<p>A strong background in math is obviously helpful and more or less required for some fields in economics (theory and econometrics) but less relevant for more applied fields like development. Some basic knowledge of multivariable calculus, linear algebra, probability, and statistics are probably essential though. What is more important is the capacity to do good research. Letters of recommendation attesting to this are very important in this regard. By looking at the CVs of current job market candidates from MIT <a href=“http://economics.mit.edu/files/9256[/url]”>http://economics.mit.edu/files/9256</a> you can seen their undergraduate backgrounds were (excluding those who went to foreign institutions)</p>
<p>Yale, econ and math
Brown, econ and Latin American studies
Amherst, econ and math
Mills college, econ and math
MIT, physics and math
Stanford, econ and math
BYU, econ and math
Yale, econ, math, and German studies
Penn, econ
Columbia, econ
Virginia Tech, econ and math</p>
<p>The list for current Harvard job market candidates complied from this is <a href=“http://economics.harvard.edu/files/economics/files/cv_packet_3.pdf[/url]”>http://economics.harvard.edu/files/economics/files/cv_packet_3.pdf</a>
Northwestern, communication studies, econ, and math
UC Berkeley, applied math, econ
University of Washington, physics
MIT, math
St. Lawrence, econ and math
Harvard, econ
Stanford, econ and math
Harvard, applied math
Harvard, math
Williams, econ and math
Harvard, econ
UC Berkeley, applied math, econ
NYU, econ and international business
Harvard, applied math
Harvard, econ
Swarthmore, econ and math
Columbia, econ
Dartmouth, econ</p>
<p>You can see that most had math double majors but it’s not required. Similarly most but not all went to top 10 schools for undergrad.</p>