Research at the Department of Economics is organised in a number of specialised research areas, some of which have parallels in recommended paths of specialization within education at the bachelor's and master's levels. The department has a number of such specialized research groups. Financial economics with special emphasis on empirical asset pricing and financial econometrics, and overlapping with the research group in Econometrics; International Economics and Development Economics with special emphasis on trade theory, economic integration and policy-oriented development economics; Health Economics; Macroeconomics; Microeconomics, with a large number of senior faculty working on a variety of applications including mechanism design and experimental economics; and Public Economics. Many of the researchers within the department's specialized research groups are also actively involved in the research and research collaborations at the School of Economics and Management.

The Department of Economics is one of the largest in the School of Economics and Management at Lund University. Every year about 2,000 students register at the department.