The Department

Overview

The economics programs at Howard University have proud histories of contributing mightily to the progress and well-being of African Americans and the African diaspora. Economics programs constitute the leading edge of the social sciences, including an unmatched level of rigor, explanatory value, and policy implication. Economics has always been at the heart of the University's engagement with intellectual life in virtually all other fields, from the other social sciences to which it brings its unique rigorous insights to communications, health sciences, psychology, engineering, business, social work, law, history, the fine arts, and the humanities, where its analytical tools (such as econometrics, cost-benefit analysis and optimal control theory) help deepen our understanding of the human condition across disciplines.

Economics as a field is situated at the most basic human activity of "making a living" and, from there, grows to encompass all complex human interactions in production, distribution, exchange, and creativity of all manner of human endeavor.

Nowhere is the importance of economics more impressive than in assisting in racial progress and uplift through rigorous analytical thinking. Economics has been and will remain a vital component of the education of Howard University students.