Joint Ph.D. Program in Financial Economics
The joint Ph.D. program in Financial Economics was established in the 2006-07 academic year and is run jointly by the Department of Economics in the Division of the Social Sciences and by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (formerly the GSB).
The aim of this program is to exploit the strengths of both sponsors in training Ph.D. students interested in financial economics. Core economics training is valuable for students seeking to do research in financial economics, and advances in financial economics have important spillovers to other areas of economics. It has long been a tradition in the Department of Economics to feature core economics training for their Ph.D. students, and the Booth School has a well recognized excellence in finance. Students in the joint program benefit from broad sets of instructors and classmates in both the Economics Department and the Booth School. They also hold an official status and are able to utilize resources in both Economics and the Booth School.
Upon completion of this program, students will be awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Economics and Finance jointly from the Division of the Social Sciences and the Booth School.
News and Events
UPCOMING: The Becker Friedman Institute will host a graduate student workshop with MIT on Development and Finance on May 20, 2013, co-organized by Lars Hansen and Robert Townsend.
Rui Cui received the Best Paper award (1st Prize) for "Durable Matters? An Alternative Measure of Consumption Risk," presented December 2012 at the PhD forum of the 25th Australasian Banking and Finance Conference in Sydney.
Aaron Pancost earned the 2012 Martin and Margaret Lee Prize for top score on the Quantitative Methods Core Exam, and Yeguang (Shaq) Chi earned the 2012 Martin and Margaret Lee Prize for top score on the Macroeconomics Core Exam.
Diogo Palhares and Serhiy Kozak were awarded Stevanovich Student Fellowships in Quantitative Finance in 2012.
Nina Boyarchenko was awarded 1st Prize on December 3, 2010 in the Morgan Stanley First Annual Prize for Excellence in Financial Markets for her paper entitled "Ambiguity Shifts and the 2007 Financial Crisis."
Jaroslav Borovička received the Best Paper Award for "Heterogeneous beliefs under recursive preferences," presented at the Trans-Atlantic Doctoral Conference, May 14-16, 2009 at the London Business School.
May 4-8, 2009 - Visit from distinguished professor Xavier Gabaix of the NYU Stern School of Business.
April 16, 2009 - The joint Ph.D. program in Financial Economics hosts the Chicago-Minnesota Graduate Student Conference (Booth School, Room C25). Details are available at the conference web page. Papers presented include:
- Jaroslav Borovička, "Heterogeneous beliefs under recursive preferences"
- Nina Boyarchenko, "Ambiguity, Information Quality and Credit Risk"
- V.V. Chari, Ali Shourideh, Ariel Zetlin-Jones (presented by Ali Shourideh, Minnesota) "Moral Hazard, Reputation, and Fragility in Credit Markets"
- Kenichi Fukushima, Yuichiro Waki (presented by Kenichi Fukushima, Minnesota) "Computing dynamic optimal mechanisms when private shocks are persistent"
- Alan Moreira, "Private business income: Welfare costs of under diversification and the role of borrowing constraints"
- Ctirad Slavik, Kevin Wiseman (presented by Kevin Wiseman, Minnesota) "Tough love for lazy kids"
Graduating Joint Ph.D. Program Students and Alumni
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Jaroslav Borovička(Assistant Professor at the New York University) |
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Alan Moreira(Associate Professor of Finance at Yale School of Management) |
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Nina Boyarchenko(Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York) |
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Valentin Haddad(Instructor of Economics at Princeton University) |
Current Joint Ph.D. Program Students
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Mark Hendricks(5th Year) |
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Diogo Palhares(5th Year) |
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Serhiy Kozak(5th Year) |
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Rui Cui(5th Year) |
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Maryam Farboodi(4th Year) |
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Brian Weller(4th Year) |
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Avihai (Avi) Rapaport(4th Year) |
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Rasool Zandvakil(4th Year) |
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Yoshio Nozawa(4thYear) |
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Yeguang Chi(3rd Year) |
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Chattrin Laksanabunsong(3rd Year) |
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Antonio Picca(3rd Year) |
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Yunzhi Hu(2nd Year) |
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Aaron Pancost(2nd Year) |
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Hyun Soo Doh(1st Year)
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Paymon Khorrami(1st Year)
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Weiting (Tony) Zhang(1st Year) |
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Willem Van Vliet(1st Year) |
Program Elements
Students must satisfy the requirements for the Ph.D. degree in both programs. This is viable because of the considerable overlap in what the two programs expect of their students.
In the first year students will take:
- Economics 30100, 30200 and 30300 - Price Theory (microeconomics)
- Economics 31000, 31100, and 31200 - Empirical Methods (econometrics)
- Economics 33000, 33100 and 33200 - Theory of Income (macroeconomics)
In their second year they will complete courses in two fields in accordance with requirements from the Economics Department. At the same time the students will satisfy the dissertation area requirements of the Booth School.
As an example, a student in their second year could satisfy the course requirements by taking:
- Business 35901, 35902, 35903 - Theory of Financial Decisions I-II-III
This is a required sequence in the Booth School. It will be recognized as a separate field by the Economics department.
- Three courses in asset pricing and macroeconomics, jointly staffed by the Economics Department and the Booth School. This sequence will simultaneously satisfy a field requirement for the economics department and finance area requirements for the Booth School. For example:
- Business 35904 - Economics 39100 - Asset Pricing
- Business 35905 - Economics 39200 - Topics in Asset Pricing
- Business 35910 - Economics 39500 - Asset Pricing and Macroeconomics
- Three other classes in economics and business to satisfy additional distributional requirements of the Economics Department and the Booth School. There is a wide range of appropriate course offerings both at the Booth School and the Economics department.
In their remaining years, students will satisfy any additional distributional requirements from the Department of Economics and the second year paper required by both the Department of Economics and the Booth School. To facilitate guidance in choosing a dissertation topic and pursuing research, third year students will attend a student workshop or reading group in which student presentations will be made of recent papers by others or of their of their own projects in early stages of development. The workshop will be run by one or more of the faculty members involved in the joint degree program. Students will propose and defend a single dissertation to the satisfaction of both the Department of Economics and the Booth School. These requirements will adapt to any future changes made by either the Department of Economics or the Booth School.
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Admissions
Admission to the joint program requires admission to both the doctoral program in the Department of Economics and to the doctoral program in the Booth School, but interested parties need only apply to one or the other program. Students may enter the joint program at the beginning of their doctoral studies. Those seeking admission to the joint program should apply online to either the Ph.D. program in the Department of Economics or the Booth School.
Students enrolled in doctoral studies in either the Economics Department or the Booth School may apply to the joint program at any time within their first two years in residence. Such students will still have to meet all of the requirements of both programs.
Enrollment and financial aid throughout a student's matriculation in the joint program will be administered by either the Division of the Social Sciences or the Booth School, as arranged by the two units. This designation will be for administrative purposes only and will not have programmatic implications. If a student's interests change, the Director of the Ph.D. program in the Booth School and the Dean of Students for the Social Sciences will facilitate transfers out of the joint program and into the doctoral program in Economics or Business.
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