Economic growth, inflation, unemployment, the business cycle, the financial system, international capital flows and trade imbalances, and the impact of monetary and fiscal policy. The Department of Economics strongly encourages students considering a concentration in economics to take both Ec10a and Ec10b in their freshman year. These courses are required for all economics concentrators and are prerequisites for higher level courses in economics. These courses, when both are taken for a letter grade, meet the General Education requirement for either Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning or United States in the World, but not both.