Graduate Program in Economics
A joint program of the College of Management and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
An Inter-Departmental Program
Graduate degrees in economics at NC State University are offered jointly by the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) and the Department of Economics in the College of Management (COM). They collaborate to offer quantitatively rigourous programs that prepare graduates for work in academia, research, government and in private industry as consultants and analysts. The Center for Environmental and Resource Economic Policy (CEnREP) furthers this inter-disciplinary relationship, bringing faculty from both ARE and Economics together with natural and social scientists throughout North Carolina to foster forward-thinking environmental policy for North Carolina and the nation.
Faculty & Fields of Specialization
The inter-departmental nature of the program exposes students to a wide variety of specialty areas and over 50 faculty who are recognized in both applied and theoretical research. Areas of potential focus include agricultural economics, natural resource and environmental economics, macro-monetary and international economics and industrial organization. In addition, there is a new specialty area in financial economics offering courses at both masters and doctoral level.
Student Body
The Economics Graduate Program has about 170 students enrolled in the masters and doctoral programs. Students come from all over the United States and about half of our students are international.
We encourage our students to be active in scholarship, research and professional development. Students are encouraged to present papers at national and regional professional meetings and to work toward publishing their research. We have an active workshop series allowing students the opportunity to develop and present their research to an audience of economics colleagues. Students also actively participate in many of the Preparing Future Leaders programs offered through the University’s Graduate School. Our students have been routinely recognized with the presitigous University-awarded Andrew’s Fellowship, the Ward Fellowship, University Graduate Research Fellowships and University Provost’s Fellowships.
Our Graduates
The majority of our PhD graduates seek employment in higher education. Recent graduates have been appointed as faculty at Clemson, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, Texas Tech, and University of Georgia. Many of our masters students choose to continue on to further graduate work, often in our own economics doctoral program. Others continue to other universities, most often studying economics or law. Those PhDs who choose to work outside of academia and the majority of terminal masters students are employed as consultants, analysts and researchers in private industry and government. Recent graduates have been hired by USDA, Credit Suisse, Bank of America, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Research Triangle Institute, SAS, NC Department of Health and Human Services, NC General Assembly, Ameriprise, Samsung and Acccenture.
Our graduates who pursue work in research have published papers in such peer-reveiwed journals as: American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Applied Economics, Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Economic Record, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Journal of Economic Education, Journal of Economics and Business, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Journal of Financial Research, Journal of Gerontology, Journal of International Money and Finance, Journal of Macroeconomics, Journal of Political Economy, National Tax Journal, Review of Economics and Statistics, and Soviet Economics.
Information for Newly Admitted Students (Fall 2008)