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

July 7-11, 2025 in Amsterdam, Zuidas

Faculty 

Lia van Wesenbeeck is an Associate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. She is an expert in general equilibrium theory and applications, lecturing in the field of economics and food security, in the Netherlands and abroad. 

David Jackson is a Postdoc at Vrije University's Department of Economics. His current research focuses on developing a theoretical model incorporating informal norm enforcement. 

Meet the Lecturers

Course

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.

Learning Objectives

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.

Schedule 

Every day, there are three lectures and one working group session, covering the topics mentioned above. The Monday lectures provide the foundations in terms of individual preferences and choice. From Tuesday onwards, the morning focuses on the individual, while implications for social choice are discussed in the afternoon. In the working groups after the tea break, hands-on exercises aredone to illustrate how theoretical concepts can be brought into practice, using small-scale examples. Hence, the daily structure is as follows:

• 9.30 – 10.45: Lecture
• 10.45-11.00: Coffee Break
• 11.00 – 12.00: Lecture
• 12.00 – 13.00: Lunch
• 14.00-15.15: Lecture
• 15.15 – 15.30: Coffee Break
• 15.30 – 17.00 : Work Groups

Level

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