Master of Arts in Economics

Program Director

Ebenge Usip
307 DeBartolo Hall
(330) 941-1682
eeusip@ysu.edu

Program Description

The Master of Arts in economics program is designed to provide students with a background in applied economics which would lead to professional employment in business, government, or education. Special emphasis is placed on the use of data analysis to investigate public policy issues and business decisions. Supplemented by upper-level courses in mathematics, the program can also help prepare students for doctoral study in economics or related fields.

Admission Requirements

In addition to the College of Graduate Studies admission requirements, applicants must have completed at least one course in each of the following areas:

• principles of microeconomics,
• principles of macroeconomics,
• statistics, and
• calculus.

Students who do not meet the requirements may be admitted on a provisional basis.

Combined Bachelors/Masters Program

Highly qualified undergraduate students can apply for admission into the combined "4+1" Bachelors/Masters program for the MA in Economics. See the description of the "4+1" program in the undergraduate catalog.

Degree Requirements

Students must complete 30 semester hours of graduate credit with a grade point average of 3.0 or higher for the M.A. in economics. The requirements for the degree include the following required courses plus three electives that account for a total of nine semester hours. ECON 6904 may be waived by the Graduate Coordinator for students with strong quantitative training, those students would then take an additional 3 semester hour elective.

The paper produced in the research seminar will be reviewed by a committee of three graduate faculty from the Department. Electives are 6900-level Economics courses, with the exception of ECON 6921 which will not count towards the degree. One elective may be either a 5800-level economics swing course or a graduate-level course taught outside the Department that has been approved by the graduate coordinator.

Thesis Option

Students may write a thesis expanding on their project in the Research Seminar (ECON 6998) in place of one of the three hour electives. Students selecting the thesis option must earn a grade of B or A in the Research Seminar and submit a thesis proposal with the names of three faculty members who are willing to serve on a thesis committee to the department chair prior to registering for thesis credit hours (ECON 6999). The student must defend the thesis in an oral examination before a committee of three or more faculty members of the department. The thesis must be submitted according to the general requirements of the College of Graduate Studies.

Learning Outcomes

The learning outcomes for the MA in economics are as follows:

1. The students will demonstrate how to measure, detrend, and analyze macroeconomic variables such as GDP and inflation. 
2. The students will evaluate monetary and fiscal policy using various versions of the IS-LM model.
3. The students will demonstrate the importance of expectations in current macroeconomic theory.
4. The students will compare the basic theories and models of Neoclassical and New-Keynesian Economics.
5. The student will solve for utility-maximizing and cost-minimizing outcomes using calculus.
6. The student will mathematically model the behavior of firms in competitive markets and firms who are monopolies.
7. The student will calculate the welfare losses due to a lack of competition.
8. The student will explain how public goods and externalities result in market failure.
9. The student will summarize how taxes result in efficiency losses and what factors determine the size of the efficiency loss.
10. The student will use an econometric approach to model economic phenomenon, estimate the resulting model, and interpret the estimated regression coefficients.
11. The student will demonstrate how to conduct a literature search of professional economic journals using EconLit.