The PhD in Economics What? In the UK: Typically a 3 year registration period requiring an MSc in economics or similar. Actual completion time generally 4 years. A minority of UK economics departments moving to a 5 year programme: LSE, Warwick. Production of thesis: typically 3 chapters, upper word limit 50,000-80,000 words. Expectation that it should contain the equivalent of two potentially publishable papers in refereed journals. Coursework element: two parts: (i) generic skills training (eg research methods, generic skills); (ii) a variable amount of assessed subject specific coursework. At York 20 credits in 1 st year of PhD,10 credits in second year Paid teaching activity: variable arrangements in different universities, training for teaching In the US: Can enter with a BSc. Usually at least two years of fulltime assessed course work. Then the thesis. Average completion time probably longer than in UK. Also often thesis a bit shorter in length. Paid teaching activity.
Where? How to choose a university: Expertise in your subject field Critical mass and experience of PhD students-a Graduate School A supervisor you think you want to work with (specialist knowledge, experience of supervision, attitude to supervision) Funding available? Coursework requirements When? Generally universities do not have strict quotas on PhD admissions. The limit really is supervision capacity. But typically funding/scholarships will get allocated late spring (April- June)depending on the scheme and university. If you are applying for a scholarship usually you will have to do so by about January, and for that usually you will have to know what you want to do ie be able to write a research proposal-see below
How? Application/Admission You have chosen the university. Critical factors in their admission decision are: (1) Do you have the ability, skills and background to do what you propose? (2) Is your topic generically feasible? Eg data available, a problem that is conceptually soluble. (3) Does the department have the right supervision capacity for your topic? Critical evidence is your transcripts and your research proposal. The research proposal (500-1000 words) - State the problem area as precisely as possible - Try to find clear points of departure in the literature, say 3 recent published papers - If data is involved try to be clear about what data and where to get it - Try to be clear about the methods you plan to use, also about what you conjecture the results will be - Have 3 precise questions you want to investigate in each of 3 chapters
Doing the Thesis Usually you will have a supervisor and a committee of an additional two academics. The supervisor has the key responsibility for guiding the workpointing out possible directions, checking your work for errors, suggesting things when you get stuck. The committee is usually more for overall direction and strategy. Most UK universities have an upgrading process. You start with a target of producing some evidence of progress by the end of the first year or so. Progression depends on a discussion of this, successful completion of any training. To do research (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) Have a clear problem, you know what you want to do and to some extent why If theory either you can start from an existing result and try to generalise it-a kind of abstract approach or apply it to a different problem/area where the latter is really the problem you are interested in. Or if there is no related existing result often good to start with an example either with pen and paper or with eg matlab or maple If data driven then first job is to ensure you understand the data. Think about definition of the variables-anything odd? Do they measure what you want? Scan the numbers for outliers, missing observations. Plot the data in a suitable form. Do means and correlations of the variables. Does the data have uniform behaviour in subsamples or does it jump. Then think about how you want to use the data in your scientific work eg estimate some parameters or test some hypothesis. Presenting your work verbally to others is a very good way to check you understand it, to check if there are conceptual or other weaknesses in it.