Maastricht University - School of Business and Economics

Neuroeconomics, sometimes also known as Decision Neuroscience, is an emerging field combining insights from economics, psychology, and neuroscience to understand how (healthy) humans make decisions and how these are related to underlying cognitive and neural processes. The ultimate goal of Neuroeconomics is to integrate knowledge from the different parent disciplines to answer the fundamental question of how our brain makes us decide. This course provides an introduction to Neuroeconomics by discussing examples showing the limitations of viewing decision-making merely through the lens of the traditional fields of economics, psychology, and neuroscience. The course reviews various methods used in Neuroeconomics research for measuring and influencing brain activity. An important part of the course is devoted to learning the foundations and models of Neuroeconomics such as the basics of neuroscience. Seminal and recent studies in Neuroeconomics are read, discussed, and critically evaluated. This interdisciplinary and challenging course consists of lectures and group work. It uses formal concepts from economics and neuroscience. Prerequisites include sufficient quantitative skills and basic knowledge of microeconomics.

The course deals with basic issues in finance, such as risk diversification and asset pricing, capital structure, investment valuation, market efficiency, dividend policy, and the use of derivatives. Prerequisites include BENC2004 or an understanding of the following finance concepts: Types of securities (stocks, bonds) and their returns; the concept of risk diversification and efficient frontiers, and principles of the time value of money. Exchange students need to have taken at least one introductory finance course.

A decision support system (DSS) is a model-based or knowledge-based system intended to support managerial decision-making in semi-structured or unstructured situations. A DSS is not meant to replace a decision-maker, but to extend his/her decision-making capabilities. It uses data, provides a clear user interface, and can incorporate the decision-maker’s own insights. This course reviews decision support systems, their use, and important components which leads to a group designed and developed DSS that facilitates decision-making through specific selection criteria and constraints.  Students learn how to code in the programming language Excel VBA, develop and improve skills in algorithmic thinking, create userforms, and use tools provided by the toolbox. Essential programming techniques and constructs such as loops, subs, functions and macros are taught. Prerequisites for the course include a basic mastery of Excel, or an alternative spreadsheet application: cell referencing, building formulas, and use of logical functions. This does not require mastery of VBA for Excel, training in VBA programming is part of the course.

This course provides students with a thorough understanding of major topical areas in financial management, including an overview of the most recent developments and the ways they are integrated into corporate practice. Students learn how to evaluate major strategic corporate and investment decisions and to understand capital markets and institutions from a financial perspective.  Topic coverage includes asset valuation, real options, capital structure, cost of capital, Hybrid Financing, corporate liabilities, Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As), and Sustainable Finance. Throughout the course, practical applications of financial concepts and techniques are carried out with the use of cases. Building on earlier, more fundamental courses in corporate finance and investments, the scope of the Sustainable Financial Management and Policy course drifts away from the simple technical analysis of corporate financial decisions to a high-level discussion of their strategic implications for the profitability and sustainability of the company. Prerequisites include a second-year course in finance.

This course on contemporary Asia focuses on the integration and synthesis of culture, economics, and politics in Asian societies to increase an understanding of the region in its contemporary social-political and cultural setting. This course transcends the borders of academic disciplines and domains and deals with topics such as modernity and public policy; politico-cultural obstacles for intra-regional cooperation; social change and prosperity; inter-cultural interaction; and cultural forces in society. 
No specific required knowledge. Exchange students should have finished their first year of Bachelor study.

This course offers a study of econometric methods at an intermediate level, with an emphasis on applications from macroeconomics and finance, the choice of an adequate model, the testing of assumptions, and the interpretation of results. The topics covered include modelling non-stationary time series and error correction models. The course discusses topics including the proper use of econometric methods in economic and business research; how to use the basic toolkit of econometrics, including software (EViews, Stata); and how to interpret applied econometric studies and how to evaluate them with regard to their theoretical and practical relevance.

The course introduces the objectives and implementations of Competition Policy such as antitrust institutions, its member states, and the US. Participants learn how to evaluate the goals and their legal implementation from an economic point of view. Such an (empirical and theoretical) economic analysis enables participants to criticize existing Competition Law and to suggest improvements. These findings are applied to landmark antitrust cases and ongoing controversies among competition policy scholars. The course starts with an overview of international antitrust institutions, thereby covering the major systems of competition policy in the EU and the US, as well as suggested or recently implemented frameworks in developing countries and transition economies. The course then continues with a theoretical and empirical identification of market power – a necessary condition for any anticompetitive practice. The following sessions provide an economic analysis of the major fields of competition policy such as the fight against collusion, merger regulation, and the abuse of a dominant position. For each field, students apply modern theories of strategic firm behavior to explain when and why firms indeed act in an anticompetitive way. These insights are then utilized to develop guidelines for antitrust authorities. Finally, these recommendations are taken as a benchmark for an evaluation of existing antitrust policy schemes. The course makes excessive use of case studies to illustrate and test the policy recommendations. Prerequisite for this course is knowledge and understanding of microeconomics. Exchange students need to major in economics.

The long-run development and international economic relations of developing countries are chosen as the major topic of this course. The long-run growth section deals with structural change from agriculture to industry and services, institutions, distribution, population, education, health, taxation and government expenditure, agriculture, and other resources. The international relations section relates growth to migration, aid, international trade, and foreign debt, the latter including financial crises.