Programme Structure

The Faculty awards about 15 PhD degrees each year to students who have produced high-quality, original, and publishable research over a period of three years. Faculty Members can supervise a broad range of research areas suitable for a PhD thesis.   The basic requirement for admission to the PhD programme is that a student should have performed well in the Faculty’s MPhil programme, or in an equivalent Master’s programme elsewhere.

Students already studying for the MPhil degree at Cambridge may apply to continue to the PhD, and this is dependent on achieving a specified standard in the MPhil examinations. The Faculty prefers students who continue to the PhD to have taken the MPhil Economic Research, but it is also possible to continue to the PhD having taken the MPhil Economics. 

Applications for direct entry to the PhD from candidates with a high-quality Master’s degree in economics from other universities are also welcomed. If an applicant’s previous training is not considered sufficient for direct entry, a PhD candidate may be considered for admission to the MPhil Economic Research degree.  Applicants whose Master’s qualification is not from Cambridge must submit precise details of their Master’s training with their application, including the topics covered and the main required reading.

PhD applicants must submit a statement of their proposed research with his or her application. When preparing this statement please consult the research interests of Faculty members and, if possible, indicate possible supervisors for your PhD research.

PhD students are admitted from the beginning of October in the relevant year.  It is not possible to start the PhD at other times.

The First Year of Research

If accepted for the PhD degree, a student will be registered initially for the Certificate of Postgraduate Study (CPGS) in Economics.

Students registered for the CPGS are required to:

• Attend the 'How to do Economics' lecture course. Other postgraduate courses in research methods are organised by the Schools of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Physical Sciences, and are available to all PhD students.
• Undertake a minimum of four Modules, three Modules of which must be Advanced Modules taken from at least two MPhil Subject areas:
  
  
  • Microeconomics
    • M110 Microeconomics II
    • M120 Topics in Economic Theory
  • Macroeconomics
    • M210 Macroeconomics II
    • M220 Macroeconomics III
  • Econometrics
    • M310 Time Series & Financial Econometrics
    • M320 Cross Section & Panel Data Econometrics
    • M330 Applied Econometrics
      

  The remaining Module may be chosen from the MPhil Advanced, Applied, or Specialist Modules, or PhD Modules, or other courses approved by the Graduate Studies Committee.

  Students continuing from the MPhil in Economic Research, who will already have taken three Advanced Modules, will chose their four Modules from any of the MPhil Advanced, Applied, or Specialist Modules, or PhD Modules, or other courses approved by the Graduate Studies Committee. The Graduate Studies Committee will consider exempting individuals from the requirement to take three Advanced Modules, if courses covering material at an equivalent level have been taken at another university.

• Write a research proposal (maximum length 10,000 words) that should include a review of the relevant literature, a research question, and outline of a research design and methods.  The expectation is that this proposal will be for a piece of research that could form the basis of one chapter of a PhD dissertation.
  

• Attend:

To qualify for the CPGS, students must complete all of the requirements above.

1. Achieving a pass mark (60%) on each component of the coursework.  Students who fail any examinations will be called for a viva on the coursework, and
2. obtaining a pass grade on their research proposal.

Students will be considered for registration for the PhD in the Michaelmas Term of their 2nd year.  To be registered for the PhD, students must

1. have successfully completed the requirements for CPGS (above).
2. Submit an acceptable dissertation of not more than 20,000 words.  The dissertation submitted must be of a standard that would enable it to form the basis of one-third of the student's eventual PhD thesis.  This means that the dissertation submitted must contain research that could be expanded upon to constitute one-third of the PhD thesis.
   

Second and Third Years of Research

Once upgraded to PhD status, a student concentrates on his or her PhD dissertation. As research progresses, there will be opportunities to present work in progress at research workshops attended by Faculty members and research students. PhD students will also be required to attend research seminars given by outside speakers and Faculty members.