You can already take PHD courses at the Berlin School of Economics (BSE) during your Master's. These courses will be recognized both in the Master's program and in a later PHD program at the BSE.

All courses from the first year of study at the BSE are open to you, and are recognized in the following modules.

Modules:

• Advanced Economic Theory
• Advanced Empirical Economics
• Advanced Economic Policy Analysis
• Advanced Quantitative Economics
• Advanced Statistical Methods 

Module: Advanced Economic Theory

Objective

Students will be familiar with advanced, complex theoretical models and modeling approaches in current economic research. They will be able to identify application scenarios for these models and to analyze them theoretically. In doing so, they will be able to critically reflect on the underlying assumptions and make judgments about context-specific model adaptations. They will be able to use the modeling approaches to answer independently formulated research questions and present the results in writing or orally.

Content

Current research areas in theoretical microeconomics, macroeconomics and public economics.

Module: Advanced Empirical Economics

Objective

Students will be familiar with advanced econometric methods and models. They will be able to select and apply them to answer economic questions. Students will understand complex identification strategies of empirical research papers and be able to explain them to a professional audience in written or oral form. They will be enabled to reflect critically on underlying assumptions in order to judge the quality of an empirical analysis at hand.

Content

Advanced methods, models and research questions in modern econometric analysis and their areas of application, in particular empirical microeconomics, empirical macroeconomics and empirical public economics.

Module: Advanced Economic Policy Analysis

Objective

Students will be familiar with advanced methods and areas of application of modern economic policy analysis at the state-of-the-art of international research. They are enabled to apply basic and advanced empirical and theoretical knowledge to answer concrete economic policy questions, either independently or in groups. They will be able to communicate the results of their analysis to an expert audience, as well as to people outside the field. In doing so, they are able to reflect on the assumptions and limitations of their own analysis. Students are thus able to evaluate current economic policy proposals, compare them with each other and independently develop alternative proposals.

Content

Advanced research questions in economic policy analysis, especially on topics in applied macroeconomics, applied microeconomics, and applied fiscal and economic policy.

Module: Advanced Quantitative Economics

Objective

Students will be familiar with advanced statistical and numerical methods and models at the state-of-the-art of international research. They will be able to mathematically accurately capture and analyze these methods and models. In doing so, they will understand the underlying assumptions and be able to reflect critically on them. They will be able to apply these methods and models to complex data structures.

Content

Advanced methods and research questions in statistics and econometrics, e.g. advanced survey statistics, high-dimensional statistical methods, structural microeconometrics, stochastic optimization, Monte Carlo based methods, Big data.

Module: Advanced Statistical Methods

Objective

Students will be familiar with modern advanced methods of statistical data analysis. They will be able to independently develop new statistical methods in order to apply them in data analysis. They will be able to reflect critically on the assumptions underlying the methods and consider the limitations of the methods in their own context of application.

Content

Advanced methods of statistics, e.g. Bayesian estimation methods, variance estimation methods, multiple imputation, small area estimation