The Department of Economics was formerly the Economic Research Center of Dalian University of Technology, which was established in 1998. In 2004, the Department of Economics of Dalian University of Technology was established. In 2010, Faculty of Management and Economics is established by merging the Department of Economics merged with the School of Management, and the Department of Economics was changed to the School of Economics. In 2019, the Faculty of Management was renamed as the School of Economics and Management, and the faculty structure was abolished.

In 2022, the Department of Economics was re-established as one of the three departments of the School of Economics and Management. At present, the Department of Economics has 33 full-time faculty, including 2 New Century Outstanding Talents of the Ministry of Education, 3 Leading Talents of the "Xingliao Talents" Project, and 1 famous teacher of Liaoning Province. There are three secondary disciplines, including Industrial Economics, Finance and International Trade, and two undergraduate majors, including Finance, International Economics and Trade.

After more than 20 years of development, the Department of Economics has achieved fruitful results in discipline construction, scientific research and social services. In terms of discipline construction, Finance was selected as the national first-class professional program. International Economics and Trade was selected as the provincial first-class professional program, and Financial Management was selected as the national first-class course. In terms of scientific research, faculty members preside over 3 major and key projects supported by the National Social Science Fund of China and nearly 40 projects supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Social Science Fund of China. Faculty members published more than 500 papers in core journals at home and abroad such as Management World and The Quarterly Journal of Economics, more than 50 monographs and textbooks, and achieved more than 30 awards of Philosophy and Social Science of Liaoning Province; In terms of social services, there are more than 10 provincial and municipal think-tank bases such as the Liaoning Modern Service Industry Development Research Base, and the proposals of the senior administration have been approved by central and provincial and ministerial leaders for many times.

The Department of Economics is committed to building a first-class economic discipline with Chinese characteristics and inter-discipline of arts, science and engineering, inherits the style of being rigorous, pragmatic, honoring commitment and taking practical actions.