What to study to become a self taught economist?
I need your opinions, I don't have a clear path, I'll be happy to receive some advice.
What path do you guys think that I should follow to self-learn economics?
I'm a future phd student in economic history. I have a background in History, but I lack of formal education in economics (and I think that I have to become an economist to be an economic historian).
In a shopping frenzy, I bought a lot of books to self teach me economics, but now I think that it was overkill: precalc, trig, calc, linear algebra, dif eq, real analysis, mathematical statistics, macro, micro and econometrics.
I don't think that I could cover this material during my entire life, having a full time job and a future academic life. I'm mostly interested in macro, especially financial crisis. My approach has been to start from the ground up, but it is slow. Now, I think that I should be studying the more difficult stuff first and only go back to previous texts if needed. This is my plan:
- Macro.
- Micro.
- Calculus.
- Mathematical Statistics.
- Econometrics plus Econometrics with R.
One possibility is, after 1 and 2, to start right away with 5 and only go to 3 and 4 when needed.
PS: the full list of books I bought:
- Precalculus (Stewart et al.).
- Trigonometry (Gelfand et Saul).
- Calculus Early Trascendentals (Stewart).
- Linear Algebra Done Right (Axler).
- Differential Equations and Linear Algebra (Strang).
- A Course of Probability (Weiss).
- Mathematical Statistics (Wackerly et al.).
- Macroeconomics (Blanchard).
- Microeconomics (Perloff).
- Introduction to Econometrics (Stock et Watson).
Posted Jun 24, 2026, 6:12 PM UTC