What is the difference between studying business, economics, and finance?

In terms of coursework progression and topical focus, how do these areas differ? Additionally, what are the career fields
and job prospects associated with each respective degree?

Economics is about markets. It studies markets on a more conceptual level: How do different market forces
put pressure on prices, production, banks, employment, and so on? It is not mathematically rigorous at the
undergraduate level, but at the graduate level students become experts at analyzing data.
Finance is about money. Think of it as the "applied economics" part of business. What is the time value of
money? What is my firm's cost of capital? What is a good price for this asset? How correlated are the expected
returns and volatility of various components of a portfolio? It is more concrete than economics, and more focused
than business.
Business is about people. Where finance thinks only about how people use money, and economics thinks about
people in terms of generalized market forces, business deals with the human element more concretely. Finance,
accounting, and economics are valuable tools, but business goes further: how do we deal with our customers,
employees, and products? Here you learn about marketing, management, and so on.

Economics
According to the US Department of Labor and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, economists conduct research,
prepare reports, or formulate plans to aid in solution of economic problems arising from production and
distribution of goods and services. Economists collect and process economic and statistical data using
econometric and sampling techniques. Economics majors study economic models and theories to analyze how
business activities can be complicated by factors such as taxes, interest rates, inflation, labor disagreements, and
even the weather. Economics explores the wealth of nations, its origins in production and exchange, its
allocation among competing uses, its distribution among individuals, and its accumulation or decline. Many
issues of national and international policy are considered. Economics majors learn about economic theory,
economic systems such as capitalism, and mathematical methods.

The field is also great training for law, and it also will prepare graduates for the business world. Too many
students become concerned with the utility of the field if they are not interested in becoming an economics
professor or a teacher. When one considers the courses within the economics departments and the math
emphasis, one quickly understands this is a terrific field of study to pursue. Courses include Econometrics and
Data Analysis, Economics of American History, Labor Economics and Welfare Policy, International Monetary
Trade Policy, Financial Markets and Economics of (Japan, China, etc).
 The field of economics will help you understand how decisions are taken, on a local and global level, according to
the resources involved. You have the options to specialize in one of the fields below:

Accounting
Banking
Managerial economics
Industrial economics
Behavioural economics
Political economy
Financial history.

Business
Colleges that offer Business as a major offer a wide range of programs: accounting, finance, operations,
marketing, communications, information systems and sports management are some of the vast programs
offered. Business majors study the buying, selling, and producing of goods, as well as business organization
and accounting. They learn how to use the basic principles and techniques of business in a variety of
workplaces.
Within the programs of study at various schools, there can be a wide range of areas where you can focus your
interests. Entrepreneurial studies, hotel management, hospitality studies, international finance, fashion
merchandising and real estate management are just some of the more focused degrees students can pursue.
A business degree can be a great credential to have, especially if you target a skill set that companies are
seeking. Accounting, finance and information systems tend to be three areas where the quantitative skill
sets are appealing to employers. Calculus is becoming more important at the more competitive undergraduate
business programs, so a strong quantitative skill is important in many business programs as well.

The quantitative skill is to discover the pattern, identify the demand and predict the future in more than business
intelligence, computer science, statistics and etc.

Conclusively, it includes econometrics, statistics, machine learning, regression analysis, time-series analysis,
optimization, simulation and etc.
If you are in the business environment, you need to have basic quantitative skills, including a combination of algebra
and statistics. If youve tried gaining these before in a traditional classroom environment and struggled, this course
can help you. You may want to use it as a first step before taking a college course in quantitative methods.

Business Quantitative Skills (QS) Examples : collecting and interpreting data, finding patterns in data using charts
and tables, making sense of data using averages and measures of spread, basic probability, probability distributions,
and decision-making techniques.
 MICRO VS MACRO ECONOMICS

Microeconomics

Microeconomics refers to more individual or company specific studies in economics. How businesses establish
prices, how taxes will impact individual decision making, the concept of supply and demand. So Microeconomics
looks at all the small economic decisions and interactions that all add up to the big picture concepts that
Macroeconomics looks at.

The study and application of macroeconomics is most commonly employed by businesses, in establishing how they
price their products through understanding the needs of consumers. Central to this is the concept of supply and
demand and how both factors influence price setting.

Supply: If there is an overabundance of supply for a specific product, the price will naturally be driven down
(assuming demand for that product stays constant). People don't want the product any more than they did before,
but since there's so much of that product out there people are only willing to pay a limited amount. Alternatively if
supply drops, but the demand stays the same, people are willing to pay a more for that same product.

Demand: If people want a product more than they previously did, say it's become the 'must have' item of the year,
the price for that product will go up if the supply of that product stays the same. People will pay more to obtain the
product to make sure they get it. If demand goes down, say something goes out of fashion, there can still be the
same amount of it on the market for sale but people don't want it anymore so the price goes down.

These relationships are the key focus of microeconomics and how various factors (i.e. taxes) impact the supply and
demand model for products in general. Companies also need to be aware of these concepts in order to set an
effective price for their products, to ensure they can maximize their profits.
Overall

So in essence, the two concepts are very closely related, a change in macroeconomic policy will impact many
microeconomic underlying transactions. Comparatively a change in microeconomic decision making will add up in
aggregate to impact the macroeconomic concepts studied. This interdependence, and the foundation of economic
theory they both represent, is why any economics curriculum requires extensive study of macroeconomic and
microeconomic concepts.
Macroeconomics

Macroeconomics refers to the 'big picture' study of economics, so looking at concepts like industry, country, or
global economic factors. Macroeconomics includes looking at concepts like a nation's Gross Domestic Product
(GDP), unemployment rates, growth rate, and how all these concepts interact with each other.

Studying and applying macroeconomics is incredibly important at the government level as the policy and economic
decision and regulations enacted by government can have a major impact on many aspects of the overall economy.
To demonstrate macroeconomic theory in practice we'll briefly look at how interest rates fit into macroeconomic
policy.

Extensive study goes into establishing the appropriate interest rates in an economy, where the government sets a
base rate and banks work from there. If interest rates goes up:
People may save more money as they get a better return on their deposits.
Business will invest in less expansion as borrowing money will cost relatively more.
The local currency will go up in value because now deposits in that currency can earn more compared to other
currencies.
Inflation will go down, because in general saving is up and spending is down and people are buying less.
The opposite would be expected for each point if interest rates go down.

This gets very complex because 'relatively go up' or 'relatively go down' are very loose relationships and many factors
impact decision making also (i.e. taxes & employment rates). Then the impact of the policy decisions of other
countries have to be considered also as they impact what happens to a countries economy also.

In theory, macroeconomics can be easy because for each change in a relevant figure it can be assumed that if all
other factors are constant, this is what would happen. In reality, all of the factors are constantly shifting and
enacting macroeconomic policy is very difficult to manage.