Graduate Program

The Doctoral Program

Application deadline:  December 15, 2024

The doctoral program provides students with a sophisticated and critical grounding in economic analysis, so that they can contribute creatively to research, teaching, and social policy. This commitment has gained the department an international reputation as a center of research in innovative approaches to economics.

The entering graduate class consists of 10 to 12 students each year. The focus of the department, as well as its policy of maintaining small classes and promoting close contact between faculty and students, has permitted the program to attract talented students on a par with other highly selective graduate programs in the country.

The students are of diverse backgrounds, nationality, gender, and race. They are drawn by the program's strengths in such areas as political economy, development economics, international economics, economic history, gender and class, labor economics, comparative economic systems, and growth and distribution as well as in theoretical and applied micro- and macroeconomics. This leads to a breadth of perspective unusual among graduate programs in economics.

Students can work with faculty on research employing a variety of approaches to economics, including neoclassical, Marxist, institutionalist, feminist, and post-Keynesian approaches.  The faculty's research interests include pure theory, empirical work, and policy analysis.

The Department is committed to innovation in economic theory, to improvement in economic life, and to be an open environment for critical intellectual inquiry. This diversity has proved fertile ground for learning and research.

Our graduates have been recruited by leading liberal arts and research institutions in the United States and abroad. They include such public institutions as the Universities of California, Texas, Michigan State, and Vermont; private universities such as American University, Harvard, MIT, Cornell, Notre Dame, and the University of Southern California; and such liberal arts colleges as Bowdoin, Colby, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Knox, Franklin and Marshall, Skidmore, William and Mary, Grinnell, and Middlebury.  Others have chosen to work in such non-academic institutions as the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, the United Nations, the Economic Policy Institute, and various labor union research and education departments.

The University is located in Amherst which is situated in the historic Pioneer Valley--one of the most interesting natural and social environments in New England. Bordering on the Berkshire hills, the area is noted for its year-round musical and arts activity.

The home of Smith, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Amherst Colleges as well as the University of Massachusetts, the Valley enjoys sophisticated musical, artistic, political, and recreational resources. Amherst is two hours from Boston, four hours from New York, and one hour from Bradley International Airport. There are ample bus and train connections for domestic and international travel.

The Master of Arts Degree

The Graduate Program in Economics is primarily designed for doctoral candidates, but a Master of Arts in Economics can be awarded along the way.  On rare occasions qualified students are admitted for a terminal master’s degree if they are sponsored by a government, foundation, or employer.  Department funding is not available to terminal master’s degree students.  Course requirements for the master's degree are the same as for the PhD with the exception that the 12 credits in two fields required for the Ph.D. may, instead, be taken in graduate electives.  The Comprehensive Examinations, Dissertation Prospectus, and Doctoral Dissertation are not required. The candidate may elect to submit a Master's Thesis, but it is not required.

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