Economy, Society, and Public Policy

In order to be well-governed, a democracy needs voters who are fluent in the language of economics and who can do some quantitative analysis of social and economic policy. We also need a well-trained cadre of researchers and journalists who have more advanced skills in these fields.Many students in other disciplines are drawn to economics so that they can engage with policy debates on environmental sustainability, inequality, the future of work, financial instability, and innovation. But, when they begin the study of economics, they find that courses appear to have little to do with these pressing policy matters, and are designed primarily for students who want to study the subject as their major, or even for those destined to go on to post-graduate study in the field.The result: policy-oriented students often find they have to choose between a quantitative and analytical course of studyeconomicsthat is only minimally policy oriented in content and that downplays the insights of other