@h0peiambag : I think Emory’s economics undergraduate program has gotten a lot stronger and it wasn’t particularly “weak” before (most problems were really at the grad. level). It’s just that among elite privates and publics, it is/was nothing special and only a few “special” undergraduate economics programs exist. I would compare Emory’s as similar in training to say like…a Vanderbilt or something but maybe more mathematics leaning (which is why they designated it a STEM major).
I wouldn’t do QTM simply because econ. is “weak” (in fact, at Oxford, the courses offered are likely to be done VERY well), but because you wanna learn more data science and make mathematical connections to social sciences. Starting at Ox makes this hard, but what you can do is do the courses they offer (including the mathematics requirements) and then finish the rest at main and then start taking electives at main. One reason to do QTM aside from the technical training is because it is styled like the B-school in many ways. It is an institute that hosts lots of oppurtunities (formal and informal) and networking events specifically tailored towards undergraduates, and they have an excellent capstone oppurtunities. It just makes you more flexible in terms of the career paths on the table post-grad. With the econ. courses, definitely try to get a more “holistic” training. Emory seems to be one of the rare places among its actual peers (BTW, those two you listed are NOT peers despite them being excellent schools. I don’t think Emory lists them, or vice versa. I believe Emory is quite different from them in many ways so it has little to do with quality), in that it often offers two different versions of many of the 300 and 400 level courses in econ. One will be a standard version and another will qualify as a continued writing requirement where extra projects or research are involved in the course versus just a few exams and p-sets (view as like an honors version vs. a standard version of a course).
Writing and formulating a research project/proposal is a useful and marketable skill to employers and graduate schools, so try to take some of those when they are offered. Your background from Oxford will likely make these types of courses seem much easier because Oxford classes, even at the intro. level are much smaller and are thus more likely to include things like writing assignments and just generally more thought provoking assignments. Good luck!