Economic Majors have diverse interests. To provide guidance, we have grouped courses into Tracks: Finance, Policy, Research, Strategy, International & Development and Behavioral. Students can follow a specific track or take a range of courses to meet the following requirements for a Bachelor of Arts in Economics.
Requirements for the Economics Major (80 units)
NOTE: All courses used to complete the following requirements must be taken for letter grades, and 55 of the 80 units must be taken at Stanford in California. Transfer credit must be approved in writing by the Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies. Math 51 (or CME 100 or CME100A) taken for a letter grade is a prerequisite for an Economics degree.
Core Economics Courses (30 units)
The Department encourages students to complete the core courses before undertaking the rest of their program, and if possible by the end of the sophomore year.
- Econ 1 (5 units)
- Econ 102A (5 units): it is recommended that students satisfy this basic statistics requirement before proceeding with the rest of the program. Prerequisite: Math 41 or equivalent.
- Econ 50 (5 units): basic price theory. Prerequisite: Econ 1 and Math 51 with letter grade (or CME 100 or CME100A with letter grade). Grade in Econ 50 must be B or better.
- Econ 51 (5 units): intermediate micro. Prerequisites: Econ 50.
- Econ 52 (5 units): intermediate macro. Prerequisites: Econ 50.
- Econ 102B (5 units): econometrics. Prerequisites: Economics 102A.
Material in Econ 102B is used in a number of field courses. Students are strongly advised to design their program of study so that Econ 102B is taken early in their program.
Field Courses (must be taken at Stanford in California) (25 units)
| Econ 102C | Advanced Topics in Econometrics |
| Econ 111 | Money and Banking |
| Econ 112 | Financial Markets and Institutions: Recent Developments |
| Econ 113 | Economics of Innovation |
| Econ 118 | Development Economics |
| Econ 125 | Economic Development, Microfinance, and Social Networks |
| Econ 126 | Economics of Health and Medical Care |
| Econ 128 | Institutions and Development from Historical Perspective |
| Econ 136 (or 182)** | Market Design (Honors Market Design) |
| Econ 137 (or 181)** | Decision Modeling & Information (Honors Information & Incentives) |
| Econ 140 (or 135)* | Financial Economics (or Finance for Non-MBAs) |
| Econ 141 | Public Finance and Fiscal Policy |
| Econ 145 | Labor Economics |
| Econ 146 | Economics of Education |
| Econ 149 | The Modern Firm in Theory and Practice |
| Econ 153 | Economics of the Internet |
| Econ 155 | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Econ 157 | Imperfect Competition |
| Econ 158 | Regulatory Economics |
| Econ 160 (or 180)** | Game Theory and Economic Applications (Honors Game Theory) |
| Econ 164 | Law, Economics and Politics of International Trade |
| Econ 165 | International Finance |
| Econ 166 | International Trade |
| Econ 178 | Behavioral Economics |
| Econ 179 | Experimental Economics |
| Econ 198/199D | Junior Honors Seminar / Honors Thesis Research |
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* Students may not count units from both Econ 140 and Econ 135 towards their major as the courses are too similar in content. **Students may count toward the econ field course requirement either Econ 136 or 182; either Econ 137 or 181; either Econ 160 or 180 (180, 181, 182 are honors courses). The second may count as an elective. |
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Policy Writing Course (5 units)
Econ 101 (5 units). This course fulfills the Writing in the Major requirement. Any WIM course for Economics may be taken only after completing Econ 51, 52, 102B and at least two field courses.
Electives (20 units)
Choose from Econ courses numbered between 100 and 198. Up to 10 units of this requirement may be fulfilled by upper division math, statistics and computer science courses. Approved courses: Math 113, 115, 118,136, 151, 171, 172, 175, 180 or Stats 200, 206, 207, 208, 209, 217, 218, 219, 221, 222, 237 or CS 161, 221, 227B, CS 229.
- A maximum of 10 units of transfer credit or of Econ 139D, directed reading and research, may be taken as electives.
- Suitable transfer credit must be approved in writing by the Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies.
- Advanced undergraduate majors with strong quantitative preparation may enroll in graduate (200-level) courses with permission of the Director of Undergraduate Studies and the course instructor.
- Some courses offered by Overseas Studies may be counted toward this requirement.
- The department does not give credit for internships. Thus Econ 139D, directed reading, cannot be used to obtain credit for internships.
Other Requirements
- At least 55 of the 80 units required for the major must be taken at Stanford in California.
- No courses receiving Department of Economics credit under the preceding requirements may be taken CR/NC.
- Students scoring a 5 on both the advanced placement (AP) microeconomics and macroeconomics tests or a score of 7 on International Baccalaureate (IB) higher level economics test may petition the Director of Undergraduate Studies to have the ECON 1 course requirement waived. Students do not receive units credit for placing out of ECON 1.
- A grade point average (GPA) of C= (2.0) or better must be received for all units applied toward the Major.
- To use transfer credit in partial satisfaction of the requirements, the student must obtain written consent from the department's Associate Director of Undergraduate Study, who will establish the amount of credit to be granted toward the department requirements.
- The maximum time limit for satisfactory completion of a course is one year from the date a grade of incomplete ("I") is given. Instructors may require that a course be completed anytime up to the one year time limit. Students are responsible for seeing that all grades of incomplete are cleared within the time limit. The university's rule is that a grade of incomplete that is not cleared within the time limit becomes a grade of NP.
- Students must complete their declaration of the major no later than the last day of the quarter, one quarter before anticipated degree conferral.
