The master’s specialisation consists of two elective seminars, two compulsory courses, four elective courses, and a master’s thesis distributed over five blocks of eight weeks.
The courses of the first block introduce you in a rigorous way to the economics of cities, ports and industries. The second block offers elective courses that develop your profile as an economist. Delve deep into the economics of aviation, or the valuation of real estate, for instance. Two compulsory courses equip you with the analytical and statistical tools to analyse data based on the most modern demands from the labour market.
At the end of the year, the master’s thesis is the cornerstone of your training to become an Urban, Port and Transport economist. You will select a research question related to the Urban, Port and Transport curriculum and demonstrate your ability to analyse and answer the question, closely guided by a member of our staff.
Curriculum
The curriculum consists of:
40% Analytical and quantitative skills
20% Foundations of Urban, Port and Transport
40% Electives and application
The mix between these elements and the topics that you apply them to may vary with the choice of courses.
In class
How do you produce refrigerators? Where should you produce them? Making optimal decisions and developing a production network requires understanding of: the organisation of the supply chain of refrigerator production, what inputs you acquire at which locations, and how your choices to minimize labour costs interact with the transport decisions and the overall carbon footprint of your supply chain. It also forces you to make decisions on the location of your own production, including the acquisition of land and real estate. Is cheap assembly in an African country an option? If so, what routes and ports would be part of the preferred strategy? In an actual case, you study these aspects of the production and transport process, and devise an optimal strategy for production, which you could advise in real life.
Study schedule
The Take-Off is the introduction event for all new students of Erasmus School of Economics. During this interesting introduction event, you will be provided with useful practical information and receive an introduction to your studies, meet your fellow students and our School.
In this course we provide students with knowledge of econometric methods which are relevant for applied economics. In particular, this course first refreshes the essentials of the standard regression model, and subsequently it covers methods that can be useful when the dependent variable of interest is endogenous. The last part of the course introduces models that are useful when the dependent variable is binary.
Students follow a hands-on approach to understanding empirical econometric methods, in this way getting the opportunity to develop experience with the application of these methods in their own field of specialisation.
The course consists of lectures, exercise lectures and group practical work. The lectures present and discuss each method and relevant applications. In the exercise lectures, students are taught how to implement the methods themselves. The main student activity consists of practical empirical applications, where the methods are applied to real-world datasets in applied economics.
The aim of this course is to discuss the role of behavioural economics in transport policy. More specifically we will review the most important findings about some of the contextual factors influencing transport behaviour. The MINDSPACE framework will be used as backbone structure of the course. MINDSPACE is a mnemonic for: messenger, incentives, norms, defaults, salience, priming, affect, commitment and ego. The focus will be in understanding the influences on transport behaviour.
Additionally, students will learn to apply the major techniques of behavioural influence to transport related problems. How do you convince people to travel by public transport rather than by car? How can you stimulate cycling to work or school? Do car drivers react to traffic information? How should passengers be informed about travel delays? These and other transport-related problems will be used as an example to discuss major behavioural principles.
The course will make use as much as possible of evidence from field experiments. Additionally, students will be asked to conduct their own field experiments (in group). Some of these experiments can be carried out with companies active in the mobility sector (e.g., BMW, Shell, ParkNow, Q-park, etc…).
- Port Economics
- Economics of Strategy
- Urban Economics
- Real Estate Economics
- Air Transport Economics
- Behavioural Transport Economics
- TUD-Transport, Infrastructure and Logistics master's course
- other Economics and Business master's course
- Seminar Regional and Transport Economics
- Seminar Ports and Global Logistics: Disruptive Scenarios
- Seminar Global Firm Strategy
- Seminar Supply Chain Management and Optimisation
Students choose two seminars from the listed seminars.
The master thesis is the keystone to the master. The student carries out supervised research and reports on it. Topics typically relate to the material studied in the UPT courses. The Master thesis website and the introductory lectures discuss how to find a topic, how to match with a supervisor, and more information on the writing process.
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.