Admission Requirements

Undergraduate degree from an accredited institution. Does not have to be an economics degree.

Satisfactory completion of intermediate microeconomics and macroeconomics.

One year of calculus and one year of statistics; one semestereach of matrix algebra and econometrics

Gradepoint average of 3.0 in the last two years of undergraduate work and in all economics courses.

Satisfactory scores on the Graduate Record Examination; the subject exam is optional.

Two letters of recommendation, and a brief personal statement explaining their interest in the program.

The application deadline for the fall semester is February 1 for students desiring financial aid and April 1 for all other PhD applications. The Economics Department does not permit admission for spring semester. See the GMU admissions website for more details.

 

Degree Requirements:

Students are required to pass 72 semester hours of course work, of which no more than 24 hours may be dissertation credits. Students must pass comprehensive examinations in microeconomics and macroeconomics. Comprehensive examinations, as the name implies, are broader and more comprehensive than courses and course examinations. They require students to read more widely and think more deeply about economics than the course exams. Satisfactory performance in courses is usually a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for satisfactory performance on comprehensive examinations. In addition, students must pass field exams in two of the fields listed below. The examinations are offered twice each year. Students who enter with a Master's degree may have up to 30 semester hours of credit reduced at the discretion of the department. Credit is not given for comprehensive and field examinations from other universities. Students may receive departmental permission to substitute up to 6 hours of electives taken outside economics in closely related fields.

All doctoral students are required to take a year of microeconomics (ECON 611 and 812), a year of macroeconomics (ECON 715 and 816), mathematical economics (ECON 630) and econometrics (ECON 637). All students are also required to take history of economic thought (ECON 820 or 821). Also required are two courses (beyond the required courses) in each of the student's two chosen fields in preparation for field examinations.

A typical program of study for a full-time doctoral student would be:

 

FIRST YEAR
Fall	ECON 630	ECON 611	ECON 715
Spring	ECON 637	ECON 812	ECON 816
Summer	Micro and Macro Comprehensive Exams

SECOND YEAR
Fall	Field 1	Field 2
Spring	Field 1 (cont)	Field 2 (cont)
Summer	Field Exams

 

To be eligible for continuing financial aid, students must attempt the comprehensive examinations in both microeconomics and macroeconomics by their third semester in the program. It is important for students to pass their comprehensive examinations in theory as soon as possible, because field examinations cannot be attempted until students attain a satisfactory score on the theory exams. If possible, part-time students should arrange their work schedules to be able to take two courses per semester in the first year. Doctoral students may not enroll at the Metro Campus for their required theory and mathematics courses.

The department offers, subject to course availability, examinations in the following fields of study:

Austrian Economics
Constitutional/ Institutional Economy
Public Choice
Law and Economics
Comparative Economic Systems
Industrial Organization
International
Monetary
Public Finance
Experimental Economics*

* does not require formal examinations, but students are required to complete Experimental Economics and Experimetrics in addition to continuing progress on original research to be determined by ICES faculty.

Notes for International Students

International Students are required to provide an independent evaluation of independent transcripts. George Mason has students applying to its programs from all over the world. We do not have the internal expertise to know whether a degree from your home university is equivalent to a four year American university Bachelor of Arts degree. Thus, GMU will require you to provide the needed documentation, in the form of an external, independent transcript evaluation, demonstrating that your credentials are the equivalent of a four year Bachelor of Arts or Science degree in the U.S., the approximate equivalent GPA, and verification. No application will be considered complete until the evaluation report has been received. Names and addresses of evaluation services are listed in our Application for Graduate Study. We do not provide scholarships for this evaluation or for the application fee.