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Financial Economics
The Financial Economics PhD program is a joint degree offered through the Finance Department at the Kellogg School of Management and the Economics Department at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.
Students within Financial Economics will have access to a broad array of faculty across a variety of disciplines within economics, tapping into the interdisciplinary strengths found within our Finance-Economics curriculum. Additionally, this program benefits by location – our Economics department, PhD students, and research faculty are conveniently located within our new building, the Global Hub, just one floor down from the Finance department.
Some of the most active areas of current research are at the intersection of economics and finance. The aim of the Financial Economics program is to leverage the close ties and common research interests of the Economics Department and the Finance Department at Northwestern to train PhD students interested in these interdisciplinary areas. Students are required to do coursework in multiple fields in economics and finance, and are exposed to the most up-to-date models and methods in these fields. Faculty members from both departments supervise students as they develop their own research projects. PhD students also benefit from close collaborations with students in both departments, and participate in weekly seminar series that draw faculty and PhD students together for scholarly discussions across common research areas, including finance, macroeconomics, industrial organization, development economics, economic theory, and more. The program aims to produce scholars who can be successful in both economics and finance departments.
Active Research Areas: The study of finance aligns with numerous areas within economics: macroeconomics, public finance, econometrics, household finance, economic development and economic history. This is why broad training in economics is essential for those who wish to do innovative work that straddles both finance and economics. Some examples include the financing and investment decisions of firms, households and governments; the interplay between asset prices, capital markets and the macro-economy; and the role and limitations of financial institutions in facilitating access to credit.