MBA's need econ as it teaches you how to think, not what to think

Book: Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World 

Business majors performed very poorly across the board, including in economics.  Econ majors did the best overall.  Economics is a broad field by nature, and econ professors have been shown to apply the reasoning principles they've learned to problems outside their area.  Chemists, on the other hand, are extraordinarily bright, but in several studies struggled to apply scientific reasoning to nonchemistry problems.  

"When he recounts his own education at the University of Chicago...[Flynn] raises his voice. "Even the best universities aren't developing critical intelligence," he told me. "They aren't giving students the tools to analyze the modern world, except in their area of specialization. Their education is too narrow." He does not mean this in the simple sense that every computer science major needs an art history class, but rather that everyone needs habits of mind that allow them to dance across disciplines.

...college departments rush to develop students in a narrow specialty area, while failing to sharpen the tools of thinking that can serve them in every area. This must change, he argues, if students are to capitalize on their unprecedented capacity for abstract thought. They must be taught to think before being taught what to think about. Students come prepared with scientific spectacles, but do not leave carrying a scientific-reasoning Swiss Army knife."

HT:  Quinn