phd business economics harvard

Doctoral Programs

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Phd programs  , accounting & management, business economics (includes finance), health policy (management), organizational behavior, technology & operations management, admissions  , unlock your phd journey with full financial aid  , placement  , research community  .

Filippo Mezzanotti

Sarah Wolfolds

Anastassia Fedyk

Alexandra C. Feldberg

Rohan Kekre

Do Yoon Kim

Talia Gillis

Erica Moszkowski

Sagar Saxena

Aurora Turek

A Jay Holmgren

Evan DeFilippis

Kala Viswanathan

Ahmmad Brown

Ximena Garcia-Rada

Patrick Ferguson

Byungyeon Kim

Ta-Wei "David" Huang

Mengjie "Magie" Cheng

Omar Olivarez

Dafna Bearson

Justine Murray

Celia Stafford

Olivia Zhao

Rowan Clarke

Jaylon Sherrell

Elliot Tobin

Fanele Mashwama

Maria Roche

Charles Wang

Student Research  

Effects of a real-time information-based intervention on physician prescribing behavior.

• 01 AUG 2024
• Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings

The Value of Silence: The Effect of UMG’s Licensing Dispute with TikTok on Music Demand

• 01 JUL 2024
• Faculty Research

Acceptance of Automated Vehicles Is Lower for Self than Others

• Journal of the Association for Consumer Research

Find a Current Student

• Harvard Business School →
• Doctoral Programs →
• PhD Programs
• Accounting & Management

Business Economics

• Health Policy (Management)
• Organizational Behavior
• Technology & Operations Management
• Program Requirements

Curriculum & Coursework

Research dissertation, areas of specialization.

• Behavioral Economics
• Development
• Econometrics
• Economic History
• Economic Theory
• Economics of Organization
• Entrepreneurship
• Industrial Organization
• International Economics
• Labor Economics
• Macroeconomics
• Political Economy
• Public Economics
• Organizational Economics

Fanele Mashwama

Sagar Saxena

“ HBS is the ideal environment because I get to think about the world like an economist, but I have the freedom and resources to draw on methods from other disciplines as I study market design and industrial organization. ”

Current Harvard Economics Faculty

• Pol Antràs
• Robert Barro
• Emily Breza
• John Y. Campbell
• Raj Chetty
• Gabriel Chodorow-Reich
• Richard Cooper
• David M. Cutler
• Melissa Dell
• Karen Dynan
• Benjamin Enke
• Richard B. Freeman
• Benjamin M. Friedman
• Roland G. Fryer, Jr.
• Xavier Gabaix
• Edward Glaeser
• Claudia Goldin
• Benjamin Golub
• Gita Gopinath
• Oliver Hart
• Elhanan Helpman
• Dale Jorgenson
• Myrto Kalouptsidi
• Maximilian Kasy
• Lawrence Katz
• Gabriel Kreindler
• David Laibson
• Robin S. Lee
• N. Gregory Mankiw
• Stephen Marglin
• Eric S. Maskin
• Marc Melitz
• Jeffrey Miron
• Ariel Pakes
• Amanda Pallais
• Matthew Rabin
• Gautam Rao
• Kenneth Rogoff
• Amartya Sen
• Neil Shephard
• Andrei Shleifer
• Stefanie Stantcheva
• Jeremy Stein
• James Stock
• Ludwig Straub
• Tomasz Strzalecki
• Lawrence H. Summers
• Elie Tamer
• Winnie Van Dijk
• David Yang

Current HBS Faculty

• Laura Alfaro
• Samuel B. Antill
• Brian K. Baik
• Malcolm P. Baker
• John Beshears
• Alberto F. Cavallo
• Wilbur X. Chen
• Katherine B. Coffman
• Lauren H. Cohen
• Shawn A. Cole
• Joshua D. Coval
• Mihir A. Desai
• Mark L. Egan
• Benjamin C. Esty
• C. Fritz Foley
• Stuart C. Gilson
• Paul A. Gompers
• Jerry R. Green
• Shane M. Greenstein
• Robin Greenwood
• Brian J. Hall
• Samuel G. Hanson
• Victoria Ivashina
• Ebehi Iyoha
• Robert S. Kaplan
• William R. Kerr
• Tarun Khanna
• Raymond P. Kluender
• Jacqueline Ng Lane
• Josh Lerner
• Edward McFowland III
• David A. Moss
• Joseph Pacelli
• Matthew Rabin
• Sophus A. Reinert
• Forest L. Reinhardt
• Meg Rithmire
• Clayton S. Rose
• Benjamin N. Roth
• Raffaella Sadun
• David S. Scharfstein
• Joshua R. Schwartzstein
• Arthur I Segel
• Emil N. Siriwardane
• Adi Sunderam
• Boris Vallee
• Luis M. Viceira
• Matthew C. Weinzierl
• Dennis A. Yao

Current Business Economics Students

• Maxim Alekseev
• Sage Belz
• Fiona Chen
• Cameron Cohen
• Jorge Colmenares
• Terry Culpepper
• Songyuan Ding
• Jo Ellery
• Simon Essig Aberg
• Toren Fronsdal
• Jacob Furst
• Jeffrey Gortmaker
• Shlok Goyal
• Helene Hall
• Ruru (Juan Ru) Hoong
• Catherine Huang
• Baiyun Jing
• Nathan Kaplan
• Justin Katz
• Lev Klarnet
• Shira Li
• Alex Magnuson
• Fanele Mashwama
• Marcela Mello
• Laura Nicolae
• Lauren Rice
• Maya Roy
• Dominic Russel
• Claire Shi
• Wilbur Townsend
• Jennifer Walsh
• Andi Wang
• Alex Wu
• Jeffrey Yang
• Jennifer Zou

Current HBS Faculty & Students by Interest

Recent placement, martin aragoneses, 2024, angela ma, 2024, john conlon, 2023, erica moszkowski, 2023, ran zhuo, 2023, matthew lilley, 2022, david zhang, 2022, karen shen, 2021, ravi jagadeesan, 2020, vitaly bord, 2019, weiling liu, 2019, michael blank, 2024, kunal sangani, 2024, spencer yongwook kwon, 2023, daniel ramos, 2023, francesca bastianello, 2022, frank pinter, 2022, andreas schaab, 2021, edoardo maria acabbi, 2020, michael thaler, 2020, oren danieli, 2019, janelle schlossberger, 2019, jiafeng (kevin) chen, 2024, hanbin yang, 2024, robert minton, 2023, sagar saxena, 2023, talia b. gillis, 2022, ron yang, 2022, gregor schubert, 2021, xiang ding, 2020, christopher anderson, 2019, yizhou jin, 2019.

• Utility Menu

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• Administration

Professor Claudia Goldin awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2023

Undergraduate

The large number of professors and their diverse interests enable a student to study virtually any area of economics.  The extraordinary quality of Harvard undergraduates makes the classroom environment stimulating for teacher and student alike.

Supported by a diverse group of faculty who are top researchers in their fields and fueled by a vast array of resources, the PhD program is structured to train and nurture students to become leading economists in academia, government agencies, the technology industry, finance and banking, and global policy organizations.

At a Glance

Faculty Members

Areas of Study

Undergraduate Courses

Undergraduate Concentrators

Graduate Courses

Graduate Concentrators

The Department of Economics is part of the larger academe of teaching and research at Harvard University.

Faculty Spotlight

The Harvard economics department is a big tent – big enough to include many kinds of people working in many different fields, from finance to economic history, from behavioral economics to political economy, and so much more.  Our students and faculty combine these fields in creative ways that are hard to achieve anywhere else.

John Campbell

Morton l. and carole s. olshan professor of economics, news and events, david cutler awarded william b. graham prize for health services research.

Senior Economics Winners Announced

Senior prize winners (l to r): hemanth asirvatham, aden barton, sara moore, jay garg.

Kunal Sangani awarded Padma Desai Prize

Econ 3012 graduate student workshop in labor economics and public economics, location: .

Farah Mallah (Harvard University)

Andrea Neyra (Harvard University)... Read more about ECON 3012 Graduate Student Workshop in Labor Economics and Public Economics

ECON 3005 Graduate Workshop in Economic Development

Raul Duarte (Harvard) "Patronage in Customs"

Oluchi Mbonu (Harvard Kennedy School) "Market Segmentation and Flexibility in Informal Public Transportation: Evidence from Johannesburg's Minibus Taxi Networks"... Read more about ECON 3005 Graduate Workshop in Economic Development

Seminar in Economic Development

Rohini Pande (Yale University) "Can Pollution Markets Work in Developing Countries? Experimental Evidence From India" ... Read more about Seminar in Economic Development

Fields of Study

The study of the application of using hypothetical quantitative economic models.

Political Economy

The study of production and trade and their relations with law, custom and government; and with the distribution of national income and wealth.

Econometrics

The study of developing and using statistical and mathematical tools to analyze economic issues and policy questions.

Macroeconomics

The study of the national economy and the determinants of national production, unemployment, and inflation.

Economic History

The study of how economies and economic outcomes have changed over history and how economic institutions have developed. 

International Economics

The study of the effects upon economic activity from international differences in productive resources and consumer preferences and the international institutions that affect them. 

Behavioral Economics

The study of the cognitive and emotional dimensions of economic decisions.

Business Administration

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Students will choose from four areas of study: Accounting and Management , Marketing , Strategy , and Technology and Operations Management .

Students in business administration are enrolled in and receive their degree from the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (Harvard Griffin GSAS) and work with faculty from both the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and  Harvard Business School  (HBS). Harvard Griffin GSAS has offered PhD programs in collaboration with HBS since 1916. In addition to business administration, Harvard Griffin GSAS and HBS collaborate on programs in  business economics ,  organizational behavior , and  health policy  (management track). 

Graduates of the program have secured faculty positions at prestigious institutions such as Columbia University, Cornell University, Duke University, INSEAD, London Business School, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of Virginia, and University of Toronto.

Areas of Study

Accounting and Management | Marketing | Strategy | Technology and Operations Management

Admissions Requirements

Please review the admissions requirements and other information before applying. You can find degree program-specific admissions requirements below and access additional guidance on applying from the Harvard Business School Doctoral Programs website .

Personal Statement

Standardized tests.

GRE General or GMAT: Required iBT TOEFL preferred minimum score: 100 IELTS preferred minimum score: 7.5

Writing Sample

Writing sample is optional but highly recommended. It should largely be your own work and you should be prepared to discuss the content and your contributions. It should be no more than 10 pages of text, plus references.

Fall Grades

Fall term grades should be sent when available if attending school while applying to the program (prospective students may add this information to the Fall Grade Report, available in the Applicant Portal, after they have submitted their application).

For the coordinated JD/PhD , applicants must apply separately to each program and indicate in the application to the PhD Program in Business Administration that a concurrent application has been submitted to Harvard Law School.

See list of Business Administration faculty

APPLICATION DEADLINE

Questions about the program.

Undergraduate

Economics is a social science that covers a broad subject matter in seeking to understand the social world. Economics studies the behavior of social systems—such as markets, corporations, legislatures, and families—as the outcome of interactions through institutions between goal-directed individuals. Doing economic research involves asking questions about the social world and addressing those questions with data and models, employing mathematical and statistical tools whenever possible to aid the analysis.

The Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree is designed for industry professionals with years of work experience who wish to complete their degrees part time, both on campus and online, without disruption to their employment. Our typical student is over 30, has previously completed one or two years of college, and works full time.

The Ph.D. program in the Department of Economics is addressed to students of high promise who wish to prepare themselves for careers in teaching and research in academia or for responsible positions in government, research organizations, or business enterprises. Students in the department are free to pursue research interests with scholars throughout the University. Faculty of Harvard Law School, Harvard Kennedy School, and Harvard Business School, for example, are available to students for consultation, instruction, and research guidance.

Universities

Harvard University

PhD in Business Economics

Harvard University, Massachusetts

Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Help Me Decide

Pre-requisites

• Discussions

About Course

Program Duration

Business and Managerial Economics

Degree Type

PhD in Business Economics at the prestigious Harvard University is a prestigious degree that offers in-depth learning in Business and Managerial Economics. Being a renowned university, Harvard University receives enough funds to ensure the best education facilities for its students across all programs. This doctorate program offered full-time primarily focuses on the practical implementation of fresh ideas through rigorous study and research. The students are encouraged to add new aspects and findings to the existing area of knowledge. PhD in Business Economics at Harvard is ranked globally by estimated organisations. Such recognition speaks volumes about the course’s importance and effectiveness in the present scenario. The top-notch faculty, modern facilities, and the aura of creativity and innovation in the Harvard campus is a life-changing experience for the students looking forward to kickstarting or upgrading their careers. Overall, a PhD in Business Economics at Harvard University is an excellent opportunity to grow into a learned professional and bring new developments in the world.

Official fee page

$13,913 / year

$69,565 / 60 months

5000+ Students

Availed education loan

Loan amount sanctioned

Assistance for loan process

• Application Fee

Minimum english score required

• Online Application
• Academic Transcripts
• Three Letters of Recommendation
• Writing Sample
• Statement of Purpose
• GRE / GMAT Test Scores
• Demonstration of English Proficiency

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