PhD Program
Below, we provide a summary of RGS Econ’s program structure and components. You can find current information on some of the elements here:
- Information on current core and elective course offerings can be found under Current Core & Elective Courses.
- Announcements of upcoming RGS Mini-Lectures, Soft-Skills Seminars, Conferences and Events can be found under Activities & Events.
- Announcements of upcoming research seminars can be found here.
Overview
Each year’s entering cohort of 6-10 students are located at RGS Econ’s office space at RWI in Essen, where they participate in a demanding full-time first-year core course phase. Entering students are usually already assigned to primary supervisors during the admission process, to facilitate optimal supervision and engagement in research from the outset.
After the first year, students’ workspaces are located at their primary supervision units / research teams at one of the participation departments of the UARuhr universities or at the RWI. (These locations are all reachable via public transport within 45 minutes.). While students increasingly concentrate on their dissertation (consisting of 3-5 papers), they are also required to pass at least two elective field courses from a broad range of course offerings. Students are also required to present their current research projects at proposal and finishing stages.
During the program, students can participate in numerous workshops, research seminar, short-courses, conferences, and soft-skills seminars organized by RGS Econ or its cooperating partners. We also provide funding and organizational support for conference and summer school participation as well as research stays abroad.
Well qualified and highly motivated students finish our program in 3-4 years, with a mean duration of currently 4.7 years.
- Core Courses
- consult with your primary supervisor regarding first research projects
- get to know faculty and fellow students (Rotating Lecture)
- visit a few field courses and research seminars in your area of interest
- participate in summer schools
- Literature Seminar Presentation (research poposal)
- Work on first dissertation project
- finish field course requirement
- visit research seminars, take short-courses
- become integral part of your primary supervisor's research team
- Jamboree Presentation of current paper
- work on dissertation projects
- present at conferences, workshops and bag-lunches
- develop your own research network
- Jamboree Presentation of current paper (Job Market Paper)
- finish dissertation projects
- consider a research stay
- present at conferences and in research seminars at other universities
- prepare for job market (mock talk, mock interviews)
- submit Dissertation / Dissertation Defense
First-Year Core Courses
The compulsory core course phase of the program conveys state of the art methods in micro, macro, and econometrics to enable students to understand and participate in frontier research in any area of economics.
| term | First Year Core Courses | ||
| winter | Mathematics for Advanced Economic (2 weeks at the start of winter term) |
||
Microeconomics I Markets and Welfare |
Macroeconomics I Dynamics and Heterogeneity |
Econometrics I Econometric Theory |
|
| summer | Microeconomics II Game Theory |
Macroeconomics II Monetary Macro |
Econometrics II Microeconometrics |
Except for the preliminary math course, all courses are 4-6 hours/week (lecture and tutorials). In Macro and Metrics, students will be instructed using Matlab/R/Stata/Julia in the tutorials.
To proceed to the second year, students are given two attempts to pass end-of-term exams associated with each of the core courses. The course “Advanced Mathematics for Economists” does not involve a pass/fail examination. It solely serves to inform students. Parts or all of the core course requirement may be waived for students who have successfully passed comparable courses during their previous studies.
Elective Courses
The elective component of the curriculum requires students to select and pass at least two field courses before graduation, typically in the 2nd year. Of course, students can select more, and we encourage this when the course content is closely linked to the student’s dissertation topic or career goals. The broad range of field courses offered by RGS Econ draws on the expertise of the RGS Faculty (RGS Electives), guest researchers (RGS Mini-Lectures), and can be augmented by externally provided courses (summer schools) with financial support from RGS Econ. Some examples of elective courses offered at the RGS Econ are the methodologically oriented “Statistical Learning”, “Heterogeneous Agent Models”, “Causality and Policy Evaluation”, “Programming with Julia”, “Causal Machine Learning”, “Text as Data”, and topical courses such “Inequality and Health”, “Advanced Labor Economics”, and “Economics of Migration.”
Research Discussion and Presentation
During the first year, students meet RGS Faculty in a “Rotating Lecture”, where the latter present their research projects. This lecture serves to connect entering students with the expertise available in our immediate research environment and also to make faculty aware of entering students’ interests.
After the second and third year, students present and discuss their current research projects in the “RGS Jamboree” to all RGS Faculty and RGS students. Students who are finishing their dissertations and going on the job market have the opportunity to conduct mock talks and mock interviews.
RGS Econ regularly offers several workshops geared to support students in their research. These include:
- “Writing a Paper in Economics”
- “How to Present and Behave at Conferences”
- “Scientific Writing using Latex”
- “Career and Job Market Considerations”
The Dissertation
The goal of PhD studies is a high-quality, well communicated dissertation that qualifies students for excellent positions in and outside of academia. The structure and content of our program is designed with this goal in mind. For details on our philosophy behind this design, please refer to Writing a Dissertation at RGS Econ.
At RGS Econ, the doctoral title is awarded by the cooperating university of the student’s primary supervisor and subject to regulations at the corresponding department. Dissertations are cumulative, usually involving 3-5 five papers that usually have general common theme may or may not be closely connected.
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