Dilemma: Economics vs. Statistics

Hi I am a student at one of the top 3 public universities undergraduate(Berk,Mich,UVA)
and I am at great dilemma of deciding either Economics or Statistics as a major.

My ultimately goal is Asset Management but I am also interested in Consulting, Sales & Trading.

I am not interested in becoming a Quant in any of the areas.

If I end up majoring Economics, I will take a lot of quantitative courses for my electives in addition to traditional requirements such as Mathematical Probability, Mathematical Statistics, Linear Algebra, Econometrics, Game Theory and International Finance.
Since Economics major requirement is lenient to fullfill compared to Statistics, I will have freedom to explore a variety of different areas such as finance, accounting and computer science.

If I end up majoring Statistics, I will be taking courses like Multivariate Statistics, Time Series, Stochastic Process and Mathematics of Securities Derivatives but since Statistics major requires a tight course requirement I would not have freedom to choose a lot of variety of classes such as accounting, economics and computer science classes. By majoring in statistics, my courses will be more quantitative than Economics degree but certainly not by a large margin.

I am little concerned about the Econ degree itself since it may not be viewed strong or quantitative enough from getting interviews from certain firms/positions I might be interested in the future. I’ve heard that Propriety trading and Hedge Fund firms only hire Engineering and Math, Stat degrees and none from Economics degree.

So even though my econ degree would have good amount of quantitative courses, I would be at disadvantage compared to Statistics Major when it comes to recruiting verstality and flexibility just because my degree’s name is not Math/Stat/Engineering.

Is my concern a legitimate or Economics degree with careful planning and right courses can make it marketable and flexible as Statistics degree?

Thank you guys.

 
Best Response

If I were you I'd do Finance + Stat and Econ Minor (if you've done enough econ already for the minor). It sounds like you've already done a good job building out your resume and getting internships, so I think it's a little less important to do econ/finance double to prove you want to be in finance. The key to doing stats, though, is that you need to make sure you know how to CODE. So whether it's through SQL, MatLab or R your value add can't be that you 'studied statistics.' It's that you've built code to make a quantitative data screen, done some modeling, built a basic trend following model, etc. With that being said, if your program will teach you stuff like that and not just theoretical statistics, then I'd say it's a worthwhile pursuit. Those can be incremental areas where you can be more valuable than the other guy because you have a statistics degree. The only caveat I would have to this is that a true quant hedge fund won't hire you b/c you have a BS in statistics... they are looking for PhDs, so consider this a good background and a slight differentiator, but don't bank your chances on getting into an HF merely because you did Stats. Could be good for sales/investor relations roles too because you are "quantitative" but can also dumb it down to explain to everyone else.

As to the GPA and other stuff I think it really depends on your capabilities - if stats is going to be a reach for you to hit 3.5 I wouldn't really say it's worth the hit - stick w/ a minor and learn to code and apply stats. As to the employers asking you questions, I don't see how you couldn't spin it as a value add - especially if you're using stats to apply things to finance - how couldn't ER use linear regression or big data to better analyze a company or industry?

I did stats in college though didn't pursue IB, so can't really apply to that specifically but that's my thought.

 

I found it's a good talking point during interviews. You can point out that you are voluntarily taking on more challenging opportunities to broaden your learning.

The types of problems that you analyze in Econometrics will be more applicable (and interesting) to working in Finance, since it's all related to economic data. Depending on the rest of your course-load, it shouldn't be too bad.

Did you take stats in secondary? How did you do there?

 

If you are looking into finance or consulting, economics would probably look a bit better because it shows you have an interest outside of the sciences. That said, I'm sure with a good GPA and a demonstrated understanding of accounting, plenty of places would be interested in a math / stats major. Maybe not major banks but with some work you'll find a good spot to land.

 

Econ would better complement your current degrees. Comp. Applied Math already shows you have an aptitude for numbers, so a "social science" like econ has a greater marginal utility than stats.

"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars." - J. Paul Getty
 

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