Economics

A student typing notes on their laptop during their lecture

Economics

Explore patterns of human behavior in the market

Economics is not just about money and interest rates. The tools of economic analysis have been used to predict flu outbreaks and catch cheating sumo wrestlers, and can even help you get into law school.

The Economics major examines the actions and choices made in order to manage society's scarce resources. Emphasis in our program is placed on understanding how markets coordinate the actions and interactions of people in their various roles as individual consumers or producers, and as members of social, cultural, political, or economic organizations.

What You Will Learn

The Economics major is designed to provide students with:

A fundamental understanding of economic processes;
An ability to communicate and critically analyze economic issues;
Tools for functioning as intelligent, productive business leaders and responsible, informed members of society.

Our Economics students go on to careers in economic and political analysis, publish peer-reviewed journal articles with our faculty, and have been sought after by many top graduate programs in economics.

Get to know our nationally-respected economics faculty, and explore the requirements of the program below.

Economics Course Information

As a business professional, it’s important to understand all areas of the business world. In addition to a solid foundation of economics courses, you’ll take core courses in business, management, finance, and economics. Here’s a sample of what you can expect to learn and do:

Sample Courses

This course considers various theories concerning the functioning of the macroeconomy: Classical and PreKeynesian, Keynesian and the Neoclassical Synthesis, Monetarism, Supply-Side, Fisher's Debt-Deflation Theory, Post Keynesian including Minsky's Financial Instability Hypothesis, and Austrian. Also covered briefly are Rational Expectations, Real Business Cycles, New Keynesianism, and Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium theories.

This is an intermediate-level statistics course. After a brief overview of statistics, the course covers least squares estimation, statistical inference, diagnostic methods, selection and evaluation of functional form, and simultaneous equations estimation. The course focuses more on applied work than on its theoretical underpinnings. Students are actively involved with computer exercises in this course, using the STATA software program. Students will complete a comprehensive statistical research project.

This course is an economic analysis used to consider the effects of legal rules upon people’s actions. Alternative rules are considered, with particular attention paid to the differing effects each is likely to have on the structure of incentives, and thus on human actions.

This course considers exchange rate systems; international monetary arrangements; adjustments in international disequilibrium situations; relationships among rates of exchange, inflation, interest, and unemployment; and domestic and international economic policies. It also considers various theories of competitive advantage in international trade, the nature and effects of commercial policies, and international economic integration.