- Code:
- ECOK-286
- Target:
- Bachelor's students
- Organiser:
- University of Helsinki - Economics
- Instructor:
- Hannu Vartiainen
- Format:
- Participation in teaching
- Method:
- Contact teaching
- Enrollment:
In case of conflicting information consider the Sisu/Course/Moodle pages the primary source of information.
Aalto, Hanken and UH economics students can enroll through their home university’s SISU. Further instructions are available on the How to enroll? page, also for students from other universities.
If you would like to count the credits towards your degree, please check your curriculum or contact your supervisor or student services for guidance.
- To access the Moodle course area, use all the features and participate in the activities (assignments, discussions), you must have successfully registered for the course in Sisu and logged in with your UH user ID.
- For more information on how to activate your UH user ID and register for a Moodle course area, click here.
Content
Central themes of the course include the nature and purpose of economic models; their role in policy advice and social welfare; the interplay between models, experiments, and evidence in development economics; questions of external validity and practical relevance; the use of models in market design and economic engineering; and the performative effects of economic theory on markets and society. The course also engages with commoncritiques of economics and reflects on how economists can use models responsibly in public decision-making. The list of topics that will be discussed is announced every year prior to the start of the course.
Learning outcomes
This course examines how economic models are constructed, interpreted, and used in research, policy and in the public sphere (e.g., policy debates in the media). It explores different views on economic models, considering their explanatory power, limitations, and normative implications. Students engage critically with debates about what models are for, what are the underlying principles by which they are constructed, how they relate to policyquestions, and how they interact with the institutions and behaviors they describe.