William Morris Appleman, Ph.D. Candidate at the Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education – Economics Institute (CERGE-EI) conducted a one-week-long intensive course entitled "Fundamental Principles of Economics" for the second cohort of our brand new BA program (first cohort students were also invited and many attended).

The main goal of the course was to introduce students to the most important fundamental concepts of economics and give them a foundation upon which to build their upcoming economic education. More specifically, students were intensively engaged in illustrative games, activities, and classroom discussions and debates that were often linked with real-life examples. They gained a core understanding of what economics is, how economies work, and a toolkit in intuitive economic reasoning.

The course also featured a short introduction to behavioral and experimental economics, including symbolic participation in a real economic experiment. Most importantly, the students learned how to analyze and evaluate any policy, or any life situation for that matter, like an economist using the economic concepts, toolkit, and a simple analytical method.

The students reported that they found the course very fun, interesting, and useful.