Program Requirements 

The Department of Finance has a strong commitment to research and devotes considerable resources to training future scholars. The Ph.D. program is an integrated part of the department. We invite applicants with distinguished academic background who are interested in pursuing a career in teaching, research and/or policy positions in universities, research institutions, or government. As the faculty members are recruited internationally, the Ph.D. program welcomes applications from all countries. 

The Ph.D. program is modeled on those of leading universities in the world. Students will take two years of courses offered by the Department of Finance and other related departments. After passing the qualifying exam, they begin the research stage, find advisors according to their own research interests, and start writing their Ph.D. dissertation under the guidance of the advisors. Typically, it takes four to five years to complete the program and obtain the Ph.D. degree. 

In addition to rigorous course work, students benefit from the weekly seminars in which scholars from all over the world come present their most recent research. Students also have their workshop in which they present their own research work, give critical review of the work done by their fellow classmates, and sharpen their presentation skills. 

Course Requirements for Finance PhD Program 
(a) Introductory Quantitative Requirements

Students are required to pass two specific mathematics-oriented courses unless they have clearly completed the same requirements:
ECON 510 Mathematics for Business and Economics
ISMT 581 Introduction to Probability
The credits earned from these two courses are not counted toward the graduation requirements.

(b) General Management Requirements
Students are required to take four MBA finance courses: 
FINA 512 Corporate Finance
FINA 521 Investment Analysis
FINA 529 Derivatives Analysis
FINA 536 Fixed Income

Students who do not have an MBA or equivalent are required to take another two of the following MBA-level courses. Students with a BBA degree could seek course exemptions from the PhD Director if they have demonstrated successful attainment in similar courses.

ACCT 510 Financial Accounting Foundations
ISMT 502 Fundamentals of Information Technology Management
ISMT 561 Operations and Technology Management
MARK 512 Marketing Strategy and Policy
MGTO 523 Management of Organizations

(c) Common Core Requirements
ECON 521 Microeconomic Theory 1
ECON 530 Econometrics 1
ECON 522 Microeconomic Theory II
ISOM 582 Statistical Methods for Business and Economics I

(d) Major Field Requirements
FINA 790E Theoretical Asset Pricing
FINA 790I Theoretical Corporate Finance
FINA 790D Continuous Time Finance
FINA 790J Empirical Corporate Finance
FINA 790B Empirical Asset Pricing

Minimum Course Requirements

The minimum course requirement before advancing to candidacy is 36 credits, with a minimum of 15 credits of PhD level courses excluding the common core requirements. Subject to the approval of the PhD Director, up to 12 credit hours can be transferred from a postgraduate program at a recognized institution.