Ph.D.
Admissions | Requirements | Courses | Students | Student Workshops | Awards

---

First year

The first year is made up of required courses:

• 503: Microeconomic Theory I. Introduction to game theory, information economics, and mechanism design.
• 505: Macroeconomic Theory I. Theories of economic growth and business cycles; overlapping generations models; dynamic optimization; dynamic programming.
• 514: Probability and Statistics for Economists. Introduction to probability theory and statistical inference to prepare students for graduate courses in econometrics and economic theory; probability; random variables; distributions; estimation; testing asymptotics.
• 603: Microeconomic Theory II. Consumer behavior; uncertainty; general equilibrium theory: existence, uniqueness, and stability; welfare economics; social choice.
• 605: Macroeconomic Theory II. Recent developments in macroeconomic theory; numerical methods.
• 511: Econometric Methods. Statistical methods of estimation and inference; linear regression with multicollinearity and serial correlation; multivariate regression and simultaneous equations.

---

Second year

Students in their second year must take two more required courses:

• 523: Economic History and Development. Historical trends in developed and developing societies in various aspects of modernization, such as human resources, capital, technology, resource allocation, income distribution, and international relations.
• 615: Applied Econometrics. Variance decomposition methods; multistage estimation methods; logit and probit model; analysis of panel data.

Select four advanced courses from the list below:

• 600: Economics of Choice. Reviews the normative and positive theories of choice, drawing upon recent theoretical and empirical work in cognitive and evolutionary psychology and economics.
• 604: Game Theory. Strategies and equilibrium concepts; dynamic and repeated games; incomplete information and learning in games.
• 606: Complex Economic Dynamics. Stability and instability; cycles; chaotic fluctuations; evolving structure in economic processes.
• 607: Topics in Dynamic Optimization. Theory and numerical methods for dynamic optimization and control; selected applications in economic analysis and econometrics.
• 609: Adaptive, Evolutionary Economics. Partial information; imperfect decision making; incomplete coordination of production and exchange; adaptation to economic experience; evolution of market and government institutions.
• 612: Econometric Theory. Inference and prediction; generalized and restricted least square; specification analysis; multivariate and seemingly unrelated regressions; simultaneous equations techniques; dynamic models; instrumental variable estimation.
• 613: Economic and Financial Time Series I. Simultaneous equation models; dynamic structural econometric models; vector autoregressions; causality; forecasting; univariate and multivariate nonstationary time series; tests for unit roots; cointegration; autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity models; time series models with changes in regime.
• 614: Economic and Financial Time Series II. Stock returns; predictability and volatility; random walk and variance-bounds tests; estimation of capital asset, multifactor, and derivative pricing models; term structure of interest rates.
• 633: Law and Economics. Advanced introduction to the application of economics to legal issue, with special emphasis upon the "USC Gould School of Law and Economics"; role of contracts; issues of incentive compatibility and asymmetric information.
• 634: Political Economy of Institutions. The functions of laws, rules, customs, conventions, and other restrictions on economic and social activity; theories of institutional evolution.
• 639: Contemporary Economic Policy: Theory and Practice. History and analysis of the fundamental continuing policy issues: recession, inflation, public debt, regulation, international competition, energy resources and environmental issues, welfare and income distribution.
• 642: Poverty, Human Resources and Development. Microeconomic issues in development economics. Focus on theory and empirical work applying household production models and models of intra-household allocations to problems of poverty, investment in human resources and their impacts on health, labor markets, incomes and poverty.
• 644: Economic Development Programming and Policy Planning. Model construction and application to policy and planning open economy; Dutch disease; input-output, programming; computable general equilibrium; benefit-cost; sustainability; policy reforms; and political economy.
• 650: International Trade Theory. General equilibrium theory applied to theory and practice of commercial policy, economic growth, and trade.
• 651: International Monetary Theory. Inter-temporal models of the current account; exchange rates and relative prices; dynamic trade models.
• 652: Economics of Financial Markets II. Financial market equilibrium and partial equilibrium asset pricing in discrete and continuous time; properties of equilibria with and without complete markets; theory of option prices; Black-Scholes pricing formula; term structure of interest rates; hedging strategies and managing market risk using options, futures, and swaps; hedging exchange-rates risks.
• 653: Empirical International Economics. Empirical treatment of advanced topics in international finance, including the determinations of real and nominal exchange rates; stabilization policies in developing currencies and currency crisis models; econometric methods in analyzing foreign exchange data and in forecasting.
• 657: Monetary Theory and Policy I. Money-credit creation; money demand; monetary aspects of general equilibrium and disequilibrium; conceptual problems of money and exchange.
• 659: Economics of Financial Markets I. Equilibrium model of finance economy; absence of arbitrage; complete and incomplete markets; asset pricing theory; representative agent pricing; Capital Asset Pricing Model; martingale property of security prices.
• 660: Public Finance. Externalities; welfare economics of government supply of services; incidence and effects of taxes; program budgeting; benefit-cost analysis debt.
• 671: Economics of Labor and Human Capital. A human capital interpretation of labor demand and supply; wage determination, differentials, and discrimination; job turnover and occupational mobility; unions and collective bargaining.
• 672: Economics of Medical Care. Medical care as an investment in human capital; analysis of the demand for and supply of health services and labor; health insurance; cost-effectiveness analysis; market structures and the pricing of medical services.
• 673: Program Evaluation. This course first proposes various means of evaluating an economic program. It then applies the tools to specific problems.
• 680: Industrial Organization. Decision making, economic behavior, and organization in firms; types of competition and market structure; property rights; nonprofit decision making.
• 681: Economics of Regulated Industries. Theories and methods of government regulation; effects of regulation on various industries; behavior of regulatory agencies.
• 688: Empirical Industrial Organization. Econometric analysis of industrial organization issues, including industry regulation and deregulation, collusions and pricing in differentiated oligopolistic markets, entry and exit, auction mechanisms, and contractual relationships.
• 715: Advanced Topics in Econometrics. Time-series methods; aggregation; structural models and methods such as factor analysis and multiple indicator models; various special topics.

---

Third year and beyond

Students typically complete their course work in the third year by selecting three elective courses from the list above, as well as a sequence of three seminars from that below:

• 690: Seminar in Economic Theory. Current research in economic theory presented by faculty, students, and outside scholars.
• 691: Seminar in Econometrics. Current research in econometrics presented by faculty, students, and outside scholars.
• 692: Seminar in Economic Development. Current research in international, regional, and urban development economics presented by faculty, students, and outside scholars.
• 693: Seminar in Applied Economics and Public Policy. Current research in applied microeconomics, macroeconomics, and public policy presented by faculty, students, and outside scholars.
• 694: Seminar in Dynamic Economics. Topics in dynamic economics involving business fluctuations, economic growth and development, micro-economic adjustments, and market mechanisms; related quantitative and qualitative methods; empirical research involving economic change.
• 696: Empirical Microeconomics Seminar. This course consists of presentations in empirical Microeconomics on their current research by outstanding scholars from leading Economics departments and faculty at USC.

 

Course work is then followed by research.