The Business Economics concentration prepares students to become economic analysts with a general knowledge about management tools in accounting, finance, marketing, and management. Graduates from this concentration have taken jobs in marketing departments and as analysts at financial services firms. If the student wishes, he or she can pursue more advanced electives in the College of Business Administration (COB) once he or she has taken the basic graduate classes.

The student should be able to read simple balance sheets, to understand different organizational structures of firms, and to understand marketing concepts such as new product development, branding, advertising, sales force management, and channel selection and management. Moreover, the student should have a thorough understanding of market identification and segmentation.

The Business Economics concentration requires 7 concentration courses beyond the core. Students take classes in Game Theory and the Theory of Incentives from the economics department. They take two classes in Accounting, one in Financial Analysis, and two of three classes from among Organizational Behavior and Theory, Marketing Management, and Decision Models from COB.

Concentration Course Descriptions
Economics 666—Game Theory
Prerequisite: Economics 651 or permission of instructor.

Economics 667—Theory of Incentives
Examines Principal-Agent relationships in the presence of asymmetric information, focusing on the design of optimal contracts in situations of both moral hazard and adverse selection. Illustrations from employment relations, insurance markets, financial contracts, and used-car markets are presented to show how the less-informed party can create incentives for the more-informed party to reveal some or all of its private information.
Prerequisite: Economics 651 and Economics 666 (Game Theory) or permission of instructor.

Accounting 711—Introduction to Accounting (2 Credit Hours)
Introduction to accounting analysis and recording of business transactions, determination of income, and preparation of financial statements.

Students need Fin 711 or Fin 713 and Fin 714

Finance 711—Finance for Managers (4 Credit Hours)
Examines the financial management of the firm including the following topics: risk and return, discounted cash flow techniques, valuation models, cost of capital, analysis of capital expenditures, optimal capital structure, working capital management, and corporate restructuring.

Finance 713- Financial Analysis Tools (2 Credit Hours)
The objective of this course is to provide managers facility with the fundamental methods used in financial analysis. These methods will be used extensively in FIN 714 (Financial Management) and throughout the MBA program when financial analysis is required. The set of methods include: time value of money, stock and bond pricing, net present value, risk measurements, risk and return, the capital asset pricing model, and basic capital budgeting.

Finance 714-Financial Management (4 Credit Hours)
Using the finance tools developed in FIN 713, this course examines managerial financial decision making, including the following topics: capital budgeting, raising capital, financing policy, capital structure choice, payout policy, the pricing and use of financial options, real options, and selected topics such as mergers and acquisitions, risk management, and bankruptcy

Students need to take two of the following three courses

Marketing 711—Marketing Management (4 Credit Hours)
Students will examine the marketing task, critically analyze the marketing process, develop an awareness of the major marketing problems faced by organizations, and cultivate proficiency in developing marketing strategies and tactics.

Management 714-Leadership & Organizations (4 Credit Hours)
Course introduces central concepts, processes, frameworks and practices to assist the student in understanding what it means to both manage others and 'be managers'.

Quantitative Analysis 712—Optimization Models for Managers (2 Credit Hours)
Overview of linear, integer, and nonlinear optimization models in business, focusing on modeling, solution, and interpretation of results. Substantial use of spreadsheet modeling and analysis.


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