The Princeton University Department of Economics is an academic department of

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, an

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...

institution in

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

. The department is one of the most premier institutions for the study of

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

. It offers undergraduate A.B. degrees as well as graduate Ph.D. degrees. It is considered one of the "big five" schools in the field along with the faculties at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, Stanford University, and

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

. According to the 2018 '' U.S. News & World Report'', the department ranks as joint No. 1 in the field of economics. The department is located in the Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building & Louis A. Simpson International Building, formerly 20 Washington Road, which also houses the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, the Bendheim Center for Finance, the Center for Health and Wellbeing, and the

Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance The Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance (JRC) is a leading research center at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) of Princeton University. Founded in 2011, the JRC primarily promotes research on pub ...

. It is also home to the Industrial Relations Library.

History

Since the university's founding in 1746, many courses in the

social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...

, including

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

and politics, were taught in the department of

Jurisprudence Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...

and

Political Economy Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...

. Coursework specifically in political economy became available in 1819. When

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...

became a professor in 1890, additional courses were added to the curriculum, including the History of Political Economy. By 1913, the department became independent from history and politics, forming the Department of Economics and Social Institutions.

Academics

The

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...

program is one of the most prestigious programs for the study of economics in the country and in the world. Economics is the most popular concentration (Princeton's version of an academic major) at the undergraduate level. Because the university does not have a business school, the economics concentration attracts many students who are interested in careers in investment banking, management consulting, finance, technology, and more. The curriculum itself is theoretical in nature, requiring students complete quantitative courses up to multivariate calculus. In partnership with the Bendheim Center for Finance, the department also offers an Undergraduate Finance Certificate. The graduate program in economics trains

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

students for careers in

academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...

, and

industry Industry may refer to: Economics * Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity * Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery * The wider industrial sector ...

. It receives approximately 800 applications for a class of 20 to 25 students who come from over 30 different countries around the world. The program has numerous fields of specialization and has been particularly strong in the areas of Macroeconomics, Industrial Relations, and International Finance. Graduate students who pursue academic careers have historically had placement records at some of the world's leading universities including Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Cornell. The department also oversees a number of centers and initiatives, including: * Bendheim Center for Finance * The Benjamin H. Griswold III, Class of 1933, Center for Economic Policy Studies * The Gregory C. Chow Econometric Research Program * Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance * Center for Health and Wellbeing * William S. Dietrich II Economic Theory Center * Industrial Relations Section * International Economics Section *

Office of Population Research The Office of Population Research (OPR) at Princeton University is the oldest population research center in the United States. Founded in 1936, the OPR is a leading demographic research and training center. Recent research activity has primarily f ...

* Political Economy Program * Princeton Experimental Laboratory for the Social Sciences (PExL) * Research Program in Development Studies * The Gregory C. and Paula K. Chow Macroeconomic Research Program * Louis A. Simpson Center for the Study of Macroeconomics

Rankings

National Rankings

The 2018 '' U.S. News & World Report'' places the department as No. 1 in the field of Economics, tied with

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, Stanford University,

University of California Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

, and

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

. The '' National Research Council's'' rankings place the university at No. 2 in the S-Rank (Scholars Rank) and No. 2 in the Research Rank.

International Rankings

In the 2018 '' Q.S. World University Rankings'', the department places as No. 3 in the world in the fields of Economics and Econometrics. The 2018 ''

Times Higher Education World University Rankings The ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'' (often referred to as the THE Rankings) is an annual publication of university rankings by the ''Times Higher Education'' (THE) magazine. The publisher had collaborated with Quacquarelli ...

'' ranks the department as No. 7 globally. It has been ranked by RePEc among the top ten economics Departments in the world.

Notable faculty

Faculty members who have won the

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...

include: * Arthur Lewis, James Madison Professor of Political Economy, 1979 *

John Forbes Nash Jr. John Forbes Nash Jr. (June 13, 1928 – May 23, 2015) was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to game theory, real algebraic geometry, differential geometry, and partial differential equations. Nash and fellow game ...

, Senior Research Mathematician, 1994 * Eric Maskin, Visiting Lecturer with the rank of Professor of Economics, 2007 *

Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman was ...

, Professor of Economics and International Affairs, 2008 *

Thomas Sargent Thomas John Sargent (born July 19, 1943) is an American economist and the W.R. Berkley Professor of Economics and Business at New York University. He specializes in the fields of macroeconomics, monetary economics, and time series econometric ...

, Visiting Professor of Economics, 2011 *

Christopher Sims Christopher Albert Sims (born October 21, 1942) is an American econometrician and macroeconomist. He is currently the John J.F. Sherrerd '52 University Professor of Economics at Princeton University. Together with Thomas Sargent, he won the No ...

, Harold B. Helms Professor of Economics, 2011 *

Angus Deaton Sir Angus Stewart Deaton (born 19 October 1945) is a British economist and academic. Deaton is currently a Senior Scholar and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs Emeritus at the Princeton School of Public ...

, Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs, 2015 * Ben Bernanke, Professor of Economics, 2022 (previously served as

Chair of the Federal Reserve The chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is the head of the Federal Reserve, and is the active executive officer of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The chair shall preside at the meetings of the Boa ...

) Former faculty members include Professor

Alan Blinder Alan Stuart Blinder (, born October 14, 1945) is an American economics professor at Princeton University and is listed among the most influential economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc. He is a leading macroeconomist, politically liber ...

previously served as

Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve The vice chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is the second-highest officer of the Federal Reserve, after the chair of the Federal Reserve. In the absence of the chair, the vice chair presides over the meetings Board of ...

;

John Kenneth Galbraith John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006), also known as Ken Galbraith, was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, and intellectual. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through t ...

, a leading academic on

post-Keynesian economics Post-Keynesian economics is a school of economic thought with its origins in '' The General Theory'' of John Maynard Keynes, with subsequent development influenced to a large degree by Michał Kalecki, Joan Robinson, Nicholas Kaldor, Sidney ...

; and Uwe Reinhardt, a scholar on

health care economics Health economics is a branch of economics concerned with issues related to efficiency, effectiveness, value and behavior in the production and consumption of health and healthcare. Health economics is important in determining how to impr ...

and Medicare. Other notably faculty members include: * Mark Aguiar *

Orley Ashenfelter Orley Clark Ashenfelter (born October 18, 1942) is an American economist and the Joseph Douglas Green 1895 Professor of Economics at Princeton University. His areas of specialization include labor economics, econometrics, and law and economics. H ...

Markus Brunnermeier Markus Konrad Brunnermeier (born March 22, 1969) is an economist, who is the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Economics at Princeton University, and a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He is a faculty ...

Roland Bénabou Roland Bénabou is a French economist, who is currently the Theodore A. Wells '29 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He is also a research associate at the Collège de France. Bénabou holds engineering degrees fr ...

* Leah Platt Boustan *

Anne Case Anne Catherine Case, Lady Deaton, (born July 27, 1958) is an American economist who is currently the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Emeritus, at Princeton University. Early life and career She graduated from ...

* Janet M. Currie * Henry Farber *

Mikhail Golosov Mikhail Golosov () is a Belarusian-American economist currently the Homer J. Livingston Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and a Fellow of the Econometric Society. He previously served as Chemical Bank Chairman's Professor of Eco ...

Gene Grossman Gene Michael Grossman (born December 11, 1955, in New York) is the Jacob Viner Professor of International Economics at Princeton University. He received his B.A. in Economics from Yale University in 1976 and his Ph.D. in Economics from the Massa ...

Faruk Gül Faruk R. Gül is a Turkish American economist, a professor of economics at Princeton University and a Fellow of the Econometric Society. Gül did his undergraduate studies at Boğaziçi University, and received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1986,< ...

* Kate Ho * Bo E. Honoré *

Nobuhiro Kiyotaki (born June 24, 1955) is a Japanese economist and the Harold H. Helms '20 Professor of Economics and Banking at Princeton University. He is especially known for proposing several models that provide deeper microeconomic foundations for macroecon ...

Henrik Kleven Henrik Jacobsen Kleven (born 28 April 1971) is a Danish economist who is currently a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University. He is also co-editor of the '' American Economic Review''. His research lies inside the domain ...

* Ilyana Kuziemko *

Alexandre Mas Alexandre Mas (born c. 1978) is William S. Tod Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, Director of the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University, and Director of the Labor Studies program of the National Burea ...

Atif Mian Atif Rehman Mian ( ur, ; born 28 June 1975) is a Pakistani-American economist who serves as the John H. Laporte Jr. Class of 1967 Professor of Economics, Public Policy, and Finance at Princeton University, and as the Director of the Julis-Ra ...

* Wolfgang Pesendorfer * Stephen J. Redding *

Richard Rogerson Richard Donald Rogerson is an American economist who is currently the Charles and Marie Robertson Professor of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, where he is also the Director of the Louis A. Simpson Center for the Study of ...

Esteban Rossi-Hansberg Esteban Rossi-Hansberg (born July 16, 1973) is a Mexican-American economist currently the Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor in the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. Until June 2021, he was the T ...

* Cecilia Rouse * Harold Tafler Shapiro * Christopher A. Sims * Mark W. Watson * Wei Xiong * Leeat Yariv * Motohiro Yogo

References

External links

* {{Authority control Princeton University Educational institutions established in 1913 Economics schools University departments in the United States 1913 establishments in New Jersey