Economics requires technical understanding, memorization of some math formulas, ability to translate behavior into mathematical concepts or terms, and ability to show how some behavior follows mathematical models or predictions. Some facility with numbers will be useful. At the elementary levels of study, you’ll be looking into individual economic bahaviors (microeconomics) and the behavior of the masses in the past or in theory (macroeconomics). It helps if you find these areas to be interesting. When you’re asked to do research, you can often fall back on concepts and studies done previously, and citations to prior research are expected, despite the fact that you may have new insights or theories.

English can be difficult because, while some research into literature, literary personalities, styles and cultural influences will be required, there will also be required understanding of the psychology of some authors and the ability to explain new ideas, literary movements in a culture, and the impact of literature on YOU. If you express yourself well and understand the nuances of the styles of various authors, and have some grasp of the role of literature in history, you’ll likely enjoy the study of English and do well in it. The hard parts come when you’re required to do original research, because being original is tough for many people.

The primary employment direction and career for persons degreed in economics is research and analysis in the very large and diverse world of finance. A “feel” for how markets behave is highly valued. Number-crunching is usually expected. Some teaching positions will probably be open to you, too.

The primary employment direction for English majors is teaching, UNLESS they are highly creative and become authors of one type or another. Even columnists and writers for hire must employ a fair amount of originality so as to appear fresh to the intended readership. To be self-employed in the writing field is very challenging because of the added burden of finding buyers for your work. Novelists rarely start off making money.

Economics on the other hand deal with a wide range of topics. They deal with a lot of statistics and math. So if you have a passion for Math go for Economics.

Although the two majors are completely different, go for whichever that amuses you more.

It also depends on what you want to do.

If you want to become a teacher, I guess English would be a good major.