About

The present Department of Economics was established as the Department of Economics and Statistics of the Faculty of Administrative Sciences (the present Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences) in 1959. The Department took its present name when, in 1975, the Department of Applied Statistics was stated. In the Spring Semester of the Academic Year 2005 - 2007 the Department of Economics granted  97 undergraduate and 13 post-graduate degrees. The department has a large faculty of 27 full-time academic staff and 30 research assistants. The Department benefits from undergraduate elective courses given by several economists experienced in government organizations.

The mission statement of DoE is stated as:

“The basic mission of DoE is to create and share knowledge about economic issues. For this purpose DoE

• makes qualified research in the international level, especially about Turkish Economy

• maintains undergraduate programs that will focus on educating students who will be able to work successfully in private and public sectors, understand basic economic concepts and methods, developed analytical thinking and problem solving abilities who possesses creative and free thinking.

• maintains graduate programs that will focus on educating qualified economists who can make independent research and specialized at some topics in order to meet the demand of institutions employing economists.”

The vision for DoE can also be stated separately for education and research sub-headings.

Organizational Structure of Department of Economics can be analyzed under two sub-headings, namely Education and Research. This classification is made on the grounds of the fact that these two are the main activities of DoE.

Education

Vision: To become a centre of excellence in education of economics.

Aims:

• To attract most qualified students in university entrance exams

• To increase the number of students who wants to deepen their understanding in economics after graduation to get acceptance from the top 100 universities of the world.

• To create a brand of Department of Economics such that

  • public and private institutions will welcome graduates as the most qualified economists of Turkey

  • students participating in university entrance exams will consider the department as the best department of economics in Turkey

• To support graduate students to make at least one publication before their graduation

• Increase the number of elective courses in graduate programs

• To supply highly qualified scientists to the developing universities of Turkey

DoE carries out both undergraduate and graduate programs. The aim of the undergraduate program of DoE is to provide a sound theoretical basis in economic theory and… applied statistical methods. . The program consists of four years of which first three years are devoted to giving a firm background in economic theory, economic history, mathematics and statistics. while in the last two years students are supposed to take courses focusing on special topics such as Turkish economy, European integration, international economic institutions, international political economy, technology, development issues, project evaluation, agricultural economics, and environmental issues. DoE also maintains minor and double major programs.

The graduate program of DoE is composed of a M.Sc. and Ph.D programs. M.Sc. Program is designed to deepen the understanding of core topics in macroeconomics, microeconomics and econometrics. There are two types of M.Sc. programs, one with a requirement of thesis writing and the other with a requirement of completing 7 elective courses instead of a thesis. Students are supposed to take 4 core and 3 elective courses and either write a master thesis or to take an additional 7 elective courses according to the type of program they are enrolled in.

The Ph.D. program on the other hand aims to maintain specialization of students in one (or more) of a variety of topics spanning political economy, economic history, macroeconomics, microeconomics, international economics, monetary theory, CGE models, development economics, macroeconomic issues of developing countries, industrial economics and applied econometrics.

DoE offers three categories of courses, namely must courses which the students of DoE should take, elective courses among which students of DoE should take some and service courses which the students other departments takes as elective or must course. The numbers of these courses are listed in Table 2. The elective courses spans the areas of Economic History, Labor, Finance, Development, Econometrics, History of Economic Thought, Microeconomics and Macroeconomics.

Table 2: Number of Courses offered by DoE.

	B.Sc		M.Sc.		Ph.D.
	2005/1	2005/2	2005/1	2005/2	2005/1	2005/2
Must	16	15	4	0	0	0
Elective	19	17	3	6	7	6
Service	2	3	1	0	0	0

There are 716 students registered to the graduate and under graduate programs of DoE. 353 of these students are female while remaining 363 are male. 

Research

Vision: To be an internationally recognised and locally relevant centre of research as far as matters of economics are concerned.

Aims:

• To increase the number of citations and publications by the department faculty in fulfillment of Top-500 universities of the world.

• To maintain the requirements in order to METU Studies in Development to enter into SSCI.

• To organize an international conference (or to re-organize ERC Conferences)

• To ensure the participation of reputed economists in departmental seminars

Examining ECONLIT index for 1999-2003, Çokgezen (2005) exhibits that total number of publications of METU Department of Economics is 70, publication per staff is 2, 59. The ranks of METU Economics are 2 for total number and 3 for per staff in Turkey. Also, in that study, considering the SSCI, it is expressed impact score rank is 2 or 3. According to  ECONLIT index for 2000-2005, total number of publications of METU Department of Economics is 70 (ECONLIT, 2005).There are 35 publications from members of METU Department of Economics in the Social Science Citation Index for 2000-2005 (SSCI, 2005).