<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I've read that when considering an Economics PhD in the US, an Economics major is going to be at a bit of a disadvantage compared to say, a double major in Maths+Economics.</p>
<p>How would a UK degree be recognised in comparison in terms of mathematical content?</p>
<p>Here, your mathematical skills are the most important selection criteria for an Economics course, and you do tonnes of maths classes: real analysis, optimisation, game theory, econometrics galore etc.</p>
<p>So whereas in the US degree (I think, please correct me if I'm wrong) you'd have to actively choose to do more maths modules, in a UK degree at, say, Cambridge/LSE, a huge amount of maths is compulsory.</p>
<p>Economics courses at the top 2-3 universities here require the same, or higher Maths grades for admission than Maths degrees at the top 3-5.</p>
<p>In a top UK economics course you'd expect to do tonnes of real analysis, statistics/econometrics, game theory etc. which in many cases will be 50%+ of the course.</p>
<p>So would you need to do a Maths+Economics degree in the UK to be the same as a Maths+Economics major in the US, or is a highly mathematical Economics degree from Cambridge/LSE seen in the same light in terms of mathematical content and PhD suitability?</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.econ.berkeley.edu/grad/admissions/preparation[/url]”>Preparation | Department of Economics; lists specific preparatory course work for an economics PhD program. If the economics undergraduate major you are considering includes such course work, then you should be sufficiently prepared. If not, then you would have to take the additional math courses along with your undergraduate major to prepare for an economics PhD program.</p>
<p>I think your understanding is generally accurate, although you don’t necessarily need a degree in Math for Econ PhD programs. You could have simply taken a lot of undergrad math courses. This you have to specifically seek out in the US.</p>
<p>This does not address your question directly, but it may be good anecdotal input. I have an American business partner with a degree in Econ/Finance from the London Business School and he has had a great career internationally and here in the US. He is one of the smartest people that I know and his degree has done nothing but help him.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus yep, my degree will definitely cover all of that, thanks. In fact, it seems like you cover a lot of it in school here anyway 
The Further Maths A-level syllabus seems to span about 60-70% of Math 1A, 1B, 53, 54, and a lot of Stats 114 too.</p>
<p>From that link, then, I’d imagine that I’d cover all of the maths required by my second year. Thanks :)</p>
<p>@Syoung2 thanks for that - yep, so I understood it to be that whereas here, the maths courses are pretty much there for you to take as standard, in the US you have to go out and find suitable ones, and so the fact that you have an Economics degree doesn’t imply that you did lots of maths. At Cambridge on the other hand, if you’ve done Economics there, you’ve done so much maths that you’d be doing the same stuff as Maths students do in areas like game theory/statistics etc.</p>
<p>Is seems natural to say that in the US, a Maths+Economics major will be seen as ‘more mathematical’ than an Economics major, whereas here this might not be the case due to the extreme maths content of the top Economics courses.</p>