Competency Profile: Economics (VWL)

1. Self-Conception of the Subject and its Contribution to Competency Development

In the subject of Economics, students deal with essential concepts and methods of economics to investigate and analyze processes in the economy and society. Essential theoretical concepts and their application to concrete economic issues are a focus of the lessons. Students successively gain comprehensive economic education that enables them to act responsibly in professional situations.

2. Competency Areas

• Analyzing: Investigating economic situations and processes in a mathematically formulated economic model, taking into account framework conditions.
• Judging: Evaluating economic alternatives for action based on essential criteria and developing proposed solutions.
• Acting: Making decisions in economic contexts based on analyses and judgments.
• Communicating: Capturing, structuring, and presenting economic information and arguments.

3. Competency Expectations

Students will be able to…

• describe individual economic action in markets using analytical-mathematical concepts.
• compare basic assumptions of economic models and critically evaluate model assumptions.
• use graphical and computational models to describe demand and supply behavior.
• describe macroeconomic relationships and institutional frameworks of the market economy.
• work out possibilities and limits of economic explanatory approaches.

4. Course Content

a) Basic Content

• Basic terms and concepts of economic thinking
• Supply and demand
• Consumer behavior
• Corporate behavior
• Basics of macroeconomics
• Basics of economic policy
• Money and currency

b) Possible Differentiations or Extensions

• Evaluating the welfare effects of minimum prices and taxes using consumer and producer surplus.
• Topics on recent developments in economics, such as (experimental) game theory or behavioral economic approaches.

Sources

• https://studienkollegs.de/Dokumente/13_Kompetenzprofil_VWL.pdf