Field/Elective Requirements

General Requirements for All Ph.D. Students:

• seven elective courses required in order to advance to candidacy
• all seven courses must be taken for a letter grade (A, B, C...)
• cumulative GPA of 3.5 or better must be earned in these seven courses
• students must elect two fields of economics for advanced study
• each field requires completion of two to three graduate courses
• one elective counts towards one field requirement, duplicate credit is not granted
• students to complete all seven of these courses by end of their third year
• students should strive to complete their field requirements in second year

Students may enroll in independent study or relevant courses from other departments. However, in general these courses cannot be counted among the seven electives.

Exceptions: Students may apply one graduate course from another department toward the elective requirement. This course must be reviewed and approved by student's advisor and the Vice Chair of Graduate Studies PRIOR to enrolling in the course.

Some electives are not offered every year. If it becomes apparent to a student at the start of the third year that a course required for a field requirement will not be offered during the second or third years of their enrollment in the program, they should immediately consult with professors in the given field. In some cases, the course(s) will be available during the fourth year of study. In other cases, no such assurance will be given and the student must then select an alternative graduate course or courses. If this occurs, the student should petition the department’s Vice Chair of Graduate Studies to include the alternative course(s) as a replacement for the elective requirement(s) that the department was not able to offer. Below is a list of the graduate fields and the courses that must be completed to fulfill each field requirement:

*Multiple, distinct versions of ECON 201, 221, 267 & 281 can be counted towards the requirement upon approval of the Department’s Vice Chair of Graduate Studies and the relevant instructors.
**This GPS course has a heavy focus on developing countries and Economics Ph.D. students will be required to write a term paper.