In a 1982 study published in the American Economic Review, Siegfried and J.T. Wilkinson found that “the presence of a competing undergraduate business major at the same university is likely to reduce the number of economics students by more than the entire average-size economics program,” according to Siegfried and David K. Round’s 2001 study “International Trends in Economics Degrees During the 1990s.”

Neither Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, nor the University of Chicago offer undergraduate business degrees. Nearly one quarter of the graduating class at UChicago majors in economics.

Although private, Ph.D.-granting institutions have not seen large increases in the number of economics degrees awarded masks the fact that they already enroll disproportionately high numbers of economics majors.

Harvard, however, has been subject to fluctuation over the years.

Since 1994, the number of economics concentrators at Harvard has increased all but two years, according to Registrar’s data.

In 1994, 488 students concentrated in economics—by last November, that number was up to 686. In May, 268 students graduated with degrees in economics, while another 72 joint-concentrated, combining economics and another field.

Ropes Professor of Political Economy and department chair Alberto Alesina was baffled by the increases.

“To tell you the truth, I am not sure why it is,” Alesina wrote in an e-mail. “I love the field of economics and I think it is a great way of analyzing socio-politico-economic problems in addition to having a business angle, but why now as opposed to before or later more and more students are realizing this, well I cannot quite say.”

—Staff writer Samuel C. Scott can be reached at sscott@fas.harvard.edu.