Admission is limited to students whose undergraduate record shows a genuine capacity for advanced work in the field of economics.  An economics major is not a prerequisite, but some previous training in economics is essential (the intermediate level micro- and macroeconomic theory courses are the most important). Training in calculus, linear algebra, and probability and statistics is also essential and grades received in these courses are important factors in the admission decision. When appraising an applicant's scholarly promise, however, the faculty looks not merely at the academic record but also at letters of recommendation, the applicant's statement of purpose and the results of the Graduate Record Examination. Successful applicants will demonstrate strength in all areas of the application process.

The student can best prepare for graduate work in economics by completing a broadly-based undergraduate program that includes liberal arts, mathematics, and the natural and social sciences, rather than simply accumulating credits in a large number of economics courses. In particular, prior work in advanced mathematics (especially calculus, linear algebra, and mathematical statistics) can dramatically ease the student's progress during the first year and eliminate some required courses. Because modern economics is highly quantitative, students without sufficient mathematical preparation often have great difficulty completing the program.

Course Requirements

In addition to the general requirements of the Graduate School, students are expected to meet various departmental requirements. These are always under review and subject to revision. The following paragraphs summarize the present requirements.

The First Year

A student's first year in the program is devoted to the core curriculum. A full course load is:

Fall Term                                              Winter Term

Econ 600 (mathematics)                   Econ 603/604 (micro theory)

Econ 601/602 (micro theory)            Econ 605 (macro theory)

Econ 671 (statistics)                          Econ 672 (econometrics)

Those who are well prepared in mathematics or statistics may satisfy some or all of the math and statistics requirements by passing equivalency exams. Students with previous graduate training or those with a strong interest in macroeconomics may start the macroeconomics sequence with Economics 607 in the fall of the first year.

Preliminary exams are given in May and September in microeconomics and in January and May in macroeconomics. The deadlines for passing each preliminary examination are provided in the Rules and Regulations. An additional summer is allowed to pass the second exam. In addition, students who do not place out of the math and statistics courses must receive at least a B- in each of these courses.

The Second Year

During the second year, since most students are graduate student instructors, the normal course load is three courses. Most students complete the macroeconomics core (Economics 607) and begin their field coursework. All students must complete two field sequences and pass the field exam in each of those fields. The current list of available fields includes:

Additional fields can be arranged on a case-by-case basis. Students must pass preliminary examinations in their two major fields. These exams are normally taken in May of a student's second year or in September of a student's third year. Both exams must be passed by May of the fourth year.

In addition to completing two fields, each student must also fulfill a six-credit-hour Advanced Methods Requirement. This requirement is intended to insure that students are well versed in the particular research techniques that they will use in writing their dissertations. The requirement can be fulfilled from the following courses: Economics 675, 676, 677, 678, 679, 617, 619/620, 609/610. Finally, students are required to take two "cognate" courses, which are any courses (approved for graduate credit) in another department of the University. A wide variety of courses can be used to satisfy this requirement. Economics 671 counts as a cognate, satisfying one of the two courses required.

The end of the second year or the middle of the third year would normally complete the Advanced Methods Requirement and the cognate requirement, depending on a student's previous course load. Courses used to satisfy these requirements must be passed with grades of B- or better.

There is no general foreign language requirement for graduate students in economics. However, on occasion a student's research topic requires knowledge of another language. In these cases, language courses can be used to satisfy the cognate requirement.

Candidacy

A student reaches candidacy upon completing all the required coursework and passing the preliminary examinations in Microeconomic and Macroeconomic Theory and one field exam. (The second field exam must be passed by the end of the fourth year but is not required for candidacy.) At this point the student is ready to concentrate on economic research for the dissertation.

To help students make the transition from course work to research, the Department requires that students complete a research paper of “publishable” quality during the third year under the supervision of an appointed faculty member. This paper normally starts out as a paper written for a second-year course, and is then revised and strengthened with the help of the faculty member. Third-year students meet regularly in a seminar with one or two faculty supervisors to discuss research technique and to present results of their own research. In addition, students are expected (and after the third year are required) to attend and take an active part in the advanced seminar in the appropriate special field.

Before receiving a Ph.D., each student is required to complete a significant research project in order to satisfy the thesis requirement. Through writing a thesis, the student develops the capacity to conceive and formulate a research topic, to bring knowledge and techniques from the relevant fields to bear upon it, and to develop conclusions which advance scholarly understanding. Work on the dissertation also lays the foundation for the student's own future research and professional publications. In most cases, the thesis will grow out of the third-year paper.

Each student will be helped on the thesis by a research advisor, and eventually by a committee of at least four faculty members. Part way along, each student will meet formally with his/her entire thesis committee for a "proposal defense." The objective of the proposal defense is to provide detailed feedback on the research already completed and careful advice on the proposed projects yet to be undertaken. When the dissertation is complete the student defends it in an oral examination before the dissertation committee.

Teaching and Research Assistantships

Given the value of teaching and research in a student's training, the Department recommends the equivalent of one year of experience in a teaching or research assistant position. In order to insure that teaching and research assistant positions do not prohibit the student from making satisfactory progress on their dissertation research, the University also allows any one student to receive College of LS&A-funded teaching or research assistant positions for no more than ten semesters.

Most of the available graduate student instructor (GSI) positions are in the introductory courses on principles of micro- and macroeconomics.  They involve three hours in class per week in addition to attendance at the three hours of lecture by the faculty in charge of the course. The class time is spent answering questions about the more difficult points covered by the faculty in lecture that week and going over problem sets. In some cases a small amount of new material may also be delegated to the GSI to present in these classes. There are also a few GSI positions available in the upper-level undergraduate and core graduate courses. A few spring/summer GSI positions are also available.

The Department also normally finances Summer Research Apprenticeships for students following their first and second year in the program. These positions provide students substantial research experience early in their program and help them establish a close working relationship with some faculty member. Individual faculty members finance other research assistant positions, as do various research organizations on campus including the Institute for Social Research, the Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics, and the Office of Tax Policy Research.

Financial Support

The Department provides several types of financial aid to its Ph.D. students. Entering students are automatically considered for financial aid unless they indicate they have support from elsewhere. All aid decisions are based solely on academic merit.

Graduate student instructor (GSI) positions:   All continuing students making satisfactory progress should usually be able to obtain a GSI position. All students are required to take the Department's GSI training course before becoming a GSI for the first time. In addition, all international students must demonstrate proficiency in the English language in an oral examination, and must successfully complete a separate three-week course in teaching techniques in a U.S. academic setting offered each May and August, to qualify for a GSI position.   In practice, this means that first-year international students are almost never offered GSI positions unless they are already in the United Statesand have spent significant time at an English-speaking institution.  Graduate student instructor positions entitle the student to a tuition waiver, and a salary that depends on the time commitment required for the position. During 2002-03, a GSI position in the principles course required seventeen hours per week and paid a salary of $6,785 per semester, plus health insurance.

Fellowships:  Entering students with a strong undergraduate grade point average and high GRE scores are eligible for the University's Regents Fellowship. This fellowship provides a tuition waiver and a generous stipend for the first year of the student's graduate program, plus a guarantee of a graduate student instructor position during the following three years, subject to the usual stipulation that the student be making satisfactory progress towards the degree.

In addition, there are a variety of other fellowships available from the Department and the University. Qualified minority students are eligible for generous support. A number of fellowships exist for students interested in area studies (Chinese, Russian and East European, Near Eastern and North African, South and Southeast Asian studies). To be eligible for these fellowships, a separate application must be submitted to the relevant Area Center before February 1 for the coming academic year. Please check the web site at http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/iisite/fundops.html#flas. Information and application forms also may be obtained by writing to the appropriate Area Center at the School of Social Work Building, University of Michigan.  Students expressing an interest in demography may be eligible for multi-year traineeships offered through the Population Studies Center.

A new fellowship program supported by the National Science Foundation provides substantial funding for students interested in the social and technical aspects of electronic transactions, including e-commerce. The STIET (Socio-Technical Infrastructure for Electronic Transactions) Multidisciplinary Doctoral Fellowship Program brings together doctoral students from the Department of Economics, the School of Information, the School of Business Administration, and the College of Engineering to create a strong cross-school community of scholars at Michigan who are addressing issues related to electronic transactions. The fellowships provide tuition plus a stipend for the first two years of graduate study, a faculty research mentor, a weekly research seminar and semi-annual workshops, and multidisciplinary coursework. For more information, see http://stiet.si.umich.edu/ or call (734) 615-7210.

Each year about half a dozen of our students who have reached candidacy receive University fellowships, allowing them to work full time on their dissertation. The Robert V. Roosa Dissertation Fellowship in Monetary Economics and the Fred M. Taylor Fellowship in Economic Theory are two award programs for advanced students administered directly by the doctoral program.

Of course, financial aid is also available outside the University, including the National Science Foundation, Resources for the Future, the Sage Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and other sources.

Loans:  Loan funds may be available through the University to aid students who are otherwise unable to continue their graduate work. For information, contact the Office of Financial Aid, Student Activities Building, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,MI 48109 or review their web site at http://www.finaid.umich.edu/.

Prizes: The John E. Parker Prize (currently $500) is awarded for an outstanding written contribution in the area of labor economics or human resources. The Moore Dissertation Research Prize (currently $1,000) is awarded to support dissertation research in the area of applied microeconomics. These prizes are usually awarded annually.

Professional Placement

The Department actively assists its graduating doctoral students to obtain professional positions with universities and colleges, research institutions, government and international agencies, and business firms. This assistance is provided routinely by those faculty members who have worked most closely with the students, as well as by a single faculty member who, as Placement Officer of the Department, assists all doctoral students seeking jobs. Administrative costs of placement assistance are covered in part by a charge to those using the service. The demand for well-trained graduates in economics continues to be strong in the private and government sectors. About 60% of our graduates end up in academic positions. In recent years, our academic placements have included assistant professorships at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Chicago, and many other leading universities and colleges. Most of the rest find attractive jobs in international organizations, the government sector, consulting firms, or occasionally elsewhere in the private sector. Unlike graduates of many traditional Ph.D. disciplines, trained graduate economists continue to be in relatively high demand.

The placement of doctoral students over the past five years (1998-2003) is summarized below:

Type of Institution                                                            Number

Research universities                                                          32

Liberal arts colleges                                                               9

Government and nonprofit organizations                          15

Private industry and consulting firms                                   3

Post-docs                                                                                  1

Expenses

For 2002-03 tuition was $6,099 per term for Michigan residents and $12,259 for non-residents. See the Regulations of Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies for more information regarding fees, as well as a description of the rules concerning residency. After the doctoral student completes all necessary coursework and examinations and is advanced to candidacy, tuition is reduced to $3,981 per term (2001-02 rates) for both residents and non-residents. Living costs are comparable to those at other ranking universities. A variety of university and other housing is available to single and married students.

International Students

The Department welcomes applications from talented, fully prepared international students. Applicants whose native language is not English are required to take the TOEFL in their country as part of the process of admission.  Rackham Graduate School supplies information regarding the arrangements for taking the test.  Fluency in English is essential to success in the graduate program. Applicants will be admitted to the Graduate School only if their scores in the test are above 600 (paper score) or 250 (computer-based).

Because of this need for demonstrated fluency in English, the few international students to whom we are able to offer financial aid in their first year are ones who have already lived in the United States for a year or more, usually enrolled in a bachelor's or master's degree program at a U.S. college or university. Courses on English as a foreign language are available on campus for students who do need minimal further training in English.

International applicants face a special difficulty in gaining admission in that members of the Department are rarely well-qualified to judge the academic credentials of students from foreign universities.  Accordingly, applicants from universities outside the United States are reminded of the necessity of taking, through a U.S. embassy or consulate, the Graduate Record Examination (of verbal, mathematical, and analytical achievement) offered by the Educational Testing Service. Further, it is particularly useful to include information about rank in class and to have letters of recommendation written by professors who understand U.S. graduate schools and their requirements.

All international students who come to the University of Michigan on student visas must certify sufficient funds to support themselves and their dependents, if any, while here.  The International Admissions Office of the Graduate School will provide each international applicant with a precise statement of the amount of support that must be certified. In 2003, that amount was $40,884 without any dependents.

International students wanting to study in the United States have at times been able to secure financial aid through programs administered by the Office of Cultural Affairs of the American Embassy. Students who want more information should contact that office, stating their need for financial assistance.