Graduate School Bulletin

Department of Economics

The  Department of Economics is a highly active and research oriented department that emphasizes excellence in the core areas of economics: Microeconomic Theory, Macroeconomics and Applied Economics. The department enjoys a worldwide reputation for excellence in Game Theory thanks to the Stony Brook Center for Game Theory in Economics, which was founded in 1989. With the continuous support from the NSF during more than 30 years, the center has organized the most important yearly conference in game theory in the profession. It has attracted many Nobel laureates in economics, such as, Robert Aumann, John Nash, Eric Maskin, Alvin Roth, and Lloyd S. Shapley. The department also has a prominent group of researchers in the other core areas, who are currently studying some of the most pressing economic issues affecting our societies. These include the effects of aging on the social insurance system, the relationship between the current financial crisis and the housing sector, the consequences of urbanization in developing countries and the economic consequences of the COVID pandemic. The research on some of these issues has appeared in general interest journals like Nature and Science, top economic journals as well as popular media like the New York Times and the US News and World Report.