Undergraduate Program

Main Contacts

  • Mr. Thomas Lewis serves as the Undergraduate Coordinator. Please contact him first with any questions, or for signing forms, related to declaring a Major or a Minor in Economics, Study Abroad, and Transfer Credits. His office hours are Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays from 9:30-11:30 am and 1:30-5:00 pm in ICC 580-a.
  • Professor Ivana Komunjer serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Opportunities in Economics

The Department of Economics maintains a list of opportunities that may interest undergraduate economics students, including: jobs, internships, research positions, and publication outlets.

Click here for the latest announcements [this requires that you are signed in with your Georgetown NetID].

New Courses

The Department of Economics is introducing ECON 1357 – Essential Mathematics for Economics in Spring 2024. The course provides another way to satisfy the math corollary requirement for the major (currently, MATH 1350 – Calculus I). If taken in Spring 2024, ECON 1357 will also satisfy the College core requirement in math/computer science.

The course will cover mathematical concepts that will be used in economics courses at the intermediate and advanced levels. The concepts will be applied to economic questions, and in-class problem-solving will be emphasized. It begins with a review of functions in economics (e.g., demand and supply). We then turn to calculus, with a focus on optimization (e.g., choosing the amount of output to maximize your profit). We next consider optimization of functions of two variables (e.g., choosing the quantities of two inputs to maximize your profit). We subsequently consider optimization subject to one or more constraints as when you maximize your well-being (i.e., utility) while facing a budget constraint. The course concludes with an introduction to linear algebra, which studies linear equations of several variables.

The text for the course will be Maths for Economics by Geoff Renshaw. It is published by Oxford University Press.

ECON 1357 is intended to be taken after the students have taken (or received AP credit for) Principles of Microeconomics, ECON 1001 or 1003 (or the equivalent). There are no math prerequisites for the course. We encourage all students who are planning to become Economics majors to enroll in ECON 1357 in Spring 2024. Specifically, (case A) if the students have not yet taken MATH 1350 (Calculus I), they should take ECON 1357; (case B) if the students have taken MATH 1350 (or gotten AP credit for it), they should take ECON 1357 (as it will give them elements of integration, multivariable calculus and linear algebra that they would otherwise need to look for in higher level math courses); (case C) if the students have already taken MATH 1350 and MATH 1360 (or got score 5 at BC exam) then they should not take ECON 1357 but rather proceed with the rest of the Econ courses and/or get higher level math courses if they are thinking of also majoring/minoring in math/statistics. Students who have already taken Intermediate Microeconomics (ECON 2101) may not take ECON 1357 for credit. Students who have taken or are taking Calculus II (MATH 1360), Linear Algebra (MATH 2250) or Multivariable Calculus (MATH 2370) may not take ECON 1357 for credit.

Who’s New in the 2023 – 2024 Course Schedule

Professor Cauê Dobbin: Cauê’s research uses economic theory and empirical analysis to investigate the causes of inequality and how to alleviate it. His work covers topics such as how to expand the access of low-income students to higher education and the role of firms in labor market inequality.

He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University.

He will teach Poverty & Inequality at the undergraduate level.

Professor Juan Felipe Riaño: Before joining de Economics Department at Georgetown, Juan Felipe was a Stanford University postdoctoral fellow affiliated with the Economics Department and the King Center on Global Development from 2022 to 2023. He is an applied microeconomist with research interests spanning the fields of political economy, development economics, and economic history. His current research agenda focuses on understanding the determinants of state capacity in developing countries and the long-term impact of conflict and historical institutions on economic development. More recently, he has been interested in the organizational economics of public sector institutions and the role of cybersecurity in modern states. 

He received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of British Columbia in 2022, a Master’s degree in Economics from Universidad de Los Andes in 2013, a B.A. in Economics, and a B.Sc in Industrial Engineering from the same University in 2011.

He will teach Empirical Applications of Political Economy at the undergraduate level.

Professor Yusufcan Masatlioglu: Yusufcan is a Visiting Professor of Economics from the University of Maryland. He has developed a profound and important research agenda at the intersection of behavioral economics and decision theory. His work provided several theoretical foundations for Reference Dependent Choice, Time Preferences, Limited Attention, Behavioral Social Influence, Random Choice, Choice Overload, Categorization, and Willpower. He has published his work regularly in leading academic journals, such as the American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, and Journal of Political Economy. He received two National Science Foundation grants for his works on revealing inattention and random attention.  He currently serves as an associate editor at the Journal of Political Economy since 2020.  

He held positions as assistant and associate professor positions at the economics department of the University of Michigan from 2005 until 2016, after obtaining a Ph.D. in Economics at New York University. 

He will teach Behavioral Economics at the undergraduate level in the Fall 2023 semester.

Majoring or Minoring in Economics: Common Elements

Current Academic Policies and Procedures can be found in Undergraduate Bulletin.
Noteworthy change in Academic Regulations (3. Additional Limits and Minimums) concerns the doubling up rule: starting in 2023-24, students will be allowed to take two courses in Economics in the same semester beginning in sophomore fall.

Major Requirements

Minor Requirements

Graduating with Honors

Other Useful Links