Skip to main content.
Bard
  • Bard
  • Academics sub-menuAcademics
    Bard College Commencement
    • Academics
      • Programs and Divisions
      • Structure of the Curriculum
      • Courses
      • Requirements
      • Discover Bard
      • Bard Abroad
      • Academic Calendar
      • Faculty
      • Libraries
      • College Catalogue
      • Dual-Degree Programs
      • Bard Conservatory of Music
      • Other Study Opportunities
      • Graduate Programs
      • Early Colleges
  • Admission sub-menuAdmission
    • Applying
      • Apply Now
      • Financial Aid
      • Tuition + Payment
    • Discover Bard
      • Campus Tours
      • Meet Our Students + Alumni/ae
      • For Families / Familias
    • Stay in Touch
      • Join Our Mailing List
      • Contact Us
  • Campus Life sub-menuCampus Life
    Bard Campus Life

    Make a home in Annandale.

    • Living on Campus
      • Housing + Dining
      • Campus Resources
      • Get Involved on Campus
      • Visiting + Transportation
      • Athletics + Recreation
      • New Students
  • Civic Engagement sub-menuCivic Engagement
    • Bard CCE The Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) at Bard College embodies the fundamental belief that education and civil society are inextricably linked.

      Take action.
      Make an impact.

      Get Involved
      • Campus + Community
      • In the Classroom
      • U.S. Network
      • International Network
      • About CCE
      • Resources
      • Support
  • Newsroom sub-menuNews + Events
    Upstreaming
    • News + Events
      • Newsroom
      • Events Calendar
      • Video Gallery
      • Press Releases
      • Office of Communications
      • COVID-19 Updates
    • Special Events
      • Commencement Weekend
      • Alumni/ae Reunion
      • Family + Alumni/ae Weekend
      • Fisher Center
      • Bard SummerScape
      • Bard Athletics
  • About Bard sub-menuAbout Bard

    A private college for the public good.

    Support Bard

    Legacy Challenge
    • About Bard College
      • Mission Statement
      • Bard History
      • Love of Learning
      • Visiting Bard
      • Employment
      • OSUN
      • Bard Abroad
      • The Bard Network
      • Montgomery Place Campus
      • Campus Tours
      • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
      • Sustainability
      • Title IX and Nondiscrimination
      • HEOA Disclosures
      • Institutional Support
      • Safety and Security
      • Inside Bard
      • Alumni/ae Network
      • Family Network
      • Support Bard
      • Legacy Challenge
  • COVID-19 Information
  • Give
  • Search
Main Image for Economics and Finance Program

Economics and Finance Program

Professor Sanjaya DeSilva. Photo by Pete Mauney ’93 MFA ’00
Economics and Finance Menu
Apply Now!
The Bard Economics and Finance Program, established in the fall of 2007, is a five-year BS/BA dual-degree program.
Students receive both a BS degree in economics and finance and a BA degree in an academic program other than economics. The program is designed to meet the needs of students who wish to achieve a broad education in the liberal arts and sciences even as they prepare themselves for careers in the financial world.

Requirements

  • Degree Requirements
    The BS/BA program requires 160 credits; the student must fulfill all general educational requirements of the College’s BA program. The BS degree will not be awarded unless the student also receives the BA degree. However, a student may elect to step out of the program, continuing in the BA program. Hence, the dual-degree program is structured to allow all requirements for the BA to be met within four years. 
  • Course Requirements
    Candidates for the dual degree must complete 56 credits in economics and finance, comprising the core courses of the program: Principles of Economics; Foundations of Finance and Investments; Money and Banking; Intermediate Microeconomics; Mathematical Economics; Accounting; Industrial Organization; Introduction to Econometrics; Seminar in International Economics; Advanced Econometrics; Contemporary Developments in Finance; and Corporate Finance. Students are required to complete a Senior Project relating to finance.

Student Work

  • Recent Senior Projects in Economics and Finance
    • “The Closed-End Fund Paradox in Country Funds: A Conventional and Behavioral Perspective”
    • “Forecasting Error in the U.S. Social Security Administration’s Economic Assumptions”
    • “A Microdata Analysis of the Gender Pay Gap in South Korea”
    • “Testing the Predictive Power of Equity Valuation Metrics: A Minskyan Approach” 

Faculty

Program Director: Dimitri B. Papadimitriou
Phone: 845-758-7710
E-mail: [email protected]
Sanjaya DeSilva
Kris Feder
Liudmila Malyshava
Michael Martell
Aniruddha Mitra
Pavlina Tcherneva
Leanne J. Ussher
L. Randall Wray

News and Events

Bard Economist ​​L. Randall Wray on the Impacts of the Federal Reserve Raising Interest Rates to Fight Inflation

​​L. Randall Wray, professor of economics and senior scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, and Yeva Nersisyan argue on the Hill that a Fed rate hike seems certain, yet raising rates is more likely to raise unemployment and slow growth than have any impact on our current inflation problem. “We must find a better way to think about, and deal with, inflation. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to inflation control, but what is clear is that interest rates are a very imprecise tool for influencing prices. In the current circumstance, the more appropriate solution would be to work to alleviate supply-side constraints. That, however, requires much more work and intentionality than a stroke of a pen to change interest rates, which camouflages as action rather than the cop-out it has proven to be,” write Wray and Nersisyan.

Bard Economist ​​L. Randall Wray on the Impacts of the Federal Reserve Raising Interest Rates to Fight Inflation

​​L. Randall Wray, professor of economics and senior scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, and Yeva Nersisyan argue on the Hill that a Fed rate hike seems certain, yet raising rates is more likely to raise unemployment and slow growth than have any impact on our current inflation problem. “We must find a better way to think about, and deal with, inflation. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to inflation control, but what is clear is that interest rates are a very imprecise tool for influencing prices. In the current circumstance, the more appropriate solution would be to work to alleviate supply-side constraints. That, however, requires much more work and intentionality than a stroke of a pen to change interest rates, which camouflages as action rather than the cop-out it has proven to be,” write Wray and Nersisyan.
Read their opinion piece on The Hill

Post Date: 03-15-2022

Bard Economist L. Randall Wray on How Modern Monetary Theory Isn’t the Future. It’s Here Now.

In the Wall Street Journal, Bard economist and leading scholar of Modern Monetary Theory L. Randall Wray comments on how important elements of MMT, including the claim that a government need never default on debt issued in its own currency, are now accepted by much of the economic and financial establishment. “We got five or six trillion dollars of spending and tax cuts without anyone worrying about payfors, so that was a good thing,” says Wray. “In January [2020], MMT was a crazy idea, and then in March, it was, OK, we’re going to adopt MMT.”

Bard Economist L. Randall Wray on How Modern Monetary Theory Isn’t the Future. It’s Here Now.

In the Wall Street Journal, Bard economist and leading scholar of Modern Monetary Theory L. Randall Wray comments on how important elements of MMT, including the claim that a government need never default on debt issued in its own currency, are now accepted by much of the economic and financial establishment. “We got five or six trillion dollars of spending and tax cuts without anyone worrying about payfors, so that was a good thing,” says Wray. “In January [2020], MMT was a crazy idea, and then in March, it was, OK, we’re going to adopt MMT.” L. Randall Wray is Professor of Economics and Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.
Read more in the Wall Street Journal

Post Date: 11-23-2021

How Should We Measure Well-Being? Dimitri B. Papadimitriou Talks with Financial Times about Bard Levy Institute’s New Federal Contract to Broaden Measures of Economic Well-Being

Many of the metrics we commonly use to understand economic growth and well-being were developed nearly a century ago, and may no longer paint an accurate picture of the economy. The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College last week won a $300,000 federal contract to aid the US Department of Labor in its efforts to broaden how it measures the economic well-being of US households. Levy Institute President Dimitri Papadimitriou talked with Rana Foroohar of the Financial Times about how new metrics, such as measuring women’s unpaid labor, could create more clarity for policymakers.

How Should We Measure Well-Being? Dimitri B. Papadimitriou Talks with Financial Times about Bard Levy Institute’s New Federal Contract to Broaden Measures of Economic Well-Being

Many of the metrics we commonly use to understand economic growth and well-being were developed nearly a century ago, and may no longer paint an accurate picture of the economy. The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College last week won a $300,000 federal contract to aid the US Department of Labor in its efforts to broaden how it measures the economic well-being of US households. Levy Institute President Dimitri Papadimitriou talked with Rana Foroohar of the Financial Times about how new metrics, such as measuring women’s unpaid labor, could create more clarity for policymakers.
Read in the Financial Times

Post Date: 11-09-2021
More Economics News
  • Professor Pavlina R. Tcherneva: A Just Transition Needs a Job Guarantee

    Professor Pavlina R. Tcherneva: A Just Transition Needs a Job Guarantee

    Associate Professor of Economics Pavlina R. Tcherneva says a job guarantee is necessary both for managing the disruptions wrought by global warming and for achieving a smooth, just transition to a low-carbon economy. And since the policy is also wildly popular, it should be a no-brainer for any politician who claims to be serious about tackling the climate crisis. “If ‘decent work for all’ is to become an actionable policy benchmark, access to a living-wage job must be guaranteed to everyone, not merely implied in the text of stimulus packages and other policies,” she writes.
    Read in the Jordan Times
    Read More

    Post Date: 09-21-2021
  • Funny Money: Bard Economist Pavlina Tcherneva Talks with the BBC

    Funny Money: Bard Economist Pavlina Tcherneva Talks with the BBC

    Where does money's value come from in an increasingly online world? Pavlina Tcherneva, associate professor of economics, talks with BBC Sound’s Ben Chu about the historical origins of money and its lack of intrinsic value.
    Listen Now on the BBC

    Post Date: 06-07-2021
  • Alex T. Williams MS ’20 on the Global Tug of War Over Semiconductors

    Alex T. Williams MS ’20 on the Global Tug of War Over Semiconductors

    Your car, toaster, even washing machine can’t work without them. And there’s a global shortage. So writes Alex T. Williams MS ’20—an alum of the Levy Institute MS in Economic Theory and Policy Program—who traces the precarity of supply chains that deliver the microchips at the heart of countless products in our modern economy.
    Read more in the New York Times

    Post Date: 05-18-2021
  • Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans Plays Down the Risk of Higher Inflation at the Levy Institute’s 29th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference

    Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans Plays Down the Risk of Higher Inflation at the Levy Institute’s 29th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference

    “‘I think the risk of this scenario is remote,’ Evans said Wednesday during a virtual conference hosted by the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College,” reports Bloomberg. “The Chicago Fed chief, who has long been one of the central bank’s biggest worriers about inflation being too low, was responding to critics of the Biden administration’s fiscal programs, which include not only Republicans but also some economists associated with the Democratic party.”
    Read more in Bloomberg

    Post Date: 05-05-2021
  • Citing Work of Bard Economics Professor Pavlina Tcherneva, Foreign Policy Article Argues that Public Jobs Guarantee Program Is Best Way to Address Unemployment and Climate Crises

    Citing Work of Bard Economics Professor Pavlina Tcherneva, Foreign Policy Article Argues that Public Jobs Guarantee Program Is Best Way to Address Unemployment and Climate Crises

    “How can we possibly hope to address mass unemployment without economic growth? Fortunately, there’s a straightforward solution. We can fix the problem directly without needing additional growth by introducing a progressive, public job guarantee program, as proposed by economists like Stephanie Kelton, Pavlina Tcherneva, and a growing chorus of others,” writes Jason Hickel. “The idea is that anyone who signs up can train to do dignified, socially useful work (the opposite of ‘bullshit jobs’) and be paid at a living wage.”
    Full story in Foreign Policy

    Post Date: 03-03-2021
  • Guardian Editorial Calling for Strong COVID Relief Spending Cites Work of Bard Economics Professor and Levy Economics Institute Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray

    Guardian Editorial Calling for Strong COVID Relief Spending Cites Work of Bard Economics Professor and Levy Economics Institute Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray

    As Yeva Nersisyan and Wray “have pointed out, the US government is engaged in relief, not stimulus, spending. It is offering much-needed assistance to the devastated balance sheets of households, school districts and local governments. Rescuing public services, making sure people don’t starve and building Covid-testing systems is not an economic stimulus but a necessary antidepressant. Reducing the size of the relief package would prolong the recession, which, given the virus’s capacity to surprise, may last longer than the experts predict.”
    Read more in the Guardian

    Post Date: 02-09-2021

Events

  • 6/06
    Monday

    Monday, June 6, 2022 – Friday, June 10, 2022

    Summer Workshop in Public Finance and Economic Policy

    OSUN Economic Democracy Initiative
    The Open Society University Network welcomes undergraduate applications for its summer workshop in Public Finance and Economic Policy. Organized and hosted by the OSUN Economic Democracy Initiative, this five-day workshop is for undergraduate students interested in public policy to tackle economic instability and insecurity, and in understanding the financing capacity and policy space available to governments to pursue these aims. 

    The workshop provides undergraduate students with a unique opportunity to learn about the latest research on modern money, public finance, and public policies that tackle economic instability and insecurity.

    June 6-10, 2022
    Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, USA

    All undergraduate students, regardless of whether they attend an OSUN institution or not, are welcome. Applicants from partner OSUN institutions are eligible for financial assistance and are especially encouraged to apply. 

    COVID and the climate crisis have taught us that governments must act decisively to tackle the most pressing challenges before us, and not leave solutions exclusively to private actors. These developments have led to a rethinking of the role of the state on a global scale. How shall we think about the policy options before different governments? What are their abilities to achieve them? What kind of real or financial constraints do they face? This workshop will provide students with a new framework for thinking about these questions and with concrete tools and techniques to explore these policy-relevant concerns.

2022
  
2021
  
2020
  
2019
  
View Full Archive


2022

Monday, May 9, 2022
  Henderson 106  4:30 pm – 6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
In February 2022, Russia launched an unprovoked, genocidal attack against the Ukrainian people. This lecture will review the origins of the conflict, how the United States and our NATO allies are likely to respond and what possible outcomes are on the horizon.

Scott Licamele ’91 is a Russia expert with over 20 years of experience dealing in the former Soviet Union. He has worked in various Russia-related capacities, including capital markets (at Sberbank CIB, Troika Dialog, and Alfa Bank) and government-related activities (at an NGO in Russia which was funded by the United States Information Agency in the 1990s). Licamele has lived and worked in Russia and Ukraine for seven years and is fluent in Russian. He is a graduate of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, where he studied Russian political economy. He received his BA in European History at Bard College. Licamele is currently unaffiliated with any Russia-related business or political entities.


Wednesday, April 13, 2022
EDI Research-to-Action Lecture Series
Online Event  10:30 am – 11:30 am EDT/GMT-4
Ben Baum is the Deputy Chief of Staff and Member Services Director for Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18). He has worked for the Congressman since 2017 when he was a junior at Bard College. During Ben’s time in Washington, he has served as a senior staffer on the Congressman’s campaigns and most recently as the Deputy Chief of Staff at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

This Research-to-Action Lecture continues the EDI series on Bard College Alumni/ae taking important steps to shape contemporary policy conversations in the United States and beyond.


Thursday, March 31, 2022
The mutating virus of global inequality
Online Event  12:00 pm – 2:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Join us for our second Economic Democracy Keynote with scholar Jayati Ghosh, Professor, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Weis Cinema at Bard College (in-person)
Join virtually on our YouTube live stream:  https://youtu.be/ObdWL7yohSc

Prof. Ghosh will discuss how global inequality has not just increased absolutely but changed in nature. The increase and changing nature of global inequality has come about not only because of vaccine inequity but also massive differences in fiscal responses across rich countries and others, greater informality of labor in the developing world, the unequal experience of climate change, and the implications of the international architecture. Ghosh will specifically address International Property Rights and global investment rules and patterns, and what we can do about it.

Jayati Ghosh taught economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi for nearly 35 years. She is currently Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA.  She has authored and/or edited 20 books and more than 200 scholarly articles. Recent books include “The making of a catastrophe: Covid-19 and the Indian economy”, Aleph Books forthcoming 2022; “When governments fail: Covid-19 and the economy”, Tulika Books and Columbia University Press 2021 (co-edited); “Women workers in the informal economy”, Routledge 2021 (edited); “Never Done and Poorly Paid: Women’s Work in Globalising India”, Women Unlimited, New Delhi 2009; co-edited “Elgar Handbook of Alternative Theories of Economic Development, 2014; co-edited “After Crisis”, Tulika 2009;  co-authored  “Demonetisation Decoded”, Routledge 2017; She has published more than 200 scholarly articles. She has received several prizes, including for the 2015 Adisheshaiah Award for distinguished contributions to the social sciences in India; the International Labour Organisation’s Decent Work Research Prize for 2011; the NordSud Prize for Social Sciences 2010, Italy. She has advised governments in India and other countries, including as Chairperson of the Andhra Pradesh Commission on Farmers’ Welfare in 2004, and Member of the National Knowledge Commission of India (2005-09). She was the Executive Secretary of International Development Economics Associates (www.networkideas.org), an international network of heterodox development economists, from 2002 to 2021. She has consulted for international organisations including ILO, UNDP, UNCTAD, UN-DESA, UNRISD and UN Women and is member of several international boards and commissions, including the UN High Level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs, the Commission on Global Economic Transformation of INET, the International Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT). In 2021 she was appointed to the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All, chaired by Mariana Mazzucato. She writes regularly for popular media like newspapers, journals and blogs.
 


Bard College
Campus Road, PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504-5000
Phone: 800-BARDCOL
Admission Phone: 845-758-7472
Admission E-mail: [email protected]
©2020 Bard College
Follow Us on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Follow Us on Instagram
You Tube
Information For:
Prospective Students
Current Employees
Alumni/ae 
Families
Quick Links
Employment
Travel to Bard
Site Search
Support Bard