What is an economics degree for? "Marshall Jevons" complains
today that it doesn’t qualify people to get accepted into economics PhD programs:
We have a system where the engineer or the physicist has greater chance of
getting accepted to a PhD in economics than someone who has studied economics
at graduate or undergraduate level- don’t we need to completely change the
content and approach of teaching undergraduate economics?
My answer is that it’s much easier for graduate-level economics students to
take a few mathematics courses if they want to continue on to a PhD than it
is to re-architect entire undergraduate economics classes for the sake of the
small minority of students who might want a doctorate in the subject.
In any event, you’ve gotta love the tone of the Cornell Economics faculty’s
Courses called Mathematics for Economists, Mathematics for Social Scientists,
and Econometrics are not a substitute for formal Mathematics.