Core Courses

All students are required to take the following core courses (21 credits):

  • Economic Data Analysis I, II, and III
  • Macroeconomics I
  • Microeconomics I and II
  • Applied Economics Practicum

At the end of the core, it is expected that students will have met the following objectives:

  • Reached a high level of critical and analytical thinking ability from their work in microeconomic theory and will be able to appreciate real-world phenomena such as demand behavior, inter-firm rivalry, strategic pricing decisions, and environmental issues as essentially problems in microeconomics and approach such problems with a specific microeconomic framework.
  • Students will be able to understand relationships between macroeconomic variables (such as the money supply and interest rates); to be able to put them in the context of simple, real-world macroeconomic models—some of which are used for policy analysis; and to find macroeconomic statistics for reports and presentations about the United States economy.
  • Students will be able to find, appreciate, and analyze large and small economic data sets using regression techniques; to conduct empirical research on an economic topic that interests them (or their employers); and to be able to use business and statistical software packages.

Core Course Descriptions

Economics 650-Microeconomic Theory I
Study of the interactions of households and firms in perfectly and imperfectly competitive markets, under certainty and uncertainty, with symmetric and asymmetric information, in a static world and over time as encountered in the real world.
Prerequisites: Intermediate microeconomics

Economics 651-Microeconomic Theory II
Continuation of Economics 650.
Prerequisites: Econ 650

Economics 655-Macroeconomics I
This course is designed to provide the student with an overall picture of the economy. The central economic problems addressed will be familiar: GDP, money supply, interest rates, unemployment, inflation, growth, etc.
Prerequisites: Intermediate macroeconomics and money & banking

Economics 671-Economic Data Analysis I
Using a variety of computer programs this course will teach the student (1) how to locate secondary sources of economic data; (2) methods that have been used to compile economic data; (3) how to transform, summarize, and display economic data; (4) simple statistical techniques to analyze economic data.

Economics 672-Economic Data Analysis II
An introduction to the fundamentals of analyzing primarily cross-sectional economic relationships using regression techniques. The course includes discsusions of inference, model selection, prediction, heteroskedasticity, endogeneity, and other related topics. Applications from economics.
Prerequisites: Econ 671 or permission of instructor

Economics 673-Economic Data Analysis III
A continuation of Economics 672, focusing on analyzing time-series relationships. Topics include nonstationarity and spurious regression, serial correlation, dynamic specifications, cointegration, and other related topics.
Prerequisites: Econ 672 or permission of instructor

Economics 679-Applied Economics Practicum
Under the guidance of the instructor, students will apply their analytical and quantitative skills toward the analysis of current economic issues, and present reports on their findings.
Prerequisites: Econ 651, 655, and 673 or permission of instructor.

Bacon