What is the difference between a finance degree and an economics degree?

Question

right now i am currently majoring in financial services, but i do not know what the difference is between the two degrees. I want to work with something in investments or trading securities, could someone explain the difference? Should i keep my major? or should i major in both?

Answer 1

Keep your major or major in both, but don't switch. Finance majors are hired by financial firms. There is good money in finance. Finance majors learn about investments and lending. To add to your major, you could take some banking, real estate investment and accounting courses.  

Economics majors learn about how an economy works. So, you would study things like supply and demand curves, the money supply, the economic history of the United States, what happens during a recession or inflation etc.

Answer 2

A Finance degree teaches you how to do and interpret corporate financial statements and how to run financials within a business. Debt, equity, assets, liabilities, accounting, etc.

Economics teaches you how local, state, national and worldwide economies work. What causes inflation, recessions, what governments can do to alleviate economic stress. The differences between capitalism, socialism, communism. How tax policy and monetary policy impacts the economy.

Based on all the lunacy being spread by politicians (mostly on the Democratic side) I think everybody should get basic economic schooling in high school so that more people would understand that increasing income taxes suppresses economies not grows them. And that raising taxes on oil companies while at the same time not allowing them to drill for more oil causes oil and gas prices to rise, not to fall as economic illiterate Barack Obama believes.

Answer 3

Economics is the study of the production, distribution and consumption of limited resources.

Finance is the application of data from operating units, in the public and private sector, to allocate capital in the production and distribution and consumption of limited resources in order to maximize their value..  Sometimes finance is called applied economics.

If you want to work in investments stick with finance and take a couple of macroeconomics courses.  Financial accounting is more important.