Subject Guide to Economics

Find postgrad programs in ECONOMICS

Economics is normally divided into two overarching fields: macroeconomics and microeconomics.

Macroeconomics looks at government monetary and fiscal policy, with an eye toward economic growth, the level of employment, inflation, and so on. This big picture view stands in contrast to microeconomics, which focuses on the behaviour of individuals, households, and firms. In microeconomics, price theory is central. Microeconomists have tended to study how prices are established, how they change, and how people and firms respond to such changes.

This description of the field, however, does it an injustice. For one thing, it hardly gives a sense of the range of what economists now study. Many years ago, a well-known economist said that ‘economics is what economists do'.’ This is a vague definition, to be sure, but it usefully suggests that the focus of economics tends to change. This has certainly been true in recent years. Once Gary Becker (later to win a Nobel Prize) started studying subjects like discrimination, marriage, and human capital from an economics perspective, all bets were off. Virtually anything could be (and probably now is) studied by economists.

For another, it makes economics sound like an ivy-tower pursuit: economists, at one or more levels of remove from reality, performing analyses that might inform policymakers’ judgments about whether to increase interest rates but would hardly be applicable to real-life people and firms. That is far from the case. Nowadays, economists don’t just opine about whether a country’s trade deficit is sustainable. They are more likely to be employed by a firm that is trying to decide how to set prices for dozens of products in as many markets or by an insurance company trying to determine how much sooner their policies will pay out if more and more policyholders become obese.

Trends that influence economics

Numerous substantial trends continue to drive this field, including:

The increase in computing power (which allows more involved models, using more and more data, to be run).
More data becoming available as more economic activity is measured.
The mining of psychology for insights into economic (or social) behaviour (i.e. the developing field of behavioural economics).
Using game theory to solve problems in microeconomic fields.
Applying economic techniques and thinking to an ever-wider range of topics.

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Choosing a Masters in Economics

Economics degrees come in all shapes and colours. Many courses, especially in the UK, are designed to fit both those with strong economics and quantitative backgrounds and those without. Thus, those without a strong background can enrol for a two-year program, successful completion of the first year of which qualifies them for a diploma as well as entry into the second year. Those with a suitable background can simply enrol in the second year of the course, skipping the diploma year (called a ‘pre-master year’ elsewhere) altogether.

The staggering number of universities offering Masters in Economics – along with the many variations on a theme at places – mean that candidates are spoiled for choice. Many economics courses emphasise financial economics, making an economics degree a close substitute for a finance degree.

In the past, a typical program would require a degree in economics, or in a closely related discipline – i.e. one that included a substantial portion of economics, such as finance. Increasingly, however, many universities are giving short shrifts to the economics background of applicants in favour of their quantitative background. Thus, those with mathematics or physics degrees are sometimes preferred to those with economics degrees. On postgraduate programs that are not so mathematically orientated, some calculus and statistics coursework is generally required, perhaps to the level of multivariable calculus and introductory econometrics. The University of Glasgow offers a full-time, two-year MRes in Economics, that provides students with rigorous mathematical training in modern economics. This course aims to equip them with a thorough understanding of all the research tools and techniques required for the analysis of economics.

Many programs also look for:

Micro and macroeconomics to intermediate level or higher
Some programming ability
Linear algebra coursework

Masters in Applied Economics

For students interested in real world economics rather than the theory of economics, a Masters in Applied Economics is the ideal choice. Applied economics looks at economics in relation to real situations, applying economic theories and principles to these real-world situations. In contrast to masters in economics, the coursework of will focus more on method and application than on theory and proofs.

There are various good options for studying applied economics at postgraduate level, for example the University of Bath offers an MSc in Applied Economics in which the student chooses from a selection of modules depending on what area of applied economics they want to specialise in. The pathway choices on this course are Banking & Financial Markets, Public Policy, Environmental Policy, and Behavioural Science.

Meanwhile, the University of Strathclyde offers an MSc in Applied Economics where students can specialise in Fundamentals of Business Economics, International Trade & Policy, Games of Strategy, Environmental Economics, and Energy Economics.

Aarhus University in Denmark offers an MSc program in Economics which offers the ability to specialise in any one of its 25 focus areas.

MBA in Economics

An MBA in economics will usually take one year to complete on a full-time basis. There will be a selection of compulsory modules that all students will have to successfully complete, as well as a selection of optional modules to choose from. Compulsory modules are likely to include:

Organisational leadership
Financial accounting
Financial management
Marketing

Optional modules that students can choose from will probably include:

International business
Microeconomics
Macroeconomics
Economic forecasting
Econometric methods

PhD in Economics

A PhD in Economics enables the student to delve deeper into this subject and choose a particular area of interest to research in greater depth. Studying this postgraduate course will advance a student’s business career as well as stand them in good stead for a career in academia.

Queen Mary University of London offers a PhD in Economics and a PhD in Finance – the PhDs each takes three years full time or six years part time to complete.

This PhD program is based on students spending the three (or five) years attending weekly seminars and is taught through the School’s MRes programmes in Economics and Finance.

The University of Birmingham also offers a PhD in Economics that takes four years to complete full time (three years of the student has already completed an MSc at Birmingham Business School) which is only on offer as a full-time program with a September start date. It is compulsory for all students to take the Research Methods in Economics module and in their first year they must also complete a literature survey and prepare a research proposal. Students on Birmingham’s PhD in Economics need to meet with their supervisor at least once every four weeks.

Economics career opportunities

The days when economists mainly worked for central governments or universities are long gone. The range of potential employers is staggering for economics graduates and includes economic and management consulting firms, central banks, international organisations, commercial and investment banks, government agencies, insurance firms, local governments, think tanks, non-profits/not-for-profits, real estate firms/estate agents, pension funds, and so on.

The tools and methods economists learn are widely applicable indeed. In fact, given that many people who study economics end up taking jobs in finance, the ‘finance’ career discussion is also highly relevant.

Typical job titles include: