Message from the chair

Alejandro Manelli

Welcome to the Department of Economics!

Economics is indispensable for understanding history, politics, and businesses, investments, work opportunities, and more. Studying economics provides a framework and the tools to understand the world, to make better individual decisions, and to understand the decisions made by others.

In the last two decades the available data about the physical world and about the outcome of human interactions has grown significantly. So have our computational capabilities and understanding of large data structures. Studying economics will equip you to analyze, elucidate and understand the hidden patterns in that data, to logically explain those patterns, and to forecast their future development. This applies to climate change, stock prices, health care outcomes, the next presidential election, economic development in Asia, real estate, or any other area.

Our department offers a variety of courses from environmental economics and international trade to family and gender economics, public policy, information economics, advanced economic theory, econometrics, and data analysis. We offer STEM-designated undergraduate and graduate degrees. We are scheduled to launch a master’s degree in Fall 2025.

Our PhD graduates are successful in academia and industry. Some of our graduates choose to work in the private sector — for instance, banks, consulting firms, asset management companies, not-for-profit organizations, large and small corporations — or in government institutions at the local, state, or federal level. Others go on to some of the best PhD programs and law schools in the country. In any direction you may choose, economics will prove itself useful.

We await your arrival and look forward to sharing our passion for economics with you. Studying economics is an adventure! If you have any questions, please contact us at wpcareyecn@asu.edu.


Alejandro Manelli
Chair and Professor
Department of Economics


Rankings

Our STEM-designated undergraduate and graduate programs rank among the best in the world. We are devoted to excellence in building a solid quantitative foundation for students and teaching theory, applied economics, and econometrics. ASU currently ranks No. 23 best economics academic programs in the world* and No. 26 for best global universities in economics and business.**

*Ahead of Boston University, USC, and University of Texas; ShanghaiRanking, 2024
**Ahead of Duke, UCLA, and Penn State; U.S. News & World Report, 2024