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Economics

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Administrative Support

Ashli O’Strander

Program Description

How do individuals make decisions about work, wealth, and well-being? How do governments affect the overall level of economic activity? How do firms decide how much to produce and what prices to charge? How is the discipline of economics used to design policies for environmental concerns such as climate change?

Economics is the social science concerned with individual and collective decision-making in a world where resources have multiple uses. Students in the economics department at Puget Sound use the tools of economics to critically analyze private and public decision-making processes, contemporary and historical socioeconomic issues, and the fundamental role that economic forces play in society. The department also provides students with the mathematical, statistical, and experimental tools necessary to investigate these various areas.

 

Who You Could Be

  • Lawyer
  • Economist
  • Consultant
  • Futures trader
  • Chief financial officer (CFO)
  • Analyst (risk, data, investment)

What You'll Learn

  • How markets work and their effects on your life
  • How consumers, firms, laborers, and governments make economic choices
  • How to model human behavior in a variety of economic circumstances
  • How to evaluate economic choices and interpret statistical analysis
  • How to use analytical tools to evaluate policy selection, efficacy, and efficiency
Jessica Bruce '08
ALUMNI
Jessica Bruce ’08

"As a student, I recognized the importance of taking advantage of as many opportunities as possible to broaden my exposure and develop my resume. I interned for two summers in Washington, D.C., with the Census Bureau and State Department. I also worked for the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation, a nonprofit that does investment in the community."

 

SAMPLE COURSES

This is the second course in the economics two-semester introductory sequence. It introduces the student to the microeconomic concepts of consumer choice, demand theory, consumer and producer surplus, the theory of the firm, perfect competition and market failure.

Code
Social Scientific and Historical Perspectives
Prerequisites
ECON 101. Credit will not be granted to students who have received credit for ECON 170.

This course introduces students to the economics of interregional and international migration. The tools of microeconomics are applied to understand the theoretical and empirical aspects of migration decisions and their implications on regional growth. Using economic models the course explores and understands the causes and effects of migration on receiving and sending regions. While this course primarily focuses on interregional and international migration in the United States, it also includes additional discussions on current applications and topics concerning migration issues in other countries in the world. The final section of the course includes a discussion on immigration policies in the U.S. and abroad and the issues concerning them.

Code
Social Scientific and Historical Perspectives
Prerequisites
ECON 101.

This course is an analysis of gender and race inequality, using the theoretical and empirical tools of economics. Topics include work and family issues, the labor market, occupational segregation, and discrimination. The students gain an understanding of what the market economy can and cannot do, its differing gender and racial impact, and how economic policy can lead to greater equality.

Code
Social Scientific and Historical Perspectives
Prerequisites
ECON 101.

This course uses tools from economics and psychology to address individual decisions which are hard to account for with traditional, rational economic theory. Using both theoretical and laboratory methods, students explore topics involving both bounded rationality and bounded self-interest. These topics include the influence of altruism, trust, and emotion in economic decisions and alternative explanations for 'irrational decisions': choice anomalies, bias in risk attitudes, and heuristics. Students participate in and develop controlled experiments to examine these issues empirically.

Code
Social Scientific and Historical Perspectives
Prerequisites
ECON 101 and 102.

Global climate change is considered by many to be the most significant environmental challenge of the 21st century. Unchecked, the continued accumulation of greenhouse gases over this century is projected to eventually warm the planet by about 6 to 14 °F, with associated impacts on the environment, economy, and society. This course explores the economic characteristics of the climate change problem, assesses national and international policy design and implementation issues, and provides a survey of the economic tools necessary to evaluate climate change policies. It is largely discussion-oriented and thus requires a high degree of participation by students in the classroom. Cross-listed as ECON/ENVP 327.

Code
Social Scientific and Historical Perspectives
Prerequisites
ECON 101.

This course develops the connections between economic theory and the online dating market. Economic techniques are used to examine unique features of the online dating market, such as the significance of market thickness, the prevalence of cheap talk, and search theory. Features of the online dating market are explored to simultaneously provide insight on more broadly applied economic principles including adverse selection, network externalities, and matching markets. The course emphasizes microeconomic theoretical techniques to model these phenomena.

Code
Social Scientific and Historical Perspectives
Prerequisites
ECON 101 and 102 or permission of instructor.

Experiential Learning

There are a variety of experiential opportunities for students:

  • World Trade Center Tacoma internship
  • Earth Economics internship
  • Cato Institute internship
  • Sound Economics, a student-authored blog
  • Summer research grant, like Mercer Stauch '26, "Washington's cap-and-trade policy and its effects on the gas market" or Elias Thiemann '24, "The impact of government trust on family leave efficacy and subsequent labor market outcomes

Where Graduates Work

Where our graduates work:

  • Hitachi Consulting (consultant)
  • Earth Economics (project director)
  • Russell Investments (client service associate)
  • Tableau Software (technical program manager)
  • Boeing Company (procurement financial analyst)
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics 

Where Graduates Continue Studying

Where our students continue their studies:

  • London School of Economics
  • The Ohio State University
  • University of Oregon
  • Stanford University (law school)
  • Pepperdine University (law school)