I’m looking at either going to an economics, business, or finance PhD program. Right now I am an economics undergraduate. I want to be a professor. Which PhD (econ, business, or finance) will give me the most flexibility when completing for professor positions down the road? If I decide not to become a professor (or if the professor market just isn’t the best at the time), which PhD translates best to the non-academic world of business/banking?
I didn’t know banks were looking for PhDs. I don’t think they would care if a person had a PhD in Financial Economics or Business Finance etc. However, I could be wrong.
I would think, most of the work at banks can be done by people with Masters degrees in Finance, Economics, Statistics etc if not a bachelors and CFA, CPA and an MBA.
Economics probably offers the most flexibility within academia; any of the three will give you great non-academic options as long as you beef up your math skills (although econ and finance probably slightly edge out a straight business/management degree).
If you take a look at schools of business - even the top ones - you’ll see that they often have people with PhDs in economics and other social sciences teaching there when they studied/researched relevant things in grad school. So if you got a PhD in economics from a university with an AASCB-accredited school of business (regardless of whether you actually studied in the business school/department or not), you’d be eligible to teach at an AASCB-accredited business school. Now, it may be easier to get into a school if business with a business or finance PhD - I don’t actually know - but I do know it’s possible to teach at a business school with a PhD in economics. Conversely, though, doing the opposite - teaching in a department of economics with a business or finance PhD - may be very difficult to impossible. Check out some top departments of economics and you won’t see too many people with PhDs in fields other than economics teaching there.
Economics is one of the social science fields that’s not completely locked up in terms of the academic job market, because there are options for economists outside of academia (something that’s less true for, san and I hear there’s actually a shortage of business professors, particularly in accounting and finance. So that’s a good area to choose.
I don’t know if banks specifically look for PhDs or not, but I do know that they often hire quantitative PhDs (finance, economics, but also math, statistics, computer science, sometimes physics) to work as “quants” for them. It’s a pretty common route for quantitative PhDs who leave academia. It’s also very lucrative - they make a lot of money. Definitely over $100K total compensation - probably closer to $150K to start out with, maybe more (although quite a bit of that will be in bonuses and other compensation besides base).
I would think Economics would have a greater breadth of employment opportunities, but Finance might have more specialized opportunities. A couple of things about PHD programs.
1 - They are much math intensive than undergrad, even in fields that typically use little math. If you are not comfortable with high level statistics, you will not succeed as a publisher or an academic.
2 - Placement is heavily dependent on the prestige of your graduate school and publishing history. For example, Chicago grads end up teaching at Duke, Duke grads end up teaching at Florida, Florida grads end up teaching at Florida State, Florida State Grads end up teaching at Florida Gulf Coast, and FGCU grads end up teaching at community colleges. Know where your schools sits in the pecking order and comfortable about it when you start, as is it is difficult and can take years to move up beyond the level of your PHD school.
3 - If you are a white male, you will be at a disadvantage in the PHD game, as preference is given to underrepresented minorities and women. ORM’s are at a significant disadvantage, and foreign nationals have little decent employment chances in the US.
A PhD in Finance can be from the department of Economics or a Business school. It is not just a business school degree. Its like a Computer Engineer can be from a Department of Electrical Engineering or Computer Science.
I figured that economics would be the most flexible. They are all very similar, but finance and business are specializations that can be limiting in academia. The other area I could potentially teach with an economics PhD is in public policy schools.
I thank everyone for their input. I think I will continue down my path and shoot for an economics PhD. I go to New College of Florida, and my school does a very good job of placing students in prestigious PhD programs (Duke, NYU, Berkeley, and a few others love us and admit several students every year to their PhD programs).
Would there be a major difference in earning my economics PhD from the economics department versus the business school? If I go to, say, UPenn and go through Wharton to get my economics PhD (rather than the general econ department at UPenn), will I be dealing with ONLY Wharton students/professors, or is that slightly fungible?
Which year of undergrad are you in? Which courses in economics have you taken? Which courses in math and statistics have you taken? Which ones did you like? Which ones did you earn As in? I think, answers to these type of questions can help you decide which PhD to pursue and where.
I’m a first-year undergrad. I’m currently enrolled in intro to microeconomics, intro to macroeconomics, behavioral economics, intro to statistics, and a political science class. I’m currently doing quite well in all of my classes (my school is pass/fail), and behavioral economics is my favorite class; micro is a close second.
Another question: is the academia market still solid? I’ve been reading a lot about adjunct positions taking over, but if I go to, say, Duke for a PhD, is that really my fate?
The academic market as a whole is terrible. The social sciences aren’t hit as badly as the humanities, but it’s not good, either: there are far more people who want tenure-track jobs than there are jobs. Most people who want one in the social sciences won’t get one.
However, from what I’ve heard, the scene is a bit different in economics precisely because there are lucrative opportunities for economists outside of the academy, something that’s not necessarily true in (say) anthropology and sociology in the same way. So you don’t have to end up as an adjunct if you don’t want to: even if you can’t land an academic job, you can always go into industry and find well-paid work.* Also, graduates from top-tier programs do tend to fare better in the academic market for various reasons: academia is a very prestige-focused field. It doesn’t guarantee you a job, but it does increase your prospects a lot.
You’d want to ask an economist about the difference between getting your PhD from an econ department vs. a business department - and since you’re a freshman, it might be practical to wait until the beginning of your junior year when you have a better sense of your interests and where you might want to go. However, PhD programs usually grant a significant amount of flexibility, so students rarely only have to work with people in their own departments or even their own schools.
And this
Is simply untrue. It doesn’t work like undergrad; being a member of an underrepresented minority group can be a cherry on top for admission (and a qualifying factor for a few fellowships) but overall won’t mean much in terms of your admission. Out of the 1,271 PhDs in economics awarded in 2012, 72% of them were awarded to white and Asian students, and 67% were awarded to men.
*It’s also my opinion that us young PhDs shouldn’t take adjunct work except for its original intent - teaching a class or two here and there while working as a full-time professional - because doing so only perpetuates the problem. But that’s just my opinion.
It seems to me, getting into a PhD program in Economics requires one to first do well in Calc, linear algebra, Statistics, Econometrics, probability and Real Analysis etc as well as score above 160 on the Quant section of the GRE. So focus on doing well on these subjects. Since math classes build on each other you should start taking calculus as soon as possible.
Once you complete most of the above courses with a min A- average you will be able to do well in upper level courses in Economics, participate in some research and earn the type of LORs needed to get into a PhD program.
I think you are making a false distinction between business schools and departments of economics. For example, at Princeton they don’t even have a business school. This doesn’t mean you should stay away from Princeton. At the PhD level, I believe a lot depends on who you do your PhD with (your advisor) and what that professor is known for doing rather than the name of the department or name of a university.
Duke has a highly ranked program in Economics.
I don’t think that’s what OP was trying to ask. I think, rather, he was asking if there WAS a difference in getting a PhD from an economics department vs. a business school, even if the PhD is still in econ. That’s not a false distinction; it’s a valid question. Some fields or departments may care about that.
Also, while it’s true that a lot depends on your advisor, in the social sciences your department and university counts for a lot too. Social scientists don’t really belong to a professor’s lab in quite the same way that scientists do, so a lot more is dependent upon overall departmental quality. Your advisor still matters the most, but your department is going to matter too.
My answer would be, it depends from university to university, there is no general rule on this subject. Some universities such as Princeton don’t even have a Business School. In addition, some people in the field seem to think that some departments of economics are more rigorous than business schools. I am talking about specifically economics here, not social sciences in general.
By the way, I majored in Economics in college and have a son who is considering graduate school in Finance too. So, it is something we are interested in. So any info you can add will be greatly appreciated.
Look at Accounting too - I know that’s one field where there is actually a shortage of PhDs, and a demand for them in colleges.