Economic competencies as part of 21st century skills and their relevance to predicting the choice of a study program

The debate surrounding skills that young people will need in the future to master current national and global challenges is subject to a continuous, controversial process. A consensus has resulted in what are known as twenty-first-century skills. These skills aim to enable learners to form well-founded opinions and be educated to become responsible citizens. In this context, significant weight can be attributed to economic competencies, but it remains unclear what role economic competencies play in predicting study program choices. This paper provides a comprehensive discussion of economic competencies as a part of twenty-first-century skills and as a predictor for program choices. To achieve this, we analysed the economic competencies of 1397 Swiss students in different study programs. Based on multinomial regression models, our findings show that students in economics disciplines score higher in terms of economic knowledge and skills. However, considering motivational-affective dimensions of economic competencies, students in several other study programs have similar scores to those of economics students. This paper makes an important contribution regarding economic competencies as part of twenty-first-century skills and their domain-specificity when transitioning from secondary education to university.