Ph.D. Program Guidelines

Focus

The field of finance studies the pricing of capital assets and the financial decisions of individuals and firms. Generally speaking, the field devotes most, but not all, of its attention to two main subfields: asset pricing and corporate finance. The research in asset pricing revolves around the role and impact of risk, information, liquidity, taxes, individual biases, and macroeconomic factors on the behavior of security prices and the cost of capital. Corporate finance, on the other hand, is mainly preoccupied by the sources of firm value and by the effect that firms' decisions regarding their investment policy, dividend policy, capital structure, and organizational structure have on this value.

The Ph.D. program in finance is designed to provide students with not only a formal methodology for studying these topics, but also an analytical framework that enables them to assimilate and structure the vast quantity of existing research about these topics. For this purpose, the training that students go through in the Ph.D. program is not limited to finance. In particular, analytical techniques from economics, statistics, mathematics, accounting and various other fields are incorporated into the program in order to further enhance the students' skills and solidify their understanding of the role that finance plays in a more general context. The training that students receive in the Ph.D. program is designed for one main purpose: to equip them for a successful academic career at other major business schools and economics departments. Students completing the finance program receive a Ph.D. in business administration.

While going through the program's requirements, students develop

• a thorough understanding of modern theory, which is based on the rigor attainable through the use of mathematical modeling techniques;
• a solid foundation for modern empirical research, which uses advanced econometric tools and statistical methods;
• the ability to pose new research questions, to analyze them rigorously and comprehensively, and to present their results in a sophisticated and lucid way;
• the ability to coherently explain and present the product of their research and to participate and contribute to seminar and workshop discussions in which related ideas are debated and evaluated.

At the Fuqua School of Business, students are encouraged and given the opportunity to collaborate on research with faculty at an early stage. Also, the finance faculty's wide spectrum of research interests gives students the flexibility to explore a large number of subjects, depending on their own interests. For example, students can choose a theoretical or an empirical approach, they can study local or international markets, and they can study individual investors, firms or financial intermediaries, like banks and money managers. In short, the breadth of the faculty and the program in general allow motivated and curious students to cultivate just about any research interests they may have.

Requirements and Qualifications

Because finance and economics are closely related fields, the recommended course sequence in the finance Ph.D. program includes several courses from the economics department. In particular, students are required to take some courses from the core sequence in the Ph.D. program in economics, including the microeconomics and econometrics sequences. In addition, they must take four finance core courses in asset pricing, corporate finance, finance theory and empirical methods in finance, all taught at the business school. Students are also strongly encouraged to take a number of finance seminars in which they can present and discuss research papers on a variety of topics. Finally, students are given the opportunity to take the elective courses of their choice. Although there are very few constraints on these elective courses, students typically opt for courses in economics, mathematics, statistics, decision sciences, accounting and finance.

Students are required to pass a qualifying exam in microeconomics at the end of their first year in the program, as well as a qualifying exam in finance at the end of their second year. The qualifying exam serves as the signal that students are ready to concentrate on producing their own research. To facilitate this transition to research, students must also write original papers of their own during the summer of their first two years in the program. These summer papers are an essential part of the program as they often lead to a dissertation topic and, in some cases, to publishable work.

Typical course schedule

Fall of First Year
Economics 301: Microeconomics I
Economics 341: Econometrics I
BA 551: Empirical Asset Pricing

Spring of First Year
BA 552: Empirical Corporate Finance
BA 553: Theoretical Asset Pricing
Economics 302: Microeconomics II; or Economics 342: Econometrics II

Fall of Second Year
Economics 322: Macroeconomics II
Finance seminar
Two elective courses, in finance or other fields

Spring of Second Year
BA 554: Theoretical Corporate Finance
Finance seminar
Two elective courses, in finance or other fields

Possible Elective Courses
Electives can be taken from Fuqua or from other departments at the University, including mathematics, economics, statistics, decision science and accounting. Examples of elective courses include Time Series, Simulation Modeling, Applied Microeconomics, Game Theory, Financial Econometrics, Non-Linear Statistical Models, Bayesian Inferences and Decisions, Computational Finance, Stochastic Modeling, and Accounting seminars.

Faculty

The faculty prides itself by the wide range of research topics that its members study and the volume of published work that they generate. At the same time, the faculty strives to produce research of the highest possible quality, making sure that this research is not only respected by other academic researchers, but also of interest to practitioners and policy makers. The knowledge produced by this research is communicated both through scientific journal publications, and through the development of relevant and rigorous MBA and Executive Education programs. The faculty also trains and mentors future finance scholars through the Ph.D. program, which is regarded as one of the top finance doctoral programs in the world.

The finance faculty at Fuqua is among the best faculties worldwide. It ranked sixth in the world in citations per faculty among all finance departments (Robinson and Adler, 2003), and it ranks third among all finance departments in best-paper awards from the top three academic journals in finance since the year 2000.

During their stay in the Ph.D. program in finance at Fuqua, students are encouraged to share their ideas with the faculty and to collaborate in various research projects. These collaborations not only enrich the students' progression through the program but, oftentimes, they also lead to fruitful long-term co-authorships.