This track gives you a powerful combination of economic theory and hands-on policy analysis, equipping you to understand why markets fail and to design interventions that reduce these failures. In Public Economics you explore how individual preferences translate into collective decisions and engage with current debates such as universal basic income. In Empirical Market Analysis you use data to identify market power and competitive behaviour in real industries, distinguishing between collusion, oligopoly and perfect competition. By the time you reach your thesis, you are fully equipped to design, evaluate and defend your own evidence-based policy recommendations. 

Governments, regulators, consultancies and think tanks all need economists who can translate complex cases into clear, actionable policy, and that is what this track trains you to do. On the hard skills side, you graduate with a strong command of econometric methods, empirical market analysis and cost-benefit analysis. On the soft skills side, the Research Seminar and thesis train you to communicate complex arguments clearly and persuasively, whether in a policy brief or an oral presentation.  

This track covers a broad terrain, from market competition and redistribution to natural resource economics and human development, and keeping pace in a single year is a real challenge. The quantitative level is high: Applied Econometrics pushes you to build and interpret regression models through hands-on computer exercises, while Empirical Market Analysis takes this further by requiring you to apply structural econometric methods to real industry data. The Research Seminar demands both analytical rigour and the ability to translate complex findings into clear policy recommendations. This breadth and intensity is what makes graduates so versatile and so well equipped for careers at the intersection of economics and public life.