A Bachelor of Economics (BEc or BEcon)

Bureau of Labor Statistics The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the principal fact-finding agency for the government of the United States, U.S. government in the broad field of labor economics, labor economics and ...

How to Become an Economist
/ref> is an academic degree, awarded to students who have completed specialised

undergraduate studies Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

. Variants include the "Bachelor of Economic Science", and "tagged" degrees such as BA (Econ), BS (Econ) / BSc (Econ), BCom (Econ), and BSocSc (Econ). These degrees aim to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of economic theories, principles, and models, and their application in analyzing real-world economic issues. Graduates often pursue careers in

economic analysis Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyse ...

, policy development, finance, and business consulting, or continue their studies in

graduate programs Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachelor' ...

. The program encompasses a broad range of topics in the field of economics, including

microeconomics Microeconomics is a branch of economics that studies the behavior of individuals and Theory of the firm, firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarcity, scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. M ...

macroeconomics Macroeconomics is a branch of economics that deals with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole. This includes regional, national, and global economies. Macroeconomists study topics such as output (econ ...

econometrics Econometrics is an application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics", '' The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, p. 8 p. 8 ...

economic history Economic history is the study of history using methodological tools from economics or with a special attention to economic phenomena. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the Applied economics ...

, and

international economics International economics is concerned with the effects upon economic activity from international differences in productive resources and consumer preferences and the international institutions that affect them. It seeks to explain the patterns an ...

. It is, at the same time, substantially more theoretical and mathematically rigorous than the economics

major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

within generalist undergraduate degrees (e.g. BBA, BA or BCom).

Structure

The BEcon and the specialized degrees "Economics Specialist"
,

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

"Economics as an expanded subject"
,

Bar Ilan University Bar-Ilan University (BIU, , ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academic university institution. It has 20,000 ...

each have their own structure, differing by university. Generally, though, the curriculum is built around a core of theory, to which is added courses in the various branches, and areas of application; see next section. In the US, a structured "program" is often offered within the College of Arts and Sciences. Course Information
,

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

the Commonwealth ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

, specialized BCom-Economics degrees are often offered through the commerce faculty. BCom (Economic Sciences)
,

Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch University (SU) (, ) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant university in Sub-Sahara ...

BCom Economics
,

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The universit ...

ECONOMICS
,

University of Western Australia University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Crawley, Western Australia, Crawley, a suburb in the City of Perth local government area. UW ...

The program is often available as a

social science Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...

degree. BA (Honours) Social Sciences (Economics)
,

Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...

Several universities offer a separate 1 year

Honours degree Honours degree has various meanings in the context of different degrees and education systems. Most commonly it refers to a variant of the undergraduate bachelor's degree containing a larger volume of material or a higher standard of study, ...

, Bachelor of Economics (Honours)

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

and the program then comprises "3 years plus 1"; often, Honours (US, Honors) is included in the four year structure. Concentration Requirements

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

An Honours research-thesis will be required. Under both specialized and general programs, economics is often combined with a second major in

finance Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and Academic discipline, discipline of money, currency, assets and Liability (financial accounting), liabilities. As a subject of study, is a field of Business administration, Business Admin ...

management Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a Government agency, government bodies through business administration, Nonprofit studies, nonprofit management, or the political s ...

, "Economics, Management, Finance and the Social Sciences"
,

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

or with other social sciences; Bachelor of Social Science Degree Majoring in Economics
,

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...

in the US, economics is often combined with a quantitative subject such as math or computer science. The interdisciplinary "PPE" integrates

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and

politics Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

with economics. Some

business schools A business school is a higher education institution or professional school that teaches courses leading to degrees in business administration or management. A business school may also be referred to as school of management, management school, s ...

offer a joint program with the economics department; similarly, joint-majors are commonly offered with the mathematics department. Some

universities A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

allow that the degree as a whole may be further specialized; either in one of the applied areas, or, more common, in one of the major branches, often development economics, econometrics / mathematical economics, BCom Honours Econometrics
,

University of Johannesburg The University of Johannesburg, colloquially known as UJ, is a public university A public university, state university, or public college is a university or college that is State ownership, owned by the state or receives significant fundi ...

political economy, agricultural economics, or business economics. Others allow this specialization at the

level. Some universities offer a "Bachelor of Applied Economics" Bachelor of Applied Economics
,

Massey University Massey University () is a Public university, public research university in New Zealand that provides internal and distance education. The university has campuses in Auckland, Palmerston North, and Wellington. Data from Universities New Zealand ...

or similar, Undergraduate Program in Applied Economics & Management
, Dyson, Cornell which will be career-focused. Degrees in Financial Economics, integrate finance into the economics program, as opposed to via a second major.

Curriculum

Typically, "Economics Major and Minor"
,

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

Economics Major
,

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

the core-degree comprises

and

; while

mathematical economics Mathematical economics is the application of Mathematics, mathematical methods to represent theories and analyze problems in economics. Often, these Applied mathematics#Economics, applied methods are beyond simple geometry, and may include diff ...

is sometimes required.BCom with specialisation in Economics
,

University of the Free State The University of the Free State (; Sotho language, Sesotho: ''Yunivesithi ya Freistata'') is a multi-campus public university in Bloemfontein, the capital of the Free State (province), Free State and the judicial capital of South Africa. It wa ...

Micro- and macroeconomics are taught through the "intermediate" level, preparing the student for the "advanced" postgraduate courses. Macroeconomics extends to a discussion of the more advanced models of the economy, differences here between

schools A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of ...

, and the related

policy analysis Policy analysis or public policy analysis is a technique used in the public administration sub-field of political science to enable civil servants, nonprofit organizations, and others to examine and evaluate the available options to implement th ...

; microeconomics extends to

general equilibrium In economics, general equilibrium theory attempts to explain the behavior of supply, demand, and prices in a whole economy with several or many interacting markets, by seeking to prove that the interaction of demand and supply will result in an ov ...

, to an analytic approach to demand with curves derived from

utility function In economics, utility is a measure of a certain person's satisfaction from a certain state of the world. Over time, the term has been used with at least two meanings. * In a Normative economics, normative context, utility refers to a goal or ob ...

s, and to

game theory Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions. It has applications in many fields of social science, and is used extensively in economics, logic, systems science and computer science. Initially, game theory addressed ...

as applied to competition, and hence supply. Some programs then specify a course in

microfoundations Microfoundations are an effort to understand macroeconomic phenomena in terms of individual agents' economic behavior and interactions.Maarten Janssen (2008),Microfoundations, in ''The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics'', 2nd ed. Research in mi ...

, where the macroeconomic models are derived by aggregating microeconomic models.

Econometrics Econometrics is an application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics", '' The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, p. 8 p. 8 ...

is intended to give empirical content to these economic relationships, and here focuses on the single-equation methods largely

linear regression In statistics, linear regression is a statistical model, model that estimates the relationship between a Scalar (mathematics), scalar response (dependent variable) and one or more explanatory variables (regressor or independent variable). A mode ...

, and

time series In mathematics, a time series is a series of data points indexed (or listed or graphed) in time order. Most commonly, a time series is a sequence taken at successive equally spaced points in time. Thus it is a sequence of discrete-time data. ...

; students are trained on

packages Package may refer to: Containers or enclosures * Packaging and labeling, enclosing or protecting products * Mail, items larger than a letter * Chip package or chip carrier * Electronic packaging, in electrical engineering * Automotive package, in ...

such as

STATA Stata (, , alternatively , occasionally stylized as STATA) is a general-purpose Statistics, statistical software package developed by StataCorp for data manipulation, visualization, statistics, and automated reporting. It is used by researchers ...

EViews EViews is a statistical package for Windows, used mainly for time-series oriented econometric analysis. It is developed by Quantitative Micro Software (QMS), now a part of IHS. Version 1.0 was released in March 1994, and replaced MicroTSP. T ...

and R. Building on this core, are courses in the major branches of economics:

monetary economics Monetary economics is the branch of economics that studies the different theories of money: it provides a framework for analyzing money and considers its functions (as medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account), and it considers how m ...

development economics Development economics is a branch of economics that deals with economic aspects of the development process in low- and middle- income countries. Its focus is not only on methods of promoting economic development, economic growth and structural c ...

labor economics Labour economics seeks to understand the functioning and dynamics of the markets for wage labour. Labour is a commodity that is supplied by labourers, usually in exchange for a wage paid by demanding firms. Because these labourers exist as pa ...

, and

welfare economics Welfare economics is a field of economics that applies microeconomic techniques to evaluate the overall well-being (welfare) of a society. The principles of welfare economics are often used to inform public economics, which focuses on the ...

. Social science oriented degrees may emphasize

economic statistics Economic statistics is a topic in applied statistics and applied economics that concerns the collection, processing, compilation, dissemination, and analysis of economic data. It is closely related to business statistics and econometrics. It ...

and

political economy Political or comparative economy is a branch of political science and economics studying economic systems (e.g. Marketplace, markets and national economies) and their governance by political systems (e.g. law, institutions, and government). Wi ...

; and often do not require econometrics or mathematical economics.

History of economic thought The history of economic thought is the study of the philosophies of the different thinkers and theories in the subjects that later became political economy and economics, from the ancient world to the present day. This field encompasses many d ...

and

may be included in either variant.Degree Requirements

The New School The New School is a Private university, private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for p ...

Electives may be offered in the above branches, or in various areas of

applied economics Applied economics is the application of economic theory and econometrics in specific settings. As one of the two sets of fields of economics (the other set being the ''core''), it is typically characterized by the application of the ''core'', i.e ...

, such as

agricultural economics Agricultural economics is an applied field of economics concerned with the application of economic theory in optimizing the production and distribution of food and fiber products. Agricultural economics began as a branch of economics that specif ...

environmental economics Environmental economics is a sub-field of economics concerned with environmental issues. It has become a widely studied subject due to growing environmental concerns in the twenty-first century. Environmental economics "undertakes theoretical ...

resource economics Natural resource economics deals with the Supply (economics), supply, Demand (economics), demand, and Resource allocation, allocation of the Earth's natural resources. One main objective of natural resource economics is to better understand th ...

managerial economics Managerial economics is a branch of economics involving the application of economic methods in the organizational decision-making process.* * * Economics is the study of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Manag ...

, and

financial economics Financial economics is the branch of economics characterized by a "concentration on monetary activities", in which "money of one type or another is likely to appear on ''both sides'' of a trade".William F. Sharpe"Financial Economics", in Its co ...

. Mathematical economics is often an elective; it is generally recommended for those intending graduate training in Economics. In the US, these students will often also study selected math-courses in

multivariable calculus Multivariable calculus (also known as multivariate calculus) is the extension of calculus in one variable to calculus with functions of several variables: the differentiation and integration of functions involving multiple variables ('' mult ...

, differential equations,

linear algebra Linear algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning linear equations such as :a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n=b, linear maps such as :(x_1, \ldots, x_n) \mapsto a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n, and their representations in vector spaces and through matrix (mathemat ...

optimization Mathematical optimization (alternatively spelled ''optimisation'') or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criteria, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfiel ...

, and sometimes

analysis Analysis (: analyses) is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle (38 ...

.Courses and Requirements: Economics
,

Hamilton College Hamilton College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York, Clinton, New York. It was established as the Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and received its c ...

BA Economics Major
,

University Of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University o ...

Co-requisite courses from outside of economics are invariably a program requirement. Common to all business programs are introductory or

business statistics Statistics (from German: ', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, industrial, or social ...

, and "quantitative techniques", comprising basic calculus, interest calculations, and sometimes matrix operations; the social science programs sometimes include these, and may also require credits in

sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...

and

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

. Some knowledge of

accountancy Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activities and conveys ...

or management may be assumed in the "applied courses"; credits in these are usually inherent in the business degree. Most specialized programs require further "Mathematics for Economists",

Open textbook An open textbook is a textbook licensed under an open license, and made available online to be freely used by students, teachers and members of the public. Many open textbooks are distributed in either print, e-book, or audio formats that may be d ...

s include: *Katherine Eyal (2014)
''Mathematics for Economists''
*Frank Werner and Yuri Sotsko (2006)
''Mathematics of Economics and Business''
*Bruno Belevan, ''et al.'' (2020)
''Optimal, Integral, Likely: Optimization, Integral Calculus, and Probability for Students of Commerce and the Social Sciences''
essentially a (detailed) survey of the topics mentioned above re US students; see . Statistics is similarly extended,BA Economics
,

SOAS The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...

often within the math course, as underpin to the econometrics coursework. The specialized BSc programs are often more math intensive than the BA programs.What can you do with an economics degree?
, ''

Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The THES''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...

'' Similarly, the Honors track will have additional math requirements.

References

{{Economics, expanded Business qualifications

Economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

Economics education

Structure

Curriculum

See also

References