Finance
The Finance doctoral program provides you with rigorous training in finance, economics, mathematics and statistics. These tools, plus opportunities for supervised independent research, enable you to make your own contributions to the understanding of financial markets and institutions that lead to productive research careers.
The Finance doctoral program trains you to apply empirical methods and theoretical tools to advance our understanding of how financial markets and institutions work, and how they may contribute to economic development.
The program aims to produce scholars who develop rigorous and creative research in finance and economics. You are exposed to a variety of research methods in your coursework, and interact closely with faculty as you develop your own research projects. A distinctive characteristic of our program is its close ties with the Department of Economics, which are fostered by joint seminars, mutual advising of students, and frequent collaboration on research projects. The academic interests of the finance faculty also span a very broad range of topics in finance, from the role of culture and trust in financial markets to the identification of jump risk premiums. The breadth of knowledge and interests of our faculty create an environment that encourages you to conduct advanced research in novel aspects of the field.
Active research areas
Current theoretical and empirical research in Finance spans the areas of asset pricing and corporate finance. Research topics include corporate governance, household financial decisions, macro-finance, financial crises, the pricing of securities in financial markets, international finance, financial history, development economics, market microstructure, regulation, and financial econometrics.
Please note: Applicants to economics-based Ph.D. programs, such as Finance, may opt-in to have their application considered by Weinberg's Economics Ph.D. program. More information about this option is available on The Graduate School website.
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Finance faculty members include scholars who are fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Bureau of Economics Research, and the Society for Financial Econometrics, as well as recipients of the Smith Breeden Prize from the American Finance Association and other top paper awards. Several faculty serve/served in editorial positions at leading journals, such as the Journal of Finance, Journal of Monetary Economics, and Econometrica, and as directors of the American Finance Association and past-presidents of the Western Finance Association. Recent publications within top economics and finance journals include American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Journal of Political Economy.
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Coursework
In years one and two, you take three or four courses each quarter (fall, winter, spring). The first year you complete the three core sequences in Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Econometrics. In year two, students enroll in the three-course sequences in asset pricing and corporate finance, plus an additional course/elective — preferably from the Economics Department. Students must maintain a minimum 3.0 grade point average (GPA).
Qualifying exam
At the end of year one, you are required to establish competence in the Economics course sequences: Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Econometrics. This competence is satisfied by achieving a 3.0 grade point average (GPA) across the nine required courses in the sequence.
During the summer following your second year of study, you must pass a comprehensive qualifying exam designed to measure competence in both asset pricing and corporate finance or you must demonstrate competence by maintaining a 3.6 GPA average across both course sequences.
Candidacy
As you transition from coursework to research, you are required to write an original research paper in the summer of your second year supervised by a faculty advisor. You present your completed research project to the department in September following the summer quarter of their second year. At that time your performance is reviewed by the Finance faculty, and upon successfully completing their coursework, passing your qualifying exam and second-year paper, you are admitted to candidacy.
Fourth-year paper
At the end of the fall quarter of the fourth year, you are required to pass the dissertation proposal requirement by presenting a completed research paper to the department. The research paper has to be sufficiently advanced to be part of your dissertation. If you do not pass the dissertation proposal at that stage you have an additional opportunity to do so by the end of the spring quarter of your fourth year.
Research, proposal and dissertation
The main activity in years three and four is research toward a thesis of publishable quality, under the direction of one or more faculty advisors. During the third year, you are required to present their work in progress to the department. A thesis proposal must be presented to the Finance faculty by the end of fall quarter of your fourth year. In your final year in the program, you must complete a dissertation demonstrating original and significant research and must pass a final oral examination (“defense”) on the dissertation.
Teaching requirement
To promote engagement with faculty and integration with the intellectual life of the department, students serve as research assistants and teaching assistants during years two, three, and four. Research assistantships (RAs) are an excellent lead-in to research; teaching assistantships (TAs) prepare you for teaching after obtaining your Ph.D.
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We seek students with strong training in mathematics and statistics and a solid background in economics, either through prior study or through work and research experience. Recommended coursework at an advanced level includes calculus, linear algebra, optimization, probability and statistics. Although a master’s degree is not required, about half of our incoming class has a graduate degree. Prior research experience is not required.