Economics (Graduate Program)

For information regarding the UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM, click here. 

Program Overview

The Department of Economics has 13 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. In addition, the department houses the Journal of Macroeconomics and the Journal of Labor Research, which are edited by two department members. The Department of Economics also houses the Division of Economic Development, which among other functions publishes the annual Louisiana Economic Outlook.

The graduate program in economics provides students with a strong foundation in microeconomic and macroeconomic theory. To complement the general theory sequence, the department offers areas for specialization that include econometrics, advanced macroeconomics, and applied microeconomics. The advanced macroeconomics fields are economic growth and international macroeconomics, and monetary economics. The applied microeconomics field consists of courses selected from health economics, labor economics, public economics, and game theory.

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. Detailed information can be found at the Graduate School website, under the Prospective Students link. Note 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 are encouraged to apply. It is likely that students who have not had many undergraduate courses in economics or have not  had the courses indicated above can make them up in one semester, before taking the core program courses.

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 (20 hours/week) graduate student assistant currently receives a stipend of $16,100 per academic year, 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 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 each from summer to summer.

Graduate Faculty

(check current listings by department by clicking this link)

Areendam Chanda (M) • Macroeconomics
Briggs Dephew (6A) • Labor economics, health economics, U.S. economic history
David E. Dismukes (3F) • Energy Economics
Ozkan Eren (6A) • Applied Microeconomics, labor economics
R. Carter Hill (M) • Econometrics
Faik A. Koray (M) • Macroeconomics, international economics
W. Douglas McMillin (M) • Monetary economics, macroeconomics; Co-Editor, Journal of Macroeconomics
Naci Mocan (M) • Labor economics, health economics; Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research; Associate Editor, Journal of Labor Research
Robert J. Newman (M) • Labor economics; Editor, Journal of Labor Research
Seunghwa Rho (6A) • Econometrics
James A. Richardson (M) • State and local taxation, forecasting, energy economics
Sudipta Sarangi (M) • Industrial organization, game theory, development economics
M. Dek Terrell (M) • Econometrics, Bayesian econometrics, applied time series
Bulent Unel (M) • International trade, economic growth and development, welfare economics
Fang Yang (6A) • Macroeconomics, consumption and saving

Selected Faculty Publications

Areendam Chanda, “Does Foreign Direct Investment Promote Growth? Exploring the role of Financial Markets on Linkages,” Journal of Development Economics, March 2010, with Laura Alfaro, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Selin Sayek.

Briggs Depew, “The elasticity of labor supply to the firm over the business cycle,” Labour Economics, 2013, with Todd A. Sorensen.

Ozkan Eren, “The Effect of Teacher Gender on Student Achievement in Primary School: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment,” Journal of Labor Economics, forthcoming, with Heather Antecol and Serkan Ozbeklik.
R. Carter Hill,”Repayment performance in group lending: Evidence from Jordan,” Journal of Development Economics, 2012, with Moh’d Al-Azzam & Sudipta Sarangi.
Faik A. Koray, “Nonlinear Growth Effects of Taxation: A Semi-Parametric Approach Using Average Marginal Tax Rates,” Journal of Applied Econometrics, 2013, with K. P. Arin, M. Berlemann, and T. Kuhlenkasper .
W. Douglas McMillin, “Inflation Forecast Targeting: An alternative Approach to Estimating the Inflation-Output Variability Tradeoff,” Southern Economic Journal, 2011, with James S. Fackler.
Naci Mocan, “Vengeance,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 2013.
Robert J. Newman, “Academic Pay in the UK and US: the Differential Returns to Productivity and the Lifetime Earnings Gap,” Southern Economic Journal, 2007, with W. J. Moore and Dek Terrell.
James A. Richardson, Handbook on Taxation, co-editor, 1999.
Sudipta Sarangi, “Age Effects and Heuristics in Decision Making,” The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2012, with T. Besedes, C. Deck, and M. Shor.
M. Dek Terrell, Advances in Econometrics, Volume 20: Econometric Analysis of Financial and Economic Time Series – Part A & Part B, 2006, edited with Thomas B. Fomby and R. Carter Hill.
Bulent Unel, “A Simple Model of Quality Heterogeneity and International Trade,” Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 2013,with E. Dinopoulos.

Fang Yang, “Consumption and Time Use over the Life Cycle,” International Economic Review, forthcoming, with Michael Dotsey and Wenli Li.

Programs

• Economics, Ph.D.

• Economics, M.S.