transport Economics
- Marketing Research
Disclaimer
The overview above 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.