About Economics
How incentives, markets, and policy shape decisions at every scale. Courses carry the ECON subject code and are offered through the College of Management. Numbers below 300 are introductory, 300–499 advanced undergraduate, and 500 and above graduate. Prerequisites are enforced at registration.
How the sequence works
Of the 9 ECON courses listed, 2 are introductory (numbers under 300), 2 are advanced undergraduate (300–499). 0 courses have no prerequisite and are a reasonable first step. Later courses assume the earlier ones, so read prerequisites before you plan a term — they are enforced at registration and an override from the Economics department is the only way around them.
ECON 2010 — Principles of Microeconomics 3 cr
Scarcity and choice, supply and demand, elasticity, market structures, and the effects of taxes, subsidies, and price controls, with graphical and simple algebraic analysis.
Prerequisite: MATH 1200.
ECON 2020 — Principles of Macroeconomics 3 cr
Output, unemployment, and inflation; aggregate demand and supply; money and banking; and the tools and limits of fiscal and monetary policy.
Prerequisite: ECON 2010.
ECON 3100 — Intermediate Microeconomics 3 cr
Consumer and producer theory, general equilibrium, market failure, and welfare analysis with calculus.
Prerequisite: ECON 2010, MATH 2400.
ECON 3200 — Intermediate Macroeconomics 3 cr
Growth models, business cycles, expectations, and open-economy macroeconomics.
Prerequisite: ECON 2020, MATH 2400.
ECON 3300 — Money and Banking 3 cr
The financial system, interest rates, central banking, and monetary policy transmission.
Prerequisite: ECON 2020.
ECON 3400 — Labor Economics 3 cr
Labor supply and demand, human capital, wage determination, discrimination, and labor-market policy.
Prerequisite: ECON 2010.
ECON 3500 — Econometrics 4 cr
The linear regression model, inference, and the common problems — omitted variables, endogeneity, heteroskedasticity — with software and a project.
Prerequisite: ECON 3100, MATH 1600.
ECON 3700 — Environmental Economics 3 cr
Externalities, public goods, valuation of environmental amenities, and the design of environmental policy instruments.
Prerequisite: ECON 2010.
ECON 4900 — Senior Seminar in Economics 3 cr
An original empirical or theoretical paper developed across the term and presented to the department.
Prerequisite: senior standing.
Planning and advising
Your degree audit shows exactly how ECON courses apply to your requirements; this list only shows what is offered. If you are choosing between two courses, deciding when to take a heavy one, or wondering whether a course will run next term, your academic adviser can tell you. Course availability by term is set close to registration and is not guaranteed by anything on this page.
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Every course, prerequisite, credit value, and department on this page is invented; nothing here describes a real curriculum or a course you can enroll in.