Strengths of the PhD Program in economic analysis and policy include theoretical and empirical industrial organization, game theory, information economics, the economics of incentives, and personnel economics.
The PhD Program in economic analysis and policy prepares students for research careers in economics. Students interested in applied economics receive rigorous training in theory and quantitative methods. Those interested in theory receive instruction in economic institutions and empirical analysis.
Students are encouraged to complement their economics courses with courses in mathematics, statistics, game theory, and optimization.
Distinct Advantages
While offering training comparable to, but perhaps more focused than, that received by graduate students in highly ranked economics departments, the Stanford GSB program has distinct advantages:
- First, enrollment in the program is small. This encourages close faculty-student contact and allows students to become involved in research. Students work first as assistants on faculty research projects and, as their interests and skills develop, on their own research. Students often begin their publishing careers before completing their degrees.
- Second, the program is flexible and innovative; students can draw on both the school’s and the university’s distinguished faculty. Students have access to the full range of political and behavioral sciences as well as to economic theory; to accounting and finance as well as to mathematics and statistics; to game theory and decision theory as well as to econometrics; and to public policy analysis as well as to the specialized fields of economics.
- Third, the program is part of a top-ranked professional school. This setting allows students to gain a deeper understanding of the actual processes of business decision-making and public policy formulation.