Economics

Economics is the study of how societies make decisions about the allocation of scarce resources, and of the consequences of those decisions for welfare, growth, and inequality. It encompasses the analysis of individual and firm behaviour in markets, the functioning of macroeconomies and the role of monetary and fiscal policy, the economics of development and trade, the study of market failures and the justification for government intervention, and a growing engagement with behavioural economics, which draws on psychology to understand how real people deviate from the predictions of simple rationality. Modern economics is a mathematical and empirical discipline, and serious study of it requires comfort with quantitative methods alongside the theoretical frameworks that give them meaning.

At University College London, this four-year programme is one of the most rigorous and internationally respected economics degrees in the UK. You will study microeconomic and macroeconomic theory at a high level of mathematical precision, alongside econometrics and statistical methods that allow you to work with real economic data and evaluate empirical evidence. As the programme develops, you will engage with specialist areas of economics, from public economics and labour economics to game theory, industrial organisation, and development economics, developing the capacity for independent economic analysis that distinguishes a strong economist.

UCL's economics faculty is one of the top research departments in Europe, and students benefit from exposure to active frontier research.

Economics graduates from UCL are recruited by the most competitive employers in finance, consultancy, and the public sector. Investment banking, economic consulting, the civil service economic service, international organisations including the IMF and World Bank, central banks, and data science roles in the technology sector are all common destinations. The quantitative skills economists develop are valued across all these contexts, and many graduates go on to postgraduate study in economics or finance, often funded by employers or through scholarships at leading universities.