What advanced math classes should I take for economics?

greeneggs4spam: What advanced math classes should I take for economics?
I’m an economics major, and I’m not sure exactly what sort of math classes I should be taking.

I’m planning on graduating next year, and I am interested in the most useful math classes to take to prepare myself for grad school in economics. I’m taking the analysis courses with Rudin’s book this fall and spring, Applied Linear Algebra this fall, and then I want to take topology as well.

But I want to take more math, should I do things like numerical methods, fundamental structure of Algebra, or Differential Equations or what?
I’m actually only a Junior, so I have quite a bit more time for classes, but I’m currently taking the basis higher level stat classes, and will probably need to decide which classes to take there, but I think I have more of an idea what stat classes I’m going to take, and I’ve completed the calculus series. They just offer a higher level series of courses on elementary partial differential equations and I’m not sure if they’re worth taking or not.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Shadow_Ruler
Definetely throw in some Statistics classes.

You can always start taking the engineering calculus classes to get your differentials, integrations, multivariate stuff in – very useful for making economic models. (i suspect you’ve done this already since you are a senior)

Answer by Super Mario
First of all, you should definitely stay focused on applied math classes and don’t take too many pure math classes unless you are interested in math. Now, the applied math classes for an econ major would be undergraduate trimester calculus course (which sounds like you have taken). Then linear algebra, ordinary differential equations, AND some sort of an intro to applied math class (which will be an advanced version of calculus 3). Notice this class is not the same as the analysis courses you are taking which are also called advanced calculus by some people. Numerical analysis/methods will definitely be useful (in fact a lot of recent discoveries in numerical analysis were made by economists and weather forecasters). Topology is useless for economics. Further analysis courses will be useless too. Complex analysis will be useless. A PDE (partial differential equations) course might be useful. Algebra will be completely useless for you.

Further, topics at the top of your list would be statistics and probability. Definitely take the complete sequence of upper division statistics (after lower division statistics). Definitely take as many probability courses as you can and learn about probabilities distribution, stochastic processes, markov chains, markov processes, law of large numbers, random variables, and such things.

If you really want to nail the math, then in analysis, you should (you don’t have to) go all the way up to real analysis with lebesgue integration. The problem is that usually, you need to finish all real analysis courses before lebesgue integration and sometimes topology is also a prerequisite. You need to do real analysis, single variable calculus, multivariable calculus, calculus on manifolds, and topology to get into a class with lebesgue integration. If there is anyway you can take the class without going through everything, or if there is an easier version available (which is NOT for pure math majors) then definitely take it. Lebesgue integration and measure theory is a basis for probability theory.