The Department of Economics was established in 1948 and is one of the teaching and research departments under the Faculty of Social Studies.
The Department offers undergraduate, graduate and doctorate degrees in Economics and a Master of Arts (M.A.) in Economic Policy Management.
The Department also services other departments/establishments of the University namely, the College of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences, the University of Ghana City Campus, the Legon Centre for international Affairs, the Regional Institute for Population Studies and the Institute of Continuing and Distance Education.
STUDENT NUMBERS
The Department continues to admit a high number of students in spite of the increasing administrative challenges. Considering the year under review, the Department had two thousand five hundred and fifty nine (2559) students (see breakdown below).
Summary of Student Numbers
| LEVEL | Number of Students |
|---|---|
| LEVEL 100 | 804 |
| LEVEL 200 | 609 |
| LEVEL 300 | 540 |
| LEVEL 400 | 412 |
| M.Phil Economics (I & II) | 64 |
| MA. Economic Policy Management | 120 |
| PhD Development Economics | 10 |
| Total | 2559 |
In addition to the above, the department also serves the Accra City Campus and the Distance Education Students where similar number of students is taught across the departmental courses from Level 100 to 400.
AERC Category C University Status
The African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) has given the Department a Category C University Status by which the Department is an accredited centre for capacity building of economists in Anglophone West Africa through a unified research and training network. Although still a member of the Joint Facility For Electives (JFE), MPhil students of the Department will no longer go to Nairobi to take additional elective courses: these will be taught in the Department. Postgraduate students from Anglophone Africa would now be sponsored by AERC to do study for their MPhil at University of Ghana albeit within the overall “Collaborative Masters Programme in Economics for Anglophone Africa” (CMAP). More fundamentally for research work, the Category C status entails strengthening of the Department’s doctoral programmes to train economists to PhD level, within the AERC’s “Collaborative PhD Programme” (CPP). This will be fused into the PhD framework mounted in collaboration with ISSER.
M.Phil Students came tops at the Joint Facilities for Electives in CMAP for Anglophone Africa (1995-2010).
M.Phil students of the Department have continued to excel at the Joint Facilities For Electives in the “Collaborative Masters Programme in Economics for Anglophone Africa” (CMAP) where Mphil economics students from Anglophone Africa converge in Nairobi for a 3-month intensive two semester programme in elective courses in economics. Out of the 25 CMAP universities, the M.Phil economics students from University of Ghana came first, a position the Department virtually monopolized among all the 25 participating Anglophone universities since 1995-2010.