some things to take note... Bill Gates was studying law, not engineering. The president of Intel is a business major. I think technology is just another commodity that is hyped to the point that it wins over the majority and then becomes a standard. In order to bring it to that level, it's the business side elevates technology first and foremost. It's kinda like asking the question, who is more important? Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak. The question would then be, would there still be an Apple, if Steve Wozniak were to do it alone?
Slightly off topic, there is a term for us used in our engineering school for Industrial Engineers. Industrial Engineering = IM = Imaginary Engineering. ( Imagine you are doing engineering ) Anyway, that is a bit harsh. In reality, engineers definitely are smarter. However, in trading, the biggest mob move the market. Not the right idea that move the market. Samething in election, it is whether you can communicate with the largest set of population win. It doesn't help if what you said make sense but no one understands you. Bottomline, if you are smart and you can related to average people, you are a winner. Let's say economic major are more average than engineering major, by default, they can connect with average people.
economics was the major my friends had to chose after they failed out of (or didnt succed in) tougher majors (engineering, chemistry, physics, math). and plenty of people minored in economics for the simple fact that it was easy.
Yeah, actually I did. I am an EE but I took a number of graduate level financial engineering classes. The math required to do financial engineering is rudimentary when compared to that of an advanced EE class. In my undergrad, the Econ majors were the guys who got cut from the engineering program, i.e. they couldn't meet the minimum 2.7 GPA requirement to continue into upper division with engineering so they had to switch to econ. Actually, we kind of laughed at the econ majors because of how easy the classes were compared to engineering. That being said, econometrics is usually taught in Graduate level finance courses - a far cry from the typical undergrad econ cirriculum.
Social Science vs. Hard Science.... Which taste better Apples or Oranges? I don't think predicting 90 of the 5 recessions is possible... mathematically speaking. Not being a hater...