Studying Economics

portomar

OK, officianados of this board and the invesment/markets board will know i am an armchair economist who is oft seen spouting his pinko liberal economic views on here about interest rates and leverage. I work in a completely unrelated field and am interested in studying economics. My schedule procludes me from doing a night course as i work shift. Basically does anyone know any correspondence courses that could be a good start? Id love to get a degree in economics or econometrics, and dont know where to start. Lastly, and im a little embarrased about having to ask this, how maths based does economics/econometrics become at degree level!?

DiscoHugh

Dont know about the courses but to answer about the maths part.

I did economics in UCD and did pass maths for leaving cert. nothing too tricky at all (in micro, macro or quants from what I can recall) I guess it depends on your electives too (I didnt do econometrics)

nesf

The Open University is a decent option for studying at home. It takes a long time but it's a good path if it's a long term goal for personal satisfaction. It's not cheap though.

europerson

portomar wrote: »

Lastly, and im a little embarrased about having to ask this, how maths based does economics/econometrics become at degree level!?

No need to be embarrassed. Maths is really the language of modern economics, so quite a high level of maths is required. However, it really depends on what sort of courses you take in a degree. I study single honours economics, so I inevitably take a number of both quantitative and policy classes in my degree. You mention that you may wish to read for a degree in econometrics: in that case, you're looking at very advanced statistics (relative to most economics students' experiences) and quite a deal of associated maths too. What you describe as "armchair economics" vastly differs from academic economics. What level of maths have you studied already? You may want to brush up on your maths a bit before you even make any decision about taking a course.

nesf

europerson wrote: »

Maths is really the language of modern economics, so quite a high level of maths is required.

I disagree, for degree level the amount of maths required isn't very high, admittedly, I did Physics originally so I'm used to much more complicated stuff, but the mathematical concepts involved in undergraduate stuff really aren't that exotic in Economics. At post graduate level you can get into some really complicated stuff if that's your thing sure, but you could do quite well at undergraduate level with only a middling aptitude for mathematics (again, I might be measuring this versus a "higher standard").

DiscoHugh

nesf wrote: »

I disagree, for degree level the amount of maths required isn't very high, admittedly, I did Physics originally so I'm used to much more complicated stuff, but the mathematical concepts involved in undergraduate stuff really aren't that exotic in Economics. At post graduate level you can get into some really complicated stuff if that's your thing sure, but you could do quite well at undergraduate level with only a middling aptitude for mathematics (again, I might be measuring this versus a "higher standard").

I agree with this. Like I said, I did pass maths and managed to get a 1st class honours in the finals without too much trouble. It does depend on what subjects you do within economics. I found the core subjects of Micro and Macro pretty basic in terms of maths know-how.

europerson

DiscoHugh wrote: »

It does depend on what subjects you do within economics.

Perhaps I've taken only courses with high mathematical content. I should think it varies between institutions too. I still maintain, however, that academic economics is much more mathematical than people often think, and it's worth pointing that out at the outset.

nesf

europerson wrote: »

Perhaps I've taken only courses with high mathematical content.

What would you consider to be "very mathematical"? We could be talking about very different things here.

portomar

thanks for the responses guys, i was thinking that OU was one of my only options. dont mind it taking a long time either. next question - first reading list for armchair economist? wealth of nations a good start??

nesf

portomar wrote: »

next question - first reading list for armchair economist? wealth of nations a good start??

It depends. When you read economics and economic theories do you think of them as facts?

Time Magazine

Unfortunately Economics is no longer anything like The Wealth of Nations. In fact last year (at a social event) one of my lecturers slagged me for intending to do a couple of policy (as distinct from quantitative) courses and joked about the lack of rigour of older economists who use words rather than maths. He suggested we'd never move beyond Adam Smith if we keep using words.

He's not alone in that assertion, by the way. Some of the most successful academics in the discipline did their undergrad in Physics etc.

Let me show you some exam papers. I can't speak for every university, but in my course they start you off with moderate enough quants in your first year. Then they just add to that knowledge in second year. Third year gets a bit nuts. By fourth year you've familiarised mathematical methods adequately to apply your quants to economic theory. To see the application we're doing see from the bottom of page 5 of the fourth year link. It's slightly more understandable than the first four pages which is far less accessible from the armchair. I've written a sample answer to that question. Each subquestion takes about a dozen lines of equations to answer. There are no words to be used, essentially.

I still love Economics and I now prefer the maths-based approach. The maths in Economics is always "soft" compared to Physics so it's manageable. I'd just liked to have known what I was getting myself in for beforehand and I think that's the consensus among my class mates.

nesf

None of that is exotic. Most of the concepts in that Third Year paper used to be first year Maths for Physics people in UCC.

They don't expose Economics people in UCC to anywhere close to that level of maths though.

Mucco

nesf wrote: »

The Open University is a decent option for studying at home. It takes a long time but it's a good path if it's a long term goal for personal satisfaction. It's not cheap though.

I'm currently doing DD202 (Economics and economic change) at the OU. Pretty easy going at the moment. It's a 60 point module: 120 points gets a diploma, 360 points gets a BA.
DD202

Al_Fernz

portomar wrote: »

OK, officianados of this board and the invesment/markets board will know i am an armchair economist who is oft seen spouting his pinko liberal economic views on here about interest rates and leverage. I work in a completely unrelated field and am interested in studying economics. My schedule procludes me from doing a night course as i work shift. Basically does anyone know any correspondence courses that could be a good start? Id love to get a degree in economics or econometrics, and dont know where to start. Lastly, and im a little embarrased about having to ask this, how maths based does economics/econometrics become at degree level!?

The only element of Mathematics you need for Macro and Micro is Calculus. Then of course you need a good knowledge of Statistics for Econometritcs.

portomar

thanks for all the advice guys, particularly the exam past papers!