The discipline of economics falls within the social and behavioral sciences area of a liberal arts education because of the nature of the problems with which it deals, the diverse approaches to those problems which it uses, and the skills which it develops. Among the problems which students in economics courses may investigate are inflation and unemployment, poverty and discrimination, deficits in government budgets and in international trade, regulation and deregulation, high housing prices, and the immense gap between living standards in rich and poor nations. Economists study these problems using conservative, liberal, and radical approaches.
Students develop skills which assist in the clear and critical analysis of economic questions.
Those skills include gathering and interpreting information, predicting the consequences of specific actions, and evaluating alternatives. The economics department has approximately 150 declared majors. In addition, it serves students from many other departments and programs in CAS, as well as students from the College of Management. Their interests include Economic Development, Economic History, Economic Philosophy, Environmental Issues, Industrial Organization, Immigration, International Economics, Labor Economics, Macroeconomics, Marxism, Monetary Theory, Political Economy of Race and Gender, Public Policy, Public Sector Economics, Social Welfare, Statistics and Econometrics, and Urban Economics. In addition to teaching, faculty members are engaged in research, writing, consulting, and other professional activities in their areas of interest.