Which has the best econ program: Tufts, Hopkins, or Carnegie Mellon?
You can get a sense for these schools’ economics departments based on faculty publishing:
https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.usecondept.html
Note that Tufts’ faculty actively publish on environmental economics (69th internationally), should you have an interest in this topic:
I have one kid who went to CMU another who went to Tufts, but neither majored in Econ. What I can tell you is that IR is one of the largest majors at Tufts and a large portion of them also majored in econ. They had pretty good connections for econ related internships. (Which unfortunately did not interest my kid.) Tuft kids are very politically aware and global citizenship is not just a catchphrase there.
Carnegie Mellon is very compartmentalized with it’s various different schools and has a very high proportion of kids who already know exactly what they want to do when they grow up. It feels very pre-professional.
What area of economics are you interested in? Do you have an idea of what you want to do with your degree.
Mathematical economics likely. See myself getting an MBA later.
Tufts does not offer a Phd in Economics (masters only) so you will not find it in any of the traditional rankings. Historically, it has been ranked as the top masters program in the country. The masters program focuses on Quantitative Economics and they offer a full undergraduate major in Quantitative Economics - which aligns with your interests. The CEO of the largest bank in the country has an undergrad degree from Tufts and an MBA from Harvard.
Eugene Fama is a recent Econ Nobel Prize winner who went to Tufts for undergrad and performed undergrad research in the same area that he won his Nobel.
CMU may have a more mathematical emphasis in its economics courses, since its intermediate economics courses and most other upper level economics courses like multivariable calculus (versus single variable calculus at the others) as a prerequisite.
http://coursecatalog.web.cmu.edu/tepper/undergraduateeconomicsprogram/courses/
https://econ.jhu.edu/undergraduate/undergraduate-courses/
https://ase.tufts.edu/economics/courses/
At Tufts, one has the option of taking either the undergrad or masters courses (200 level). There is also a 5 year combo batchelors/masters. The 200 level courses require MV Calc and have other “desirable/useful” math courses.
@neddyman_ Johns Hopkins’s economics is math heavy and they offer Financial Economics. Their Center for Financial Economics and SAIS are well known among top recruiters.
I can’t comment on CMU and Tufts but Rice University’s Mathematical Economics is well known.