THE ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT AT WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY: AN OVERVIEW

The Economics Department is housed in the John E. Andrus Center for Public Affairs. We offer introductory courses, a required, calculus-based core set of three courses for majors (quantitative methods, microeconomic analysis, and macroeconomic analysis), an array of lower-level and upper-level applied courses (including American and European Economic History, Analytical Political Economy, Corporate Finance, the Economics of Latin America, Environmental and Resource Economics, Labor Economics, Public Finance, Urban Economics, and many others), and advanced theory seminars. The economics major is one of the more popular¹ and populous majors on campus as well as one of the most rigorous. We routinely have many students elected to Phi Beta Kappa, including generally several as Fall inductees, and numerous students write honors thesis. Many of our students collaborate with faculty and several have published co-authored articles in refereed journals. Our graduates undertake a variety of activities when they leave Wesleyan, ranging from analyst positions in investment/commercial banks and consulting firms to teaching posts in the Peace Corps. Many continue their studies in the nation’s best law and business schools; still others go on to earn the Ph.D. in economics or related fields at major graduate schools.

Wesleyan faculty are teacher-scholars, and the members of the Economics Department are no exception. This has been true throughout the recent history of our department. Our faculty ranked first among liberal arts colleges on the basis of a citation count from 1977-81 as reported in the American Economic Review (1986).² A study in the Journal of Economic Education (1989) placed the Wesleyan Economics Department 38th in terms of citations when compared with all colleges and universities in the United States.³ Two more recent studies in the Journal of Economic Education (1997) compare economics departments at liberal arts colleges and identify Wesleyan as outstanding. One ranks the Department first among the top 161 liberal arts colleges (as identified by U.S. News & World Report) by number of publications (author-adjusted) in Journal of Economic Literature-listed journals, 1989-94.⁴ The other not only places the Department first among the top 40 liberal arts colleges by a wide margin, but also ranks two (since-promoted) Associate Professors and two Professors in the top fifteen of their respective categories.⁵ A follow-up study ranks the Department first in terms of both total citations and quality-adjusted citations (and second in both measures on a per capita basis) for 1991-2000 and lists three Professors in the top twelve of individual rankings.⁶

Scholarly productivity is difficult to measure, but it is not difficult to see why the Department enjoys an international reputation for quality scholarship. Last year alone, members of the Wesleyan Economics Department published multiple articles in refereed publications, and generated numerous working papers. Economics faculty also made multiple presentations of scholarly work to meetings of learned societies and other international groups in the United States and abroad. Our faculty consult in framing the research agendas of the National Science Foundation, numerous federal agencies, the World Climate Research Program, the United Nations, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We sit as members of the editorial boards of many different scholarly journals. In addition, the University supports the Editorial Office of the Journal of Comparative Economics; John Bonin currently serves as editor and has served recently as President of its parent organization - the Association for Comparative Economic Studies.

 The significance of scholarly productivity, however measured, in the quality of undergraduate education cannot be underestimated. All of our faculty bring their experience and expertise in creating knowledge into the classroom - from the introductory courses through the most advanced seminars. New knowledge expands the list of applications and topics that bring the curriculum alive; and engaging students in the scholarly enterprise serves to instill a fundamental understanding that learning is a lifelong enterprise that reaps rewards in proportion to the effort expended.

¹For instance, the Princeton Review College Guide lists Economics as one of the three most popular majors at Wesleyan.

²Dudley W. Blair, Rex L. Cottle, and Myles S. Wallace, "Faculty Ratings of Major Economics Departments by Citations: An Extension," American Economic Review, March 1986, pp. 264-267.

³John Tschirhart, "Ranking Economics Departments in Areas of Expertise," Journal of Economic Education, Spring 1989, pp. 199-222.

⁴James E. Hartley and Michael D. Robinson, "Economic Research at National Liberal Arts Colleges: School Rankings," Journal of Economic Education, Fall 1997, pp. 337-349.

⁵Howard Bodenhorn, "Teachers, and Scholars Too: Economic Scholarship at Elite Liberal Arts Colleges," Journal of Economic Education, Fall 1997, pp. 323-336.

⁶Howard Bodenhorn, "Economic Scholarship at Elite Liberal Arts Colleges: Are Other Economists Paying Attention?" Working Paper, Lafayette College, January 2002.