The Department of Economics offers a broad and critical approach to the
study of economics, covering a wide range of schools of thought, including
Keynesian and post-Keynesian economics; the classical political economy
of Smith, Ricardo, and Marx; structuralist and institutionalist approaches
to economics; and neoclassical economics. The courses of study emphasize
the historical roots of economic ideas, their application to contemporary
economic policy debates, and conflicting explanations and interpretations
of economic phenomena, within the context of a rigorous training in the
conceptual, mathematical, and statistical modeling techniques that are the
common methodological basis of contemporary economic research. The
department's work centers on the changing shape of the world economy,
its financial markets and institutions, problems of regulating and guiding
economic development in the advanced industrial world and in emerging
markets, complexity in economic systems, labor markets, and the economic
aspects of class, gender, and ethnic divisions.
The aim of the Department of Economics is to put what Robert Heilbroner
called "the worldly philosophy"—informed, critical, and passionate
investigation of the economic foundations of contemporary society—at the
heart of the educational and research enterprise. This engagement with the
central unresolved dilemmas of modern society motivates the detailed analysis
of concrete problems of economic policy and the explanations of economic
phenomena that are the substance of the department's degree programs.
