
Education
The Urban Economics group participates in a number of study programmes and specialisations at Wageningen University & Research at the undergraduate (BSc), graduate (MSc) and PhD level.
Courses
Below you will find an overview of the courses of the Urban Economics group. By clicking on a course you will be directed to the Course catalogue.
Courses: Coordination by UEC
- Microeconomics and Behaviour (UEC-10406)
- Economics of Health and Care (UEC-11806)
- Economics of Consumption, Welfare and Society (UEC-22306)
- Spatial and Regional Economics (UEC-22806)
- Human Decision Making (UEC-31306)
- Economics and Governance of Energy Transitions (UEC-31806)
- Advanced Microeconomics (UEC-51806)
- Urban Economics and Analysis (UEC-52306)
- Game Theory (UEC-52803)
Courses: Contribution by UEC
- Landscape Economics and Politics (AEP-22306)
- Circular Economy (BMO-26806)
- Management and Economics of Health Care and Public Health (BMO-32806)
- Economics (DEC-10306)
- Human Geography (GEO-10306)
- Principles of Consumer Studies (MCB-20806)
- Applied Consumer Studies (MCB-32306)
- Quantitative and Qualitative Research Techniques in the Social Sciences (YSS-20306)
- Consumer, Technology and Innovation (YSS-31806)
- Advanced Consumer Studies (YSS-33306)
BSc and MSc thesis subjects
Students from Wageningen University & Research can write their BSc or MSc thesis with the Urban Economics (UEC) chair group. Below you will find a list of staff members with their topics of expertise. If you see an interesting topic you can contact the education coordinator Jannette van Beek to make an appointment.
Eveline van Leeuwen
- Healthy cities: are cities or its citizens less healthy?
- Green cities: importance of green for quality of live, tourism, happiness
- Inclusive cities: inequality, social networks and local engagement
- Prosumers: consumers as producers of e.g. energy
- Urban-rural interactions: how cities benefit from their hinterland and vice-versa
- Spatial determinants of voting behaviour
- Agent based modelling (ABM), choice experiments, (spatial) multi-criteria analysis.
Michel Handgraaf
Energy conservation/Climate change
• Individual vs. collective motivations
• Financial vs. environmental interventions
• Spillover/rebound effects
• Descriptive social norms - minority behavior
• Group decision making
• Acceptance of technological innovations
• Feedback
Ethical decision-making
• Lying
• Self-interest vs. other oriented motivations in decision-making
Methods
• Experiments (lab/field), surveys, interviews, big data
Pierre van Mouche
- Speltheorie
- Giffen verschijnselen
- De rol van status
- Coalitieformatie
- Milieu
- Locatieproblemen
- Bezittingseffect
- Block chain en bitcoins
Jannette van Beek
- A healthy future: Effects of time orientation on eating and exercising behavior
- Choosing now for later: How temporal distance influences food choice
- How the ‘future = abstract association’ affects current decision-making
- Aiming for behavior change: A construal level theory approach
- Promoting fruit consumption or preventing snack consumption? Effects of regulatory focus on health behavior
- Fun or useful? Choosing between hedonic and utilitarian products
Solmaria Halleck Vega
Energy transition
- Energy communities
- Energy justice
- Adoption and diffusion of renewable energy and/or energy efficiency measures
Spatial econometrics; network analysis; spatial data analysis
- Applications using spatial econometric models based on cross-sectional or panel data
- Applications using network analysis or spatial data analysis
Resilient regions and cities
- Urban and regional economic and climate resilience
- Climate crisis and inequality interlinkages
- Regional labor markets
- Regional development and policy
Robert Goedegebure
- The role of various forms of social influences (e.g., descriptive norms, social identity, peer pressure) in decision making
- How decision making is influenced by heuristics, and if decisions can be considered biased
- Links between contextual factors and (consumer) inferences / choice behavior
- Health economic evaluations of different types interventions (e.g., nutrition campaigns, new drug treatments, etc.)
- Neuroeconomics: How do insights from brain research help us understand decisions?
Liesbeth de Schutter
- Food systems: What are the social, economic and environmental impacts of urban food systems?
- Sustainable consumption: Cities are consumption hotspots – how can they contribute to sustainable development from a consumption perspective?
- Environmental inequality: Are vulnerable social groups more affected by environmental pollution?
- Bioeconomy: Identification of urban-rural cooperations to increase renewable resource use and/or reduce GHG emissions
- Urban commoning: What are alternative urban provisioning systems and how are they governed?
Roger Cremades
- Social tipping points
- Complex systems and sustainability
- Water-energy-food nexus
- Climate-smart cities
- Urban socio-ecological systems
- Agent-based models
- Diffusion of innovations
- Irrigation
Joana Wensing
Food systems transformation
• What are the places to intervene in urban food systems?
• What is the role of social tipping points?
• What is the interaction between micro-level decision-making and macro-level system transition?
Pro-environmental decision-making
• Under which circumstances do internal values/worldviews guide decision-making?
• How can pro-environmental values be activated?
• How do internal values and external conditions interact in decision-making?
Methods
• (Choice) experiments, surveys, interviews
Education coordinator
For more information about courses or BSc and MSc theses, please contact the education coordinator Jannette van Beek.