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American Economic Review Vol. 99 No. 2 2009

Completing an Economics PhD in Five Years

Wendy A. Stock1; T. Aldrich Finegan2; John J. Siegfried3

1 Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics, Montana State University, 306 Linfield Hall, Bozeman, MT 59717. · 2 Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University, 2014 Broadway, Suite 305, Nashville, TN 37203. · 3 Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University; School of Economics, University of Adelaide, South Australia; and American Economic Association, 2014 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37203.

Abstract

Although the median time-to-degree for economics PhDs was near 5.5 years in 2002, and appears to be rising (Stock and Siegfried 2006), some students can and do earn the degree in under five years. Of 586 individuals who began PhD study in economics in 2002, 27 percent had a diploma they could display on their office wall by fall 2007. Many economics PhD programs advertise that it normally takes five years to earn the degree. Some programs encourage completion by limiting financial aid to five years. Students who take more than five years incur high opportunity costs of remaining in school, as their Completing an eConomiCs pHD in Five Years: let tHe Data (literallY) speak For tHemselves †

DOI
10.1257/aer.99.2.624
Volume
99
Issue
2
Pages
624-629
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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