Master in Behavioral Economics

Overview

The Master Program in Behavioral Economics, offered by the Faculty of Administration and Business together with the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences from the University of Bucharest, aims to help prepare specialists in the areas of decision processes and strategic interaction. In order to achieve this purpose, we use an approach which integrates the different mechanisms governing economic behavior.

The program is intended for people who wish to develop their skills in areas such as management, interdisciplinary analysis of economic and social phenomena or consulting, be it at an individual or organizational level.

The program’s objectives can be summed up as follows:

• To form a group of specialists which have a complex and interdisciplinary training in the area of business administration;
• To develop scientific and consulting activities, in relation to the business environment, in line with the perspective and methods found in behavioral economics;
• To enhance economic education at the university level, by creating an advanced research and teaching platform in the emerging domain of behavioral economics (while integrating resources and knowledge from other interdisciplinary domains);
• To assist the faculty by supporting life-long learning on focused topics, both at the individual level as well as through participation in research projects (financed at the national or EU level);
• To cooperate with other universities, from the country or from abroad, in order to develop a modern and efficient education system.

Moving beyond the standard practical competencies covered by the program, we also aspire to involve the master’s students in relevant interdisciplinary research activities.

The program is taught in English, so as to facilitate the involvement of specialists from the international community and to ensure that the knowledge is at the cutting edge of new discoveries in this area of study.

The teaching methods focus on two areas: business practice, involving case studies and company level projects, and experimental studies, with the purpose of bringing to light cause and effect relationships between important variables.

The general competencies gained by the students, with the aid of the master’s program are, among others: the ability to analyze and summarize complex economic phenomena, the capacity to understand and explain behavioral patterns and their impact on economic decisions, the ability to design methods which can be used to bring forward causality relationships between different economic and non-economic variables, which have an impact at the level of the company, the ability to solve strategic interaction problems, the ability to use specialized knowledge with the purpose of offering business consulting etc.

The professional competencies gained by students, with the aid of the master’s program, are:

• The ability to offer consulting for strategic decision making processes, building relationships and creating programs which stimulate the development of trust, involvement and empowerment of employees, business partners and other stakeholders.
• The knowledge of how to adjust stimulants, strategies and development policies for the organization, in relation to changes on the market, while also considering the internal environment of the company.
• The capacity to communicate in an efficient manner, taking into account important economic and non-economic variables, along with psychological and sociological factors.

Some key disciplines are

• Microeconomics with Behavioral Tracks;
• Behavioral Phenomenology: Across the History of Psychology
• Behavioral Research Methods
• Social Cognition
• Behavioral Finance;
• Decision Analysis;
• Behavioral Game Theory;
• Consumer psychology;
• Experimental Economics
• Introduction to Neurosciences
• Neuroeconomics
• Health Economics;

The career prospects of the graduates involve working for one of the following types of employers

• Multinationals
• Public institutions
• Consulting companies
• Small and medium enterprises
• Non-governmental organizations

Or doing the following types of work:

• Market analyst
• Decision support system designer