It is believed that a significant gap exists in the country in the field of economics teaching interms of quality, relevance, and quantity at post graduate level. While many of the universities that became operational recently have economics departments which offer courses at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels, it is strongly felt that they are characterized by a serious shortage of teaching staff both in number and quality. In addition, it is recognized that there is a shortage of policy advisors both in the public and private sectors. Such critical shortage will be compounded as the country transforms from agrarian to industrial and knowledge-based economy. For instance, specializations in industrial economics, financial and corporate economics, and institutional (development) economics are at best in meager supply.
Since one of the major objectives the Ethiopian Economics Association is promoting economic knowledge in the country, it is ideally placed to contribute towards gearing this knowledge to contribute to development. It can also exploit its institutional capacity to create a center of excellence in the area of economic science at a post graduate level.