A lot of economists who have a phd in in economics, were Engineering, Math and Physics majors as undergrads. To get into a good phd program in Econ, you have to have taken and aced a lot of math classes such as Real Analysis and some very advanced Probability courses. Taking some grad level math classes would probably increase an applicants chance. So yes a lot of economists are really really good at math. And yes a lot of it is used in research.