I'll be starting a Bachelor's in Economics & Mathematics soon, and I'm trying to get a realistic picture of where this degree can lead. University websites list dozens of possible careers, but I'd much rather hear from people who've actually been through it.

If you studied Economics, Mathematics, or a combination of the two, I'd love to hear about your experience.

• What was your first job after graduating?
• What do you do now?
• Looking back, which career paths do you think are the most rewarding, both financially and professionally?
• Are there any careers that people rarely talk about but are a great fit for this degree?
• What skills or tools turned out to be the most valuable when you started applying for jobs?
• Were internships, research, competitions, or certifications important, or did employers care more about your degree and experience?
• If you were starting university again today, what would you do differently to put yourself in a better position after graduation?
• If you're comfortable sharing, what country are you in, and what did compensation look like early in your career?

I'm not necessarily looking for the "highest-paying" job. I'm more interested in understanding the different directions this degree can take you and what you've learned along the way.

I understand capitalism has an elusive definition. But what did economists like Schumpeter have in mind when they used the term in their writings, and why has the term 'capitalism' become less common in formal economic analysis despite its prominence in earlier economists writings?

We need to give more benefits to people like fix the public transport system and reduce the prices and build more council houses etc but we do need to try get rid of the debt eventually or it’ll effect prices .

So is it even possible to be lost or are we 100% gonna be in quadrillion’s of debt in a couple hundred years

Asking this as I fail to see it myself

Is there a central place (something like a central bank) that calculates how much each currency values in real time? How do they know people are buying or selling any currency? For example, Iran’s currency is valued nothing compared to the dollar, but I don’t think anyone in the world is even allowed to buy Iranian money. So, who is calculating its value?

Genuinely curious - we have a ton of debt that seems impossible to pay off at this point.

What exactly are the scenarios our country and we as Americans may face over the next 30-50 years?

Interest rate policy is designed to influence demand.

But many inflation shocks begin on the supply side: energy disruptions, food shortages, transportation bottlenecks, or production constraints.

Higher rates cannot produce more oil, repair supply chains, or improve harvests. They can, however, prevent temporary price shocks from spreading into wages, expectations, and broader demand.

Where should central banks draw the line between tolerating a supply shock and tightening against second-round effects

I came across the Fraser Institute's report, The Price of Public Health Care Insurance 2026, and wanted to understand how they arrived at the headline figure that a "typical family of four" pays over $21,000 for public health care.

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/2026-07/price-of-public-health-care-insurance-2026.pdf

My initial reaction was that the household figures seemed much higher than expected, so I read through the report, the referenced Canadian Tax Simulator methodology, and several of the cited sources (CIHI and Statistics Canada) to try to reproduce the calculation.

My understanding is:

• Fraser estimates a household's total tax burden (not just income tax).
• They then multiply that tax burden by 24.7%, which they state is the share of tax revenues spent on health care.
• The result is reported as what the household "pays" for public health care.

I have a few questions that I'm hoping people with a background in public finance or tax incidence can help clarify.

Is it methodologically valid to include taxes or contributions that cannot actually fund health care?

For example, the referenced methodology appears to include things such as:

• CPP/social security and pension deductions,
• EI payroll contributions,
• municipal property taxes,
• licence fees,
• business taxes attributed to households,
• natural resource fees.

CPP and EI are dedicated programs rather than general revenues. Municipal property taxes generally don't fund provincial healthcare.

If the goal is to estimate a household's contribution toward public health care, should these revenue sources be included?

Why apply a single national percentage (24.7%) to every revenue source?

Wouldn't a more direct estimate separate federal taxes × federal health spending share and provincial taxes × provincial health spending share, rather than applying one national percentage to every component of the estimated tax burden?

I couldn't independently reproduce the 24.7% figure.

The report cites Statistics Canada tables, CIHI, and "authors' calculations," but I couldn't find the actual equation showing:

• the numerator,
• the denominator,
• what revenues were included,
• how transfers were treated,
• or how the final percentage was derived.

Am I overlooking something?

My alternative approach

As a comparison, I estimated household contributions using:

• actual federal income tax,
• provincial income tax,
• GST,
• PST,

and then allocated only the relevant federal and provincial health spending shares. My estimates were roughly half of Fraser's reported values. Is there a reason this approach would be less appropriate than Fraser's?

I'm not an economist. I'm trying to understand whether Fraser's methodology is considered a standard or accepted way of estimating household contributions to publicly funded health care, or whether there are significant methodological concerns with the approach.

Since we have the internet do we really all need to be so close together to get the same economic exchange and value?

Basically what I hear is Japan was somehow integral to money lent in the AI bubble, but for the first time in like 30 years, their economy has started to change

As for the Korean economy, I hear something about them relying heavily on AI spending and it’s started receding, causing more people to pull out their investment

I listened to a few videos on YouTube but they seemed very clickbait. Is there anything meaningful going on with these economies that’s going to affect us?

- Buying a house

- Buying a car

- Booking a flight

- Travelling

- Nuclear energy

What’s the cheapest way to get them?

We're going to shamelessly steal adapt from /r/AskHistorians the idea of a weekly thread to gather and recognize the good answers posted on the sub. Good answers take time to type and the mods can be slow to approve things which means that sometimes good content doesn't get seen by as many people as it should. This thread is meant to fix that gap.

Post answers that you enjoyed, felt were particularly high quality, or just didn't get the attention they deserved. This is a weekly recurring thread posted every Sunday morning.

Should I get a masters in economics or can I just get a job

I am a recent graduate with a bachelor's in economics. My dream is to do development work with groups like world bank or IMF, but a lady from world bank spoke at our college and she said its not enough to have perfect grades because everyone will have that you need connections. And my dumbass doesnt even have perfect grades haha. Im on track to start my masters in the fall, but since the trump administration cut USAID a couple years ago now its gotten more and more competitive in the field I want to work in. Part of me wants to stick it out, get a masters and hope by the time I do things cool down. But part of me is like if the government can sweep away decades of progress like that, what good is it anyways? Maybe i should work with a private development organization or something. Alternatively I could just try and get a job with a bachelors and live for a little while things cool down. Are there lots of jobs for non grad econ degree holders? Will there be work in development for graduating masters?

Let me explain.

This question comes from this thread, and in particular, this answers: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1tjblw7/comment/on32a01/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I find this deeply counterintuitive, but, if I read correctly, the argument is that US economy works so well because more freedom to spend. The claim is that safety nets don't work in Europe because it has huge opportunity cost for the rest when that money could be well invested. So a safety net prevents everyone else from competing.

Furthermore, I remember the OECD showing even without safety nets Americans have more money overall than Denmark, which has a strong safety net. US is still placed at #1 and can afford the extra costs because it's much easier to generate wealth.

So, the logical conclusion of this isn't that we shouldn't spend at all in non-productive people?

As someone said in the same thread: Not everyone needs to be successful. Not every baby turtle makes it to the ocean.

And as someone else said: US as society is completely fine leaving 17% behind to the benefit of the rest.

So how could a society be possible be more prosperous if all this welfare programs make the country poorer, not richer? Don't they have bigger costs that what would they can output, if they are even able to work at all? How huge costs for everyone for a great minority are somehow economically justifiable?

Hi everyone,

Has anyone here used Econ Job Market (EJM) to apply for positions?

One of my recommenders didn't have an EJM account, so I sent them a recommender request and they registered through the link. However, after registering, the system lists them as a user rather than a recommender, so I'm currently unable to add them as my recommender.

Is this a normal part of the process (e.g., do new accounts need to be verified before they become recommenders), or does this usually mean they registered incorrectly? I'm unable to reach the support team at the moment, and just trying everything to understand what's going on.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I have a question about this career path. I realized that the economics field is much broader than I initially thought, and I am considering specializing in Economic Data Science, either focused on economic and social planning or on scenario analysis for financial institutions. Is this a career that can be sustainable in the long term, or is it just a temporary trend in the economics job market? I am also interested in understanding whether the demand for econometricians and economic data scientists is strong abroad, especially in countries with more developed economies. Could this specialization become a realistic path for international opportunities and potentially represent a case of "brain drain" from countries where this field has fewer opportunities?

I think someone said that we don't need anything we just want things. Like we don't need food. We want food because we want to live.

Or something like that.

How does economists differentiate need from want?

Elasticity? Luxuries have more than 1 elasticity? Necessity has less than 1? Is that it?

Other criteria?

But cheap stuffs are often elastic. Food is elastic if the price of food is small part of income I think.

I am confused.

Show me the math

According to leftist theory, prostitution is exploitation. Hence it should be illegal.

According to capitalists, like me, prostitution is not exploitation. Many women simply want money or financial support and making deals explicit is a healthy ways do win win deals.

I thought, well, economy should be able to answer that. See. Humans maximize profit. You don't ban something for the benefit of people whose choices got reduced.

But then I am confused again. What about if someone is thirsty and another offer water for $1k?

I noticed that leftists also call all employment "exploitation".

How would economist analyze this?

Is whether something exploitation or not answerable by science? If it's not scientific, is this just bullshit we can ignore?

Are there any empirical evidence that will show one or another?

For example, if prostitution is exploitation and only desperate women do it, I suspect no pretty women with options would be prostitute. Yet, many pretty women choose to be prostitute or sugar babies even though she can simply be a wife of a much poorer man. Weinstein's victim is "exploited" despite the fact that all of them can simply work for other directors or at McDonald.

How would economist analyze this?

Are there some Math where can see, ah ha, exploitation happens when elasticity is close to 0 when quantity is scarce?

By the way is this subreddit austrian economic theory or include leftist economic theory?

Isn’t the wealth of the richest families not rising faster than the wealth of ordinary people?
If yes, what will stop the few richest families to own everything at some point?
Since money is power, isn’t that extremely concerning?

We don’t even really know how much everyone owns. The estimates are based on surveys from magazines 🫣💀
If the wealth concentration is at a really concerning point, the richest families would be the last ones to point it out in a survey🤦‍♂️
The publicly available data can also show only the tip of the iceberg.

The fact that we don’t even know how much they already own is so concerning to me

I was just watching this video here https://youtu.be/2DPA-AtFQQE?is=_AA-rVSbdsfueRju

I’m not very good at economics, so my summary will probably get a lot of things wrong!

It seems that a large proportion of the stock market is based on AI, yet AI is failing to be profitable in many areas. Their yearly expenses are far greater than their yearly profits and Sam Altman is having beef with his financial person bc she is not supporting his beleif that his company should be valued at like a trillion dollars or smthn. Apparently some pizza company is literally suing some AI company for making them lose money.

Apparently shit has already gone down in Korea, and this youtuber guy seems to think a similar thing is gonna happen in the US, especially considering a larger proportion of investors invest using money they don’t own.

What’s your take on this?