Utrecht University

This introductory course in macroeconomics teaches the insights of macroeconomic theory from a real-world perspective. The course combines chapters from the Blanchard textbook and units from the textbook The Economy to present a picture of contemporary macroeconomic problems and theories.  The course starts with an introduction to key macroeconomic concepts, the use of models, the general equilibrium, and emerging properties. The second session focuses on economic fluctuations and the importance of multiplier effects. The next step is to analyze the importance and effects of fiscal policy. To provide a tool for analyzing the effects of policies, the wage and price setting model, and the Phillips curve are introduced. Special attention is given to the origins of inflation and the difference between supply and demand shocks. Next to fiscal policy, attention to monetary policy is given, after the role of the banking system in the economy is defined. The final session focuses on the specific problems that are related to the Eurozone countries; fixed exchange rates, the (non)optimal currency area, sovereign debt problems, and structural imbalances.

What is the optimal consumption choice for a consumer given her preferences and income? When will a manager of a firm decide to expand production? What are the costs for the government when it supports the farmers with a per unit subsidy and is such a subsidy socially efficient?  Should monopolies be regulated and if so, how? When does it make sense for a firm to introduce a variable-wage payment scheme? Which attitudes to risk exist and how does this influence behavior? Such questions are treated in this course. The course is specially designed for non-economics students. Assumed previous knowledge: Students are expected to have a good command of secondary school calculus (including simple derivatives).

The course focuses on cultural and artistic interventions in urban spaces and how they actively re-think and reconfigure the city. It investigates how cities can be used as platforms where new notions of citizenship, community, and the public sphere are being performed. Using concepts and theories from performance studies, urban studies, and public sphere theory, the course discusses how power relations are performed in cities daily, and how these can be critically revealed and (temporarily) disturbed through artistic interventions in public space. Next to discussing a variety of specific cases of public space intervention in class, students design and execute a small-scale intervention in public space with a small group., work on a series of assignments, and write a paper on a particular strategy of intervention. 

This course focuses on the estuarine, coastal, and marine processes and morphological features that determine the morphodynamic behavior of coastal systems. Coastal morphodynamics is defined as the mutual co-adjustment of coastal landforms and processes. Emphasis is on the behavior of sedimentary coastal systems, such as beaches and dune coasts, barrier island systems, tidal inlets, estuaries, and deltas. It includes the behavior of both sandy and muddy coasts. The time scales involved vary from less than a second (e.g., intra-wave processes; short-term) to decades (e.g., the coastal response to sea level rise; long-term). The course starts with the dynamics of wave-, tide- and current-driven processes and the effect on sediment transport processes and associated morphological change. The second part of the course deals with the morphodynamic character of different types of coastal systems. This is analyzed by discussing, evaluating, and quantifying the dominant processes, the relevant morphological features, and sedimentary products. Exercises, papers, and case studies are an integral part of the course and are used to develop skills in analyzing and solving coastal problems. The course also contains several lectures on coastal instrumentation (for example, remote sensing) and on the societal relevance of coastal processes in mitigating coastal erosion.

It is important to understand how public and private organizations work and how public and organizational policies are created. The course Public Administration and Organizations offers an introduction to the disciplines of Public Administration (focusing on the political science element of policymaking) and Organizational science. Central concepts and important theoretical themes are introduced, and the practical implications of theories are explored and practiced.

The course is structured around five fundamental questions that have shaped anthropological inquiry and the development of the discipline: What is society? What is culture? How are societies organized? What holds societies together? What makes societies run? With these questions as a guide, the course explores the evolution of anthropological thought about its main subject matter, namely, society and culture, and the methods that should be used to understand what they are and how they work. For each question, how society, culture, and their organization and function emerged as problems for anthropology, and the methods and theories that anthropologists have employed to explain them are examined. A variety of readings, from classical anthropological texts to more recent ones are used to chart a history of anthropological thought that pays particular attention to ethnographic method and questions of ethics in fieldwork. Reading assignments will be available on Blackboard.

This course explores ethics by examining different ethical theories and their influences on economics, governance, and business. The course follows the multidisciplinary approach that we take at the Utrecht University School of Economics and in its bachelor program to broaden your perspective on economics and society. It continues the approach taken in Multidisciplinary Economics, assuming that you have developed sufficient knowledge of the basics of economic thinking. This course trains participants to reflect upon this knowledge and discuss some alternative approaches. This course revolves around and integrates the central topic of Technology and Society, and the social impacts of business in addressing various themes, such as fairness, equality, social responsibility, and sustainability. Prerequisites Knowledge at the level of the course 'Introduction to Economics and Business Economics' is assumed.

This course reviews different types of environmental behaviors, the drivers of such behaviors, and how communication strategies can stimulate pro-environmental behavior. Analyzing and evaluating existing campaigns in the field of sustainability and designing their campaigns to change environmental behavior on campus for a real-world client is applied.

The course focuses on prejudice, discrimination, and intergroup relations. In particular, it discussed how the majority group reacts to minority groups in society. How prejudices develop, for instance, how negative attitudes follow from threats to people's identities, or their belongings are studied. The consequences of prejudices for intergroup interactions and, in particular, which political decisions are made, and which policies are implemented are examined. A special focus is on approaches to reduce prejudice and foster the cohesion of majority and minority groups in society. Attention to paid to existing prejudice toward other social groups such as religious or sexual minorities.

This course reviews how genetic factors that influence human traits are identified. The traits focused on are human diseases, but the techniques can be applied to a wide field of subjects. The background knowledge necessary to understand and apply the different methods, the molecular laboratory techniques (theoretically), and the approaches to finding causal variants for human heritable diseases are taught. Students practice using the vast number of databases containing human genetic information. The subjects can roughly be divided into two main groups: Organization and evolution of genomes and genes and identification of mutations that influence human diseases. Requirements for admission include a knowledge of the structure and organization of DNA; the processes of meiosis and mitosis, including recombination; transcription and translation; gene expression; laboratory techniques such as PCR, restriction enzymes, and DNA-hybridization.