Economics Major

Learn about the wide range of forces that shape our economy and society. 

Economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources, and the resulting forces that shape our economy and society both locally and globally.

Our curriculum emphasizes economic theory, statistical analysis and the role of public policy in addressing social and economic problems.

You can specialize in financial, managerial, international, industrial or other areas of economics.

Economics offers both a major and a minor, and is also an area of concentration in environmental analysis; public policy analysis; philosophy, politics and economics; and gender & women’s studies.

The Economics Major at Pomona College is classified as a STEM designated-degree program by the Department of Homeland Security, providing additional employment opportunities for F-1 students after graduation.

Prof. Michael Steinberger talks about the Economics Department at Pomona College.
In class with Professor Eleanor Brown
In class with Professor Eleanor Brown
In class with Professor Tahir Andrabi
In class with Professor Tahir Andrabi
In class with Professor Fernando Lozano
In class with Professor Fernando Lozano

What You’ll Study

    • Micro and macroeconomics
    • Economic theory and policy
    • Allocation of resources
    • Statistics and econometrics
    • Important local and global issues
120
Economics classes that were offered across the five Claremont Colleges in spring 2023.

Researching at Pomona

Bryan Diangson

Bryan Diangson ’21 Uses His Economics Knowledge at CBRE Global Investors

As a summer intern at CBRE Global Investors, Bryan Diangson ’21 is able to implement his economics knowledge working on different investments, across all of the asset classes, the fund strategies and the risk-return spectrum.

Wesley Chang Landscape Picture

Hands-On Internship Experience with CRCM Ventures

Wesley Chang ’21 interned with venture capital firm CRCM Ventures where he created pitch desks and market analysis for potential investments for the firm. He also built abstract models and representations of future financial situations and risks.

Virgil Munyemana ’22

Creating an Investment Thesis

Virgil Munyemana ’22 interned for a private equity firm one summer where he created an investment thesis for the durable medical equipment market using data from the Center for Medicare/Medicaid Services and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Lucie Abele ’22

Supreme Court: Case by Case

Lucie Abele ’22 conducted detailed research regarding the legal and economic analysis of Penn Central Transportation Co. v. City of New York, diving into the legal issues of the case, the economic factors, and the social and public policy implications of the majority decision.

Helena Ong ’22

U.S.-China Trade War

Helena Ong ’22 worked at the USDA where she was able to utilize trade and tariff theory she learned in her macroeconomics courses to help quantitatively model the U.S.-China trade-war in 2019.

Kevin Wu ’23

The Economic Impact of COVID-19

Kevin Wu ’23 co-wrote a topic on the relationship between COVID-19 cases and the impact on the restaurant industry for different geographical relationships in the U.S.

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Payal Kachru Headshot
Payal Kachru ’21

The faculty that I’ve had the pleasure learn and work with are some of the very people that made me feel like I belong at Pomona. While this department continues to push me to become better in my ability to analyze on both a micro and macro level, they’ve also taught me how to complement quantitative analysis with qualitative thought.

Faculty & Teaching

The economics faculty combines superb teaching with focused research, and they emphasize student research within and outside of the classroom. Their expertise includes business and finance, education, international borrowing, international trade, developing economies, income tax, immigration, labor, natural resource economics, the nonprofit sector, socioeconomics and econometrics.

Professor Michael Kuehlwein

Economics examines important local and global issues such as poverty, growth, unemployment, income inequality, trade, health care, the environment and regulation. It combines rigorous methods of analysis, including clear math-based theories of microeconomic and macroeconomic behavior, with sophisticated data-based statistical techniques for testing between those theories. These tools can be applied to many disciplines including forecasting, policy-making, banking, business, consulting, law and medicine.