The Institute of Economics has its origin in the former Department of Economics and Economic Planning (DEPE), which integrated the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences of UNICAMP. Its first activities, developed between 1968 and 1970, consisted in offering courses of economic planning at graduate level.

The experience gained from these courses made it possible to start in 1970 the undergraduate course in Economics, which has been running uninterruptedly to the present. In 1974, the Graduate course in Economics began at Master level and in 1977, the PhD course in Economics was inaugurated.

In 1984, the Institute of Economics was created as an independent unit within UNICAMP and consolidated as a school of economics focused on the study of the development of contemporary capitalism, as well as on the interpretation of the problems associated with Brazilian economic development.

Based on a tradition of reflection and critical thinking, the Institute of Economics established as central axes of its programs reflections about Economic Development, Political Economy and selected contributions of Economic Theory. The success of such a commitment can be evidenced by the professional trajectory of the graduating students, the quality of the hundreds of master's dissertations and doctoral theses defended, as well as by the participation of professors and alumni of the Institute of Economics in the main academic debates in Brazil.