Economics Department

The Economics Department is one of Columbia's largest departments.

Top professors include Jeffrey Sachs, Joseph Stiglitz, Xavier Sala-i-Martin, Edmund Phelps, and Glenn Hubbard, and what economics major could possibly forget Sunil Gulati or Susan Elmes.

It currently doesn't have its own building. Most faculty currently have offices on the 10th floor of IAB, but others are scattered across campus. A planned move to Knox Hall, a former seminary building on Claremont Avenue, never panned out.

Despite its spatial crunch and incoherence, the department has managed to expand greatly in recent years. In 2005 alone it hired 20 professors at once.

Econ major

Many students become econ majors in order to please their parents or to boost their chances of getting a toolish job in a field like i-banking.