Thomas Malthus said almost 200 years ago, "Political economy is perhaps the only science of which it may be said that the ignorance of it is not merely a deprivation of good, but produces great positive evil." The Department of Economics offers a program of study designed to facilitate an understanding of our economy and other economic systems from divergent and critical perspectives. More specifically, the major provides a useful knowledge of the theoretical, statistical, and historical approaches to the study of a broad range of contemporary domestic and international economic problems and policy issues. These include such problems and issues as economic decision making, efficiency, unemployment, inflation, government spending, taxes, regulation, distribution of income, alienation, industrial concentration, foreign trade, and Third World poverty. In the classical liberal arts tradition, knowledge is seen as a guide to individual action and a means to improving the human condition as well as enhancing the individual.
The major in economics meets a broad range of individual needs in both career choices and graduate study. The graduate in economics will have acquired analytical skills and communicative capabilities, as well as statistical and computer skills that can provide an entree to promising careers in either the private or public sectors or to graduate study in economics, business, or law.
Dickinson College
Post Office Box 1773
College and Louther Streets
Carlisle, PA 17013
(717) 243-5121
