To main content To navigation

Economics & Social Sciences

From Preference to Choice: The Economic Theory of Decision-making

When:

07 July - 11 July 2025

School:

Tinbergen Institute & Business Data Science Summer School

Institution:

Tinbergen Institute & Business Data Science

City:

Amsterdam

Country:

Netherlands

Language:

English

Credits:

3 EC

Fee:

800 EUR

Early Bird deadline 15 April 2025
Interested?
From Preference to Choice: The Economic Theory of Decision-making

About

The past two decades saw an increasing call for a paradigm shift in economic thinking. With the looming climate crisis and normalized destabilization of financial systems, a number of voices are raised against mainstream economic theories, perceived as too narrowly focused on marketable goods and services to provide useful policy guidance—one grounded in considerations of equity and sustainability. This course shows that the core of economic theory is actually very broad, and highlights the linkages to other social sciences. It will also go into the question of why this core seems to have been forgotten in economics.

Hence, during the Summer School, we follow the trail from individual preferences to individual choices, and from the latter to societal dilemmas and social choice—all under varying physical, monetary, political, or psychological circumstances. Along the way, we encounter utility maximization of the individual under a budget constraint—the bedrock of standard welfare economics—but also alternatives, such as lexicographic ordering and representations of individual and social choices on immaterial aspects of life (democratic values, concerns on equality, inclusivity, safety). We discuss interpretations of circumstances that determine freedom of choice, varying from marketing tools to concepts in game theory, political science and psychology. For decision making under uncertainty, the course contrasts maximization of expected utility with alternative models that can handle catastrophic risks, different types of uncertainty, and qualitative assessments of future outcomes. Throughout, the course connects theoretical representations with quantifiable model representations and includes hands-on exercises.

Course leader

Lia van Wesenbeeck (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and David Jackson (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Target group

The course welcomes (research) master students, PhD students, and post-docs.

Admission requirements
The course welcomes (research) master students, PhD students, post-docs with a social science background, or a science / humanities background with a strong interest in social sciences. A basic knowledge of quantitative methods and programming (in R or GAMS) is useful, but not required

Course aim

After finishing the course, students will be able to:

Sketch the path from the abstract core to specific applications of individual and social choice theory.
Recognize and evaluate the assumptions made in models of individual and social choice
Select the combination of assumptions that is the most suited for their own research question, balancing the need to represent essential characteristics of the modeled setting with the feasibility of deriving analytical results and/or empirically applying the models.
Program simple tools to generate preference orderings, check for consistency and determine optimal choice under given circumstances.

Fee info

Fee

800 EUR

Fee

1500 EUR, PhD and Master Students (Early Bird Fee until April 15, 2025)

Academics (incl. postdocs) and Professionals (Early Bird Fee until April 15, 2025)

Interested?

When:

07 July - 11 July 2025

School:

Tinbergen Institute & Business Data Science Summer School

Institution:

Tinbergen Institute & Business Data Science

Language:

English

Credits:

3 EC

Early Bird deadline 15 April 2025 Visit school

Stay up-to-date about our summer schools!

If you don’t want to miss out on new summer school courses, subscribe to our monthly newsletter.