Understand how social issues can be analysed theoretically from an economic perspective. Being able to describe behaviour in terms of choices people make (trade-offs) and market interactions that exist. Acquiring skills for developing a theoretical economic model.

In many areas of life, such as education and learning at work, many trade-offs exist and decisions have to be made. People have to choose a school, a specialization and a field of study. Schools have to decide about the content of their curriculum, class size and selection criteria. Firms might consider to offer traineeships, and training courses. And the government has to decide about the structure of the educational system, its financing and how to monitor this. The main aim of this course is to understand such complex problems and to formulate them as an economic model. Economics comprises a powerful and flexible set of tools that can be applied to analyse the consequences of social forces and market behaviour to get to grips with such problems.