Economics FAQs

Why study Economics?
Economics is the study of economic incentives and how individuals and societies make choices about what to produce, how to produce, and how to distribute goods and services. Economics is useful for students interested in policy and business. Understanding economic incentives is critical to developing effective policies to achieve societal goals, such as stronger economic growth, lower environmental pollution, access to health care, and workable urban communities. Economics is critical to business people to understand decision making by firms, consumers, and government. Chatham also offers a major in Business Economics that combines the study of Economics with a core set of business courses.

What is the Chatham difference?
Chatham’s size fosters individualized academic instruction. The major is a coherent set of courses that culminates in a yearlong research project in the senior year. In the tutorial the student takes responsibility for applying the knowledge and skills learned in courses to the creation of new knowledge. The student chooses a topic, researches the literature, posits a hypothesis, develops a methodology to test the hypothesis, conducts research, analyzes results, and draws conclusions. At the end of the process, the tutorial is presented in both written and oral form to a board of three faculty members. Working with a faculty member on the tutorial process provides the close mentoring relationship that fosters intellectual maturity in the student. This process has produced excellent work by Chatham students. In 2001, a Chatham economics major won a national undergraduate economics award, The Frank W. Taussig Article Award, for her tutorial research on The Effects of Population on Economic Growth.