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Study Information

New Curriculum as of Winter Semester 2023/24

The Department of Economics offers courses in economics in all three sections of the Bachelor's program in Business, Economics and Social Sciences.

Key areas in the new curriculum:

The Economics track in the Bachelor’s Program ‘WISO’ deals with a variety of economic topics: The focus is on macroeconomic issues and empirical research methods.

Further specialisations are:

  •     Linking society and the economy

  •     Learning to make evidence-based policy recommendations

  •     Methodological expertise

Welcome by the program director:

Video VW_Ausschnitt_WISO23.mov

VW_Ausschnitt_WISO23.mov

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Q&A about the Economics Track:

Why should you choose to major in economics at WU Vienna?

Why should you choose to major in economics at WU Vienna?As a society, we face enormous global challenges in the coming decades:•    The Digital Transformation: On the one hand, it promises productivity gains and economic growth, but on the other hand, it raises the question of how it will change working life and whether people will still be able to find a secure job with a sufficient income twenty years from now.•    Demographic Change: This poses a major challenge for social security and the pension system. Many young people wonder whether they will still receive an adequate pension in old age and how long they will have to remain in the workforce.•    The Climate Crisis: It threatens people’s livelihoods and increases the likelihood of disasters such as droughts, floods, and heat waves worldwide. Today’s young people, in particular, will feel the full impact of these changes.Key challenges in the economy and society almost always have an economic core. Studying economics provides a coherent set of tools to help solve these problems.For example, economics examines various options for financing social security and pension systems as demographic change leads to a shrinking labor force and as more and more tasks are performed by industrial robots, 3D printers, and other.

What do students learn when they study economics?

Students are provided with a coherent, modern, and forward-looking set of tools—both methodological and empirical—that enables them to independently address and answer the major questions in economics. In the areas of specialization, students’ methodological skills are further developed and applied to specific research questions.
A key advantage of our program structure is that the methods learned can be quickly and directly applied to ever-changing challenges—for example, in the past to issues related to the economic and financial crisis, or more recently, to questions regarding energy price increases and inflationary pressures, as well as the economic impacts of COVID-19; or even to the question of whether a robot tax might make sense in the age of automation and digitalization. Department members have published seminal work on these topics in leading international economics journals.

What do the Nobel Prize and the field of economics have in common?

Recommended Study 2. Year

[Translate to English:] Empfehlung zweites Studienjahr

Recommended Study 3. Year

[Translate to English:] Empehlung 3. Studienjahr

Possible Specializations: