​​​​​​Distance Learning Program (DLP) offers courses in six-week modules, with the final exam scheduled for Week 7 and the make-up exam scheduled for Week 8. Each course consists of bi-weekly lectures delivered by the main instructor and one weekly exercise session conducted by a local instructor. DLP courses are available year-round, with two terms of course offerings in both the Spring and Fall semester.
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All instructional sessions are conducted in English and the recordings of main instructors' lectures are accessible through the Moodle course webpage.
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Credits for the courses are awarded by the receiving institutions, aligning with their standards and requirements. Our suggested credit allocation is 5 ECTS credits per course, reflecting an estimated total workload of 125 hours per course.
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You can review current DLP course offerings below.
Energy Economics
Main instructor:
Silvester Van Koten, Ph.D.
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Course Description: Energy is a basic necessity of daily life and a vital input to industry in any society around the world. Energy also plays a central role in climate policy and geopolitics. The course, taking mostly the viewpoint of economic markets and economic regulation, aims at giving the student knowledge about various topics related to the energy system. The main focus will be on supply side of the market, targeting the main properties of the fossil and renewable energy sources. While the economics (supply, demand & pricing) is the main focus, special attention is also given to the security and strategic value of the different energy sources. Part of the course gives a broad background of knowledge on energy topics and issues. The other part uses economic tools and (relatively simple) mathematical models to better understand the economic logic of energy. Such economic tools provide a way to systemize the (abundance of) information available on energy nowadays. This also helps to understand and appraise the present policies regarding energy. While to focus is more general, attention is paid to some of the local settings for the EU, USA, the Caucasus, Ukraine, and Central-Asia.
Environmental Economics
Main instructor:
Vladimir Otrachshenko, Ph.D.
​​Course Description: This course introduces major concepts in the field of environmental economics. It is designed to help students understand theories related to natural resources and make use of microeconomic and statistical analysis. This course will also focus on valuation techniques for environmental goods used in the real world by analysts and policymakers. There is a growing demand in economics and the public sector for individuals with quantitative skills who can understand and apply these techniques, analyze results, and produce reports. By the end of this course, students will be able to analyze economic problems related to environmental goods using rigorous valuation techniques.
Ethics and Finance
Main instructor:
Laure Sabine Marie de Batz de Trenquelléon, Ph.D.
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Course Description: Ethics and finance: complementary or conflicting terms? In this highly interactive course, you will dig into the most notorious financial crimes to try and better understand what can possibly drive anyone of us into cheating investors and possibly ruining one’s career.
The course aims to raise your awareness and scrutiny to possible ethical challenges firms, managers and employees face when thinking about financial laws and enforcement, with an economic perspective and illustrated with real-life and up-to-date examples. The scope of unethical financial behaviors covers mostly market abuses, including price manipulation, insider trading, and communication of false information (in particular accounting frauds). This course should contribute to a better understanding of how ethical issues play a role in finance, how they may conflict with firms’ strategies, and how managers’ and employees’ decisions can impact financial markets and investors’ wealth.
The goal of this course is to prepare students for potential ethical dilemmas they might face along their careers. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to challenge and put into perspective the financial behavior of firms (financial institutions and listed firms in particular) in terms of ethics, from an economic perspective.
Applied Microeconomics: From Correlation to Causation
Learn more about this course in our short video!
Main instructor:
Christian Ochsner, Ph.D.
Innovation Economics
Learn more about this course in our short video!
Main instructor:
Taras Hrendash, Ph.D.
Labor Economics
Learn more about this course in our short video!
Main instructor:
Daniil Kashkarov, Ph.D.
Modelling Macroeconomics: How Macroeconomists Understand and Predict the World
Learn more about this course in our short video!
Main instructor:
Daniil Kashkarov, Ph.D.
Public Economics
Main instructor:
Olga Popova, Ph.D.
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Course Description: This course covers the key concepts in public economics, a field of economics that studies the role of government in the economy. The course is designed to introduce seminal theoretical concepts and discuss the most recent empirical developments in public economics with the aim to understand: (i) why and how governments intervene in an economy, (ii) how individuals and firms react to these interventions, and (iii) what are the implications of those interventions for the overall welfare and economic development.
Main instructor:
Ella Sargsyan, Ph.D.
Behavioral Economics
Learn more about this course in our short video!
Main instructor:
Aizhamal Rakhmetova, Ph.D. candidate
Climate Change Economics
Learn more about this course in our short video!
Main instructor:
Silvester van Koten, Ph.D.
Development Economics
Main instructor:
Martina Miotto, Ph.D
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Course Description: The goal of this course is to expose students to the newest developments in applied microeconomic research in development economics, particularly policy-oriented research. The topics covered will be especially close to the research agenda of the recent Nobel Prize Winners in Economics: Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer. A further focus of the course is on the study of infrastructure, firms, and labor markets in developing countries. Overall, the course offers a thorough understanding of current-day research in development, with a special angle on poverty reduction and private market policies. The goal is to enable students to identify promising research questions in these fields (e.g. for future studies), and to help students prepare for a career as a practitioner in government and non-government development organizations.
Education Economics
Main instructor:
Miroslava Federicova, Ph.D.
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Course Description: The human capital of the population is a key determinant of labor-market success and economic growth. This brings the economics of education to the core of understanding individual and societal economic prosperity. This course introduces students to the key concepts and major issues of economics of education, placing emphasis on current empirical research in the field. Topics include the basic theory of investments in education (human capital theory) and the role of early childhood education; the returns to education and the empirical problem of disentangling the return to education from the return to innate ability; the role of class size, peer effects, and school expenditure, etc. After the course, students are expected to be able to read, understand and discuss current research in the economics of education, as well as to contribute to the discussion about the current challenges in education.
Health Economics
Learn more about this course in our short video!
Main instructor:
Eva Hromadkova, Ph.D.
Financial Markets
Learn more about this course in our short video!
Main instructor:
Gabriela Kuvíková, Ph.D.
Gender Economics
Main instructor:
Ardiana Gashi, Ph.D.
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​Course Description: The focus of the course is gender differences on the labour market, and will cover both theoretical and empirical studies. Students will delve into these topics to understand the many ways that gender is relevant in the economy. Students will obtain an evidence-based understanding of two key aspects: 1) the potential mechanisms behind gender inequality, and 2) the policies and evidence of their effects on advancing the gender equality. Specifically, this course analyzes the economic aspects of issues related to gender, such as gender wage gaps, labor force discrimination, family-friendly policies in the workplace, the valuation of unpaid household work, and the differential impact of public policies.
Introduction to Data Science
Main instructor:
Vahan Sargsyan, Ph.D.
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Course Description: This course provides an introduction to data science as a profession and focuses on the theoretical methodologies of the most widely applied machine learning models. The main topics covered include data preparation (data mining, cleaning, and exploring strategies), statistical modeling with the application of appropriate machine learning methodologies (data segmentation, predictive analytics), and mathematical evaluation (test-train split and accuracy measures).
International Trade
Main instructor:
Pavla Vozarova, Ph.D.
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The course provides an introduction into traditional and modern models of international trade, and a discussion of the determinants of trade relations between countries and the impact of these relations on economic welfare. It also explains the principle of different trade policies in light of current international trade issues. Focus is given to the analysis of data and interpretation of empirical studies.
Models in International Trade
Main instructor:
Vilém Semerák, Ph.D.
This course focuses on applied empirical analysis of trade flows and the effects of trade policies. It is not a course in pure trade theory (only), but instead focuses on (i) how to provide reliable facts on actual trade flows and evidence-based insight into policy-related issues, and (ii) how to understand the results of such methods. We will start with traditional indicators- and index-based analysis of international trade data, and will continue to newer and more complex approaches that include network analysis and gravity models. The course will be based on a hands-on approach to learning. Throughout the course, we will use actual and up-to-date data on trade flows, and students will calculate indicators and estimate results relevant for current discussions about international trade. Each section will conclude with a practical demonstration of using the methods and concepts.