MSc Economics

This programme is intended to equip you with the main tools of the professional economist, whether you intend to work in government, central banking, international organisations or private sector firms such as economic consultancies.

The advanced and technically rigorous nature of the programme also serves as an excellent foundation for PhD programmes and other research-focused roles.

The one-year route is for students with a strong undergraduate degree in economics and a solid quantitative background, while the two-year route is designed for students who have a sound quantitative background but lack the necessary economic theory and knowledge in quantitative techniques for the one-year route.

The degree concentrates on the core elements of economic theory, macroeconomics and econometrics. The extensive use of mathematics is intended as a tool in order to facilitate analysis, with the primary objective of the programme being the provision of a formal training in - and in-depth understanding of - core economic models and methods.

Teaching methods

LSE is internationally recognised for its teaching and research and therefore employs a rich variety of teaching staff with a range of experience and status. Courses may be taught by individual members of faculty, such as assistant professors, associate professors and full professors. Many departments now also employ guest teachers and visiting members of staff to teach courses, and LSE teaching fellows and graduate teaching assistants (who are usually doctoral research students) to teach classes and seminars.

Assessment

All taught courses are required to include formative coursework which is unassessed. It is designed to help prepare you for summative assessment which counts towards the course mark and to the degree award. LSE uses a range of formative assessment, such as essays, problem sets, case studies, reports, quizzes, mock exams and many others.

Summative assessment may be conducted during the course and/or by final examination at the end of the course.

Careers

Our former students are employed as economists in a wide range of national and international organisations in government, international institutions, business and finance. In recent years, our graduates have gained employment in organisations such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, NERA Economic Consulting, PwC, Deloitte, Compass Lexecon, McKinsey, IMF, World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Bundesbank, Bank of England, and HM Treasury.

Approximately one third of students proceed to PhD programmes at LSE or other leading universities. In recent years, our MSc in Economics students have been placed at MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Chicago, Columbia, Yale, NYU, Northwestern, Penn, MIT Sloan, UCLA, Wisconsin-Madison, Cornell and many other top PhD programmes around the world.

First class honours degree in economics or equivalent with concentration in economics and quantitative subjects. Successful candidates will typically have achieved very good examination results in university-level two-semester length courses in [a] mathematics (both advanced calculus and linear algebra), [b] econometrics and statistics, [c] intermediate macro and microeconomics.