General Information on Certificates in Economics

The Department of Economics has created four new certificate programs for declared Economics majors and quantitative minors, effective with the 2016-2017 academic year. The certificates are in Financial Economics, Global Economics, Public Policy Economics and in Economic Theory. A fifth certificate program, the Certificate in Computational Economics and Data Analytics, will begin in the 2020-2021 academic year.These certificates are meant to provide economics majors with an incentive to plan and organize their thinking along several specific career paths that an economics degree is a good launching pad for, to the extent that this appeals to them. The certificate programs are also available to students completing the new (as of 2020-2021) minor in Quantitative Economics. There are specific grade requirements, including a minimum overall g.p.a. of 3.0 to receive the certificate, and a minimum B grade for all courses taken to satisfy the certificate requirements.

The certificates are uniform in requiring four courses from a select list of mainly upper level economics electives, including a core course for the certificate, which may be a specific course or one course from a short list of courses. In the latter situation, other courses in the core list may also be used to satisfy the overall course requirement for the certificate. Note that the Certificate in Economic Theory has some additional course requirements outside of economics. Click the tab for the Economic Theory Certificate for details. Certificates are noted on the student’s transcript at graduation, and may be listed on a c.v. or resume as an additional credential.

The Department of Economics also continues to offer the Certificate in Quantitative Economics (CQE), which is open to non-economics majors as well, and which has more extensive course requirements in mathematics, statistics and computer science. Click the tab for the CQE for details.