I am Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics, Northeastern
University. As a member of the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, I have
been charged with designing a "private sector track". What we mean by that
is a set of guidelines for our economics major in order to help them select
the most appropriate courses among our offerings if their goal is to go on
and work in the private sector.

I need to know what courses we should encourage a business oriented
economics major to take, first within our discipline (economics) and
also outside. Could you point me to some resources, or perhaps someone
who could help me make some progress on this question?

Thank you.

I may be able to help.. I earned a BBA in Finance and a BA in
Economics from University of Texas at Austin. Both programs are very
highly rated. Additionally, I took the Economics degree with a
business career in mind, so I selected courses accordingly.

Background on the Economics program at UT: it's very open-ended. Other
than a few basic requirements, students are free to choose from a wide
range of upper-division Economics courses. This allows some students
to focus on things like Comparative Economics, while others take
courses geared towards a business career.

Having said that, here are types of Economics courses I've found
useful. I'll include links to professors/syllabi where appropriate:

Advanced Macroeconomic Theory, esp. focusing on Neo-Classical Macro

Game Theory

International Trade/Investment/Finance (2-semester course)
(http://www.eco.utexas.edu/%7Emanuel/Syl2005.htm... the Krugman text is excellent)

Econometrics

Money & Banking

Economic Statistics




In addition, there are some courses that are usually acquired through
a business program. If students are pure ECO majors, they will also
need:

Financial & Managerial accounting

Corporate Finance

Securities Analysis



That should provide an adequate background for private sector work.
Students who have good grasp of those areas will be over qualified for
a corporate finance job, well qualified for financial services/
investment banking.

PS.. I'll check back here in a few days... let me know if you want
more information. I can dig out old syllabi, textbooks, etc.

I can also tell you the types of career tracks me & my peers have followed.

Thanks a lot for your comments.

What I'd be interested in is knowing:
- your opinion about the usefullness for a business-oriented economics
major to take some (basic) accounting classes
- if you have any opinion about what classes, other than in business /
management, might be useful; in particular, what about computer
science classes?
- your opinion on how heading for consultancy / research vs. a more
tradional corporate career should affect the student's choice of
classes.