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Key Infor­ma­tion:

  • While eco­nom­ics is relat­ed to busi­ness, it is main­ly a social sci­ence focused on the pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of goods and ser­vices, not on direct busi­ness oper­a­tions like man­age­ment or marketing.
  • The eco­nom­ics degree pre­pares stu­dents for ana­lyt­i­cal roles, address­ing eco­nom­ic prob­lems and study­ing mar­ket behav­iors, unlike broad­er busi­ness degrees that cov­er mul­ti­ple aspects of busi­ness operations.
  • Eco­nom­ics and busi­ness degrees share some com­mon cours­es like finance and mar­ket­ing, but they diverge sig­nif­i­cant­ly in their core focus and career out­comes.

Is Economics a Business Degree?

Stu­dents who are con­sid­er­ing major­ing in busi­ness or eco­nom­ics have sev­er­al things to con­sid­er. Both majors are essen­tial to the finan­cial suc­cess of orga­ni­za­tions but dif­fer in study length. Busi­ness is con­sid­er­ably more broad of a sub­ject that is com­prised of mul­ti­ple ele­ments, where­as eco­nom­ics is main­ly social sci­ence that is focused on how goods and ser­vices are pro­duced and dis­trib­uted in soci­ety. It is impor­tant for stu­dents to under­stand ways the two majors con­trast, so they can make a more informed deci­sion when choos­ing what to pursue.

The most obvi­ous dif­fer­ence between the two majors is the num­ber of top­ics cov­ered in their cur­ricu­lums. The types of busi­ness majors pro­grams are offered is depen­dent on their uni­ver­si­ty, but gen­er­al­ly, they are account­ing, finance, busi­ness man­age­ment and admin­is­tra­tion, mar­ket­ing, sales, and inter­na­tion­al busi­ness. The degree is quite ver­sa­tile, with stu­dents going into var­i­ous indus­tries like real estate, fash­ion mer­chan­dis­ing and more. Stu­dents who dream of own­ing their own busi­ness will learn the nec­es­sary fun­da­men­tals in order to do so, and be able to take on oth­er chal­lenges with a thor­ough under­stand­ing of key fac­tors that play a role in finan­cial suc­cess. The degree is valu­able for anyone’s aca­d­e­m­ic reper­toire. Addi­tion­al­ly, the con­stant and con­sis­tent demand for this aca­d­e­m­ic back­ground in the job mar­ket cer­tain­ly makes it prac­ti­cal to pursue.

Eco­nom­ics is a com­po­nent of busi­ness, mak­ing it easy to mis­take it as a type of busi­ness degree. An eco­nom­ics major will not direct­ly deal with the sell­ing of prod­ucts or be learn­ing how to man­age a com­pa­ny. Instead, cur­ricu­lums teach the prin­ci­ples of a func­tion­ing econ­o­my. Stu­dents learn ana­lyt­i­cal skills that are pro­por­tion­al to solv­ing var­i­ous eco­nom­ic prob­lems, along with pre­dict­ing and pre­vent­ing future issues. Cours­es a stu­dent may take involve Finances and Soci­ety, Law and Eco­nom­ics, and Intro to State/Social Sci­ence. Since it is a social sci­ence major, exten­sive cul­tur­al stud­ies are fre­quent­ly required. Hav­ing an eco­nom­ics degree also allows stu­dents to exam­ine crit­i­cal com­pli­ca­tions, like why the aver­age stan­dard of liv­ing varies so dras­ti­cal­ly between countries.

Decid­ing on a major ulti­mate­ly comes down to what type of job one wish­es to have, and what one wants to learn. The degrees inter­sect in cours­es like finances and mar­ket­ing, but defin­ing what makes them sep­a­rate is nec­es­sary. With a prop­er dis­tinc­tion, stu­dents can bet­ter assess what road to fol­low. Those who are moti­vat­ed by com­pre­hen­sive study and see them­selves as entre­pre­neurs will thrive as a busi­ness major. Stu­dents who enjoy prob­lem-solv­ing through the use of ana­lyt­i­cal think­ing will enjoy eco­nom­ics. They aren’t the same type of degree, but both are irre­place­able. If peo­ple did not pur­sue busi­ness, we would not have the many prod­ucts that we use every day. With­out any eco­nom­ics degrees, we would not have any answers to the many finan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties we face as a society.

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