About
The Department of Economics at the University of Notre Dame is a vibrant community of scholars, educators, and students. We aim to provide the highest quality instruction in modern economic analysis and to conduct innovative, policy-relevant research, all while contributing to Notre Dame’s distinctive Catholic mission.
Economics provides a logical and coherent set of tools through which to analyze the world. It teaches students to think about tradeoffs and to understand the powerful effects of incentives. Economist Alfred Marshall once said that “economics is the study of mankind in the ordinary business of life.” Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters has a slogan – “Study Everything. Do Anything.” As the study of the ordinary business of life, economists do study almost everything, and graduates from our department go on to do almost anything.
Faculty in our department conduct research and offer classes in a variety of traditional areas within economics, such as macroeconomics and monetary policy, public economics, and labor economics. We also have faculty working on a wide range of less traditional topics such as the optimal birth spacing of children, charitable giving, affirmative action and discrimination, and the opioid epidemic. Our faculty regularly publish in the leading journals of the discipline and frequently consult with policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels.
Economics is one of the most popular majors at Notre Dame. At present, about one-seventh of students graduating from Notre Dame do so with either a major or minor from our department. Undergraduate students majoring in economics go on to a variety of endeavors. We regularly send our best students to the top Ph.D. programs in economics. In recent years, for example, we have sent students to Ph.D. programs at MIT, UC-Berkeley, and Stanford, to name but a few. We also send students to top professional programs in law and business, such as Harvard Law, Northwestern Kellogg, and Brown Medicine. A majority of our graduates go directly into the labor force, working for a diverse set of companies. Many students go into finance and banking, at powerhouse firms like Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, and Vanguard. Still others go to top consulting firms, like McKinsey, Deloitte, and Accenture. Others go directly into industry positions, with firms like Walmart, General Electric, General Motors, and Amazon. Students also place into research jobs at the Federal Reserve, the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities, and other government agencies. Other students go into service-oriented careers, including with organizations like Catholic Charities.
Our department has a Ph.D. Program with more than 40 students. In our 15-year history, every student graduating with a Ph.D. has placed on their first attempt. We have placed graduate students into academia, including tenure-track jobs at places like the University of Georgia, the University of Louisville, Miami University, and Colby College. We have also placed students into top government research positions, such as at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the IMF, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Other students have taken private sector jobs at places like Amazon. I encourage everyone to check out the webpages of our job candidates and the interesting work that they are all doing.
The Department of Economics at Notre Dame is a success story. We started from essentially scratch in the early-2000s. We now have nearly 50 total faculty, more than 40 graduate students, about 1000 undergraduate majors, and a thriving research institute in the Lab for Economic Opportunities. We now rank comfortably within the top quartile of US economics departments, and in the top-20 based on the last ten years. Several of our faculty rank among the top economists overall. Our undergraduate programs are large and thriving, and our graduate program is improving. None of these successes would have been possible without the support of Notre Dame’s administration and the generous benefaction of many donors and friends.
I invite you to peruse our website to learn more about the important work being done by our faculty and students. We love to have alumni and friends visit us. You can find us on the third floor of Jenkins Nanovic Hall on the south end of Notre Dame’s campus, just off Notre Dame Avenue. On home football Saturdays in the fall, we can be found tailgating – flying our patented “Supplying Spirit, Demanding Victory” flag – in the grassy area outside the southeast corner of our building.
Yours in Notre Dame,
Eric Sims
Professor and Department Chair
Michael P. Grace II Collegiate Chair
Questions
To contact the department chair, the director of graduate studies, or the director of undergraduate studies, or ask questions regarding admissions, please visit our contact page. General inquiries can be made via the contact information below.
3060 Jenkins Nanovic Hall
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
Phone: (574) 631-3332
Fax: (574) 631-4783
econ@nd.edu
Donate
The Department of Economics welcomes your support in any number of ways. We value the time, talent, and treasure of our graduates and friends and welcome collaborative efforts to further our work. Make a gift here or connect with the department about other ways to get involved.