Graduate School

Once you have decided to pursue graduate training, the next step is to determine which degree pathway is the best fit. This choice will depend partly on your interests and partly on your coursework. Theoretical and mathematical rigor varies across graduate programs, and graduate acceptance committees will only accept applicants they believe have the preparation for the courses in their program. Thus, the more economics and mathematics training a student has, the more program options will be available to them. In any case, there is great variety of graduate schools, so just be careful to find the options that best fit you. Often, program websites will list the jobs of recent graduates, which allows you to select the programs setting students up for the career you want.

 

The traditional pathway is the PhD in economics at a flagship university. A flagship university is one of the largest, most competitive universities in the country or in a state, such as Harvard or University of Michigan. There are many rankings of PhD programs, and the flagships are at the top. These programs require significant training in mathematics. Most students acquire this training as undergraduates and enroll in the PhD without a MA or MS. Programs feature two years of coursework in economic theory, mathematics, statistics, econometrics, and several in the student’s area of interest, before three years of dissertation work. Except at the top schools in the country, most programs experience substantial attrition—roughly one-third of attending students—during the first two years. The dissertation is work done almost entirely by the student that is arranged into three or so chapters (not including any introduction, literature review, or appendices), each of which could be eventually published as peer-reviewed articles. PhD graduates go on to work at top consulting firms, major national companies and organizations, government agencies, and universities.

 

A PhD program provides graduates the training they need to conduct independent research while advancing the frontier of best practices. This means that a PhD graduate will not only understand the best methods to answer a research question, but ideally how to improve those methods, if circumstances allow. PhD economists may be supervising and directing other researchers shortly after graduating.

 

Another traditional pathway is getting a PhD in an agricultural economics or similar applied economics program. These programs are located at historical Land Grant universities that have grown into state flagships, such as Purdue University and University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. As in “vanilla” economics programs, a PhD in agricultural economics provides training in economic theory, mathematics, and statistics, and students must complete a dissertation. There are a few key differences between agricultural economics and economics graduate study, though. First, agricultural economics departments are usually housed in an agricultural and natural resources college, with a mandate to provide research and education that contributes, as directly as practicable, to the productivity and wellbeing of households and workers. Second, a greater portion of faculty and graduate student research is grant-funded. As a result, “ag econ” PhD students tend to start research earlier in the program, work more closely with a PhD faculty supervisor, and have more cross-disciplinary experiences (especially in agriculture and natural resource topics).

 

Usually, students interested in a PhD in agricultural economics pursue a MA or MS before applying to the PhD. It could be a MA in economics, a MS in agricultural economics, or some other degree. I would recommend an MS in agricultural economics because you are more likely to get the research mentoring and experience you will need to be successful during the PhD. It is also likely to provide more of the applied technical experience that employers are looking for. However, while pursuing a MA or MS before applying to a PhD is common in agricultural and other applied economics fields, it is not the traditional path in vanilla economics programs; it can be done, but know that most MA or MS programs do not provide all the preparation needed for a PhD in economics (such as coursework in probability theory and real analysis).

 

A MA or MS degree in economics also prepares graduates for research and analysis. Similar to a PhD, graduates will know how to answer research questions with rigorous methods, though not necessarily to push forward the methodological frontier. These programs can last from one to two years. Some programs require writing a thesis after the first year of coursework. Not all flagship universities offer a terminal MA or MS in economics, though. However, many non-flagship universities do; these programs tend to be less competitive and, due to fewer faculty, may specialize in some topics more than others. Thus, if you have taken few economics and mathematics courses as an undergraduate, an MA or MS could provide a good path, however if you are interested in environmental economics, you may find it difficult to find a program that offers graduate coursework related to the environment; in this case, you may want to consider a MS in agricultural economics, because agricultural economics departments often have several environmental and resource economics faculty.