Economics (Graduate Program)

For information regarding the UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM, click here.   

Program Overview

The Department of Economics has 15 full-time faculty members actively engaged in research, nine of whom have been awarded named professorships in recognition of their excellence in research and teaching. The Department of Economics also houses the Economics and Policy Research Group.

The graduate program in economics provides students with a strong foundation in microeconomic and macroeconomic theory and econometrics. To complement the general theory sequence, the department offers areas for focus that include econometrics, advanced macroeconomics, and applied microeconomics. The advanced macroeconomics field consists of courses selected from economic growth, advanced macroeconomic topics, international macroeconomics, and monetary economics. The applied microeconomics field consists of courses selected from topics in applied microeconomics, health economics, labor economics, and public economics. The graduate degree programs in economics (Ph.D. and M.S.) are designated as STEM programs.

Administration

Admission

Applicants for graduate studies in Economics must meet the requirements for admission to the Graduate School and be accepted by the Department of Economics. A detailed description of the Ph.D. program can be found on the Economics Department webpage. Note that the LSU Graduate School Requirements, in addition to the ones specific to the Department of Economics described in the next paragraph, are only for consideration and do not guarantee admission.

In addition to the Graduate School requirements, students should have completed undergraduate courses in calculus, statistics, and intermediate microeconomics and macroeconomics before entering either the MS or PhD programs. It would be preferable for students interested in pursuing the PhD degree to take at least a year of calculus, a linear algebra course, probability, and statistics.

Non-economic majors with strong academic records and the requisite math and statistics background are encouraged to apply. However, individuals with these qualifications will be required to work through intermediate macroeconomics and microeconomics textbooks on their own by the end of the summer preceding entry into the PhD program. A list of suitable textbooks will be supplied by the department.

The department also requires three letters of recommendation. We do not require writing samples.

Financial Assistance

All PhD students, both domestic and international, including entering graduate students, are eligible to apply for assistantships. A full-time graduate student assistant currently receives a stipend and is also provided a full tuition waiver. Students holding assistantships are expected to assist the faculty in their research and teaching for a maximum of 20 hours per week. Teaching assistantships, which involve teaching an entire section, are available to those advanced graduate students who have successfully passed the PhD qualifying exams.

Graduate School supplemental awards are sometimes available to outstanding graduate students entering the PhD program. These awards range from $1,000 to $3,000 per year and are generally renewable for a maximum of four years. A minimum GPA of 3.0 every semester is required to retain the award. Summer stipends for teaching or research have been available in the past and will be available in the future, but their number varies from summer to summer.

Graduate Faculty

(check current faculty listings by department here)

Scott Abrahams (6A) • Applied Microeconomics, Labor Economics
Areendam Chanda (M) • Macroeconomics, Economic Growth; Co-Editor, Economic Inquiry
Daniel Keniston (7M) • Development Economics, Industrial Organization, Urban Economics
Faik A. Koray (M) • Macroeconomics, International Economics
Philip Marx (6A) * Microeconomic and Econometric Theory, Applied Microeconomics
Naci Mocan (M) • Labor Economics, Law and Economics, Health Economics; Research Associate, NBER
Robert J. Newman (EM) • Labor economics
James A. Richardson (EM) • Public Finance, Economics of Taxation
M. Dek Terrell (M) • Econometrics, Bayesian Econometrics, Applied Time Series
Bulent Unel (M) • International Trade, Entrepreneurship, Labor Economics
Jiangang Zeng (6A) Applied Econometrics, Econometrics
Qiankun Zhou (7M) • Applied Econometrics, Econometric Theory

Selected Faculty Publications

Abrahams, Scott, 2020. “Officer Differences in Traffic Stops of Minority Drivers.” Labor Economics, 67: 101912 DOI.

Chanda, Areendam and B. Unel, 2021. “Do Attitudes Toward Risk Taking Affect Entrepreneurship? Evidence from Second-generation Americans.” Journal of Economic Growth, 26:385-413.

Keniston, D., A. Banerjee, E. Duflo, R. Chattopadyay, and N. Singh, 2021. “Improving Police Performance in Rajasthan, India: Experimental Evidence on Incentives, Managerial Autonomy, and Training,” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 13: 36-66.

Koray, Faik, K. P. Arin, and N. Spagnolo, 2015. “Fiscal Multipliers in Good Times and Bad Times,” Journal of Macroeconomics, 44:303-311.

Marx, Philip and Daniel Martin, 2022. “A Robust Test of Prejudice for Discrimination Experiments,” Management Science, 68: 4527-4536.

Mocan, Naci, O. Eren, and M. Lovenheim, 2022. “The Effect of Grade Retention on Adult Crime: Evidence from a Test-Based Promotion Policy,” Journal of Labor Economics, 40: 361-395.

Unel, Bulent, 2018. “Offshoring and Unemployment in a Credit-Constraint Economy,” Journal of International Economics, 111:21-33.

Zhou, Qiankun, R. Liu, Z. Shang, and Y. Zhang, 2020. “Identification and Estimation in Panel Models with Overspecified Number of Groups,” Journal of Econometrics: 215: 574-590.      

Programs

• Econometrics Graduate Certificate

• Economics, M.S.

• Economics, Ph.D.