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Economics, B.A.

This degree is suitable for pre-law students or those interested in careers in business; education; urban planning; and federal, state, and local government.

Objectives

Economics focuses on optimal choices and the incentives and constraints that determine decision making for individuals, firms, and institutions. Since unlimited wants generally have to be met by limited means, the study of economics provides a careful analysis and thorough understanding of the processes with which wealth is produced, distributed, and consumed. The economy’s importance to all societies and the human condition and the methodological approach of modeling decision making, make economic knowledge useful to many other fields, such as political science, sociology, anthropology, biology, engineering, law, and history. It, thus, is an important field of study and as central to a liberal arts education as it is to a business program.

The study of economics involves

  1. the development of theories of economic behavior and their application to new problems;
  2. the use of statistics and other evidence to test or add content to existing theories;
  3. the development of perspective on economic institutions, economic history, and the development of economic philosophy.

Students are encouraged to engage in independent research on all of these levels.

The Economics Department aims first to prepare our students both with the technical skills required to think deeply about important issues of scarcity in our world and to educate the whole person in accordance with the University mission. Upon completing the major, our students will be able to demonstrate a solid understanding of how incentives shape human behavior, in particular, but not only in the core economics fields of microeconomics, and macroeconomics. In addition, our students will acquire technical skills, particularly in statistics, to complement critical thinking abilities more broadly. They will also have the skills to solve theoretical and real-world problems and be fully prepared for both advanced graduate study and challenging careers.