Doctoral Programme in Economics

Economics Concentration

This concentration is one of the four concentrations offered in Frankfurt School's Doctoral Programme.

We conduct scientific research projects, aiming at publishing them in top journals in the fields of industrial organization, behavioural economics, and macroeconomics. Frequently, these projects are collaborative efforts, partnering with representatives from central banks, governmental bodies and industry, and actively involving our doctoral students.

The prerequisite for a successful participation in research projects is a thorough training in economics and quantitative methods. The economics concentration provides this training through core courses and electives taught by resident staff.

Furthermore, our curriculum is enriched by electives led by globally renowned guest professors, each an expert in their respective field. Alternatively, electives can also be covered by taking part in a summer school or a specialised mini-course at prestigious universities worldwide.

Sample Publications

Frankfurt School publishes in the top outlets for economic research. To get a sense for the kind of research we conduct, please click on the following sample publications:

Publication	Title	Professor
Journal of Political Economy	Segmentation versus Agglomeration: Competition between Platforms with Competitive Sellers	Prof. Dr. Markus Reisinger Prof. Dr. Heiko Karle
The Review of Economic Studies	Concentration Bias in Intertemporal Choice	Dr. Frederik Schwerter
The American Economic Review	Shocks, Frictions, and Inequality in US Business Cycles	Prof. Dr. Benjamin Born
The Review of Economic Studies	Interventions and Cognitive Spillovers	Prof. Dr. Andreas Grunewald

Economics Curriculum

Grounded strongly in economics and quantitative methods, our faculty encourages students to explore creative, new ideas in a rigorous way.

We prefer students to extend the boundaries of the field by incorporating insights from adjacent areas such as finance, management, and the behavioural sciences rather than making incremental technical improvements.

The economics concentration offers the following courses to help students achieve those objectives*:

1

Mathematics & Statistics

Calculus of Several Variables
Functions of Several Variables
Implicit Functions and Their Derivatives
Quadratic Forms and Definite Matrices
Unconstrained Optimization
Constrained Optimization
Concave and Quasiconcave Functions
Economic Applications
Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors
Advanced Linear Algebra
Advanced Analysis
Basic Probability and Statistics

Econometrics I

The class provides key knowledge on how different econometric models work and most importantly sheds light on their limitations. The course also provides step by step application of new tools to different data sets in the computer lab. You will be asked to replicate, and in some cases improve, prior empirical studies.

Microeconomics

1. Demand Theory
2. Expected Utility Theory
3. General Equilibrium Theory
4. Non-Cooperative Game Theory
a) Dominant strategies and applications
b) Nash Equilibrium and applications
c) Subgame Perfect Equilibrium and applications
5. Principal-Agent Theory
6. The Theory of Incomplete Contracts

Macroeconomics

The course delves into foundational techniques and concepts integral to representative-agent macroeconomics. It provides a comprehensive understanding of key frameworks, exploring topics like economic growth, business cycles—both with and without frictions—and examines the role of monetary and fiscal stabilization policies. Additionally, we'll address the empirical facet, highlighting the concept of causality within macroeconomics.

Elective

Students choose five electives in total that cover their research interests. Two out of these five electives are in the following set of courses: multivariate statistics, field experiments, computational statistics, machine learning (MADS), asset pricing theory, empirical asset pricing

2

Econometrics II

The class provides key knowledge on how different econometric models work and most importantly sheds light on their limitations. The course also provides step by step application of new tools to different data sets in the computer lab. You will be asked to replicate, and in some cases improve prior empirical studies.

Game Theory

The course aims to familiarise students with the basic concepts of game theory. Students learn different classes of games and a variety of solution concepts to predict strategic behaviour in these games. They will learn how to capture practically relevant situations in a game and the necessary tools to solve these games.

Causal Inference

Casual Inference

Coming soon

Elective

Students choose five electives in total that cover their research interests. Two out of these five electives are in the following set of courses: multivariate statistics, field experiments, computational statistics, machine learning (MADS), asset pricing theory, empirical asset pricing

Elective

Students choose five electives in total that cover their research interests. Two out of these five electives are in the following set of courses: multivariate statistics, field experiments, computational statistics, machine learning (MADS), asset pricing theory, empirical asset pricing

3

Industrial Organization

Coming soon

Advanced Topics in Economics

This course discusses the research frontier of a variety of topics.

1) Advanced Topics in Industrial Organization

2) Advanced Topics in Macroeconomics,

3) Advanced Topics in Monetary Economics,

4) Advanced Topics in Organizational Economics,

5) Advanced Topics in Behavioral Economics

Elective

Students choose five electives in total that cover their research interests. Two out of these five electives are in the following set of courses: multivariate statistics, field experiments, computational statistics, machine learning (MADS), asset pricing theory, empirical asset pricing

Elective

Students choose five electives in total that cover their research interests. Two out of these five electives are in the following set of courses: multivariate statistics, field experiments, computational statistics, machine learning (MADS), asset pricing theory, empirical asset pricing

PhD Brownbag

Coming soon

4

Master Thesis / 2nd year paper

Master's Thesis / 2nd year paper

The second year paper is the first piece of the student’s very own presentable research work. It can also be used to obtain a Master’s degree in Business Research and Analytics.

5-10

Research (Dissertation and Defence)

Upon passing the Qualifying Exam at the end of the 2^nd year, students enter the research phase of the programme. Students dedicate themselves to their research projects, produce scholarly papers and present their research at international academic conferences. They also have the opportunity to interact with international scholars visiting Frankfurt School to present research in the seminar series.

Research at FS

Why do managers so often underestimate the risk of their strategic decisions? Management professor Stevo Pavicevic tries to answer this question in his work:

"Making decisions is at the heart of professional lives of managers. Despite managers' best efforts, their decisions are often hopelessly erroneous. Here at Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, we investigate why managers make poor strategic decisions, and more importantly, how firms can build safeguards into the decision-making process to reduce the risk of flawed decisions."

Decision making is also important in marketing professor Tetyana Kosyakova’s projects her focus is on consumers rather than managers:

"My research is mainly in the area of choice and Bayesian modeling. Currently I am working on a series of projects, which focus on developing the methodology for estimating consumer preferences based on consumer choice (or purchase) data when consumers are making choice decisions given a large choice set.

More Less

A typical purchase decision from a large choice set could be a consumer picking a yoghurt in a supermarket, given a large yoghurt assortment on a dairy shelf or a consumer configuring a laptop given multiple options for processor, memory and other technical features. Traditional models don’t scale to large choice sets or large product assortments due to difficulty of likelihood evaluation. My work is aimed at contributing to this research area."

Dr. rer. Pol students at Frankfurt School often work closely together with faculty members on (larger) research projects. Digitalisation and its corporate impact is at the core of a project of accounting professor Matthias Mahlendorf:

"In a joint project with Dr. rer. Pol students and international coauthors, we are currently investigating how senior managers develop their expectations about their company's future performance.

More Less

This is important, because many firms are currently investing in new approaches (such as Google's "Objectives and Key Results", OKR) as well as in predictive analytics. These tools have the potential to solve some challenges that firms have struggled with for decades, such as slack building in performance goals and biased forecasts. However, we need solid research to distinguish between hype and actual improvements."

Research at Frankfurt School often centres on big problems in society, including climate change and wealth inequality. Take, for example the work of finance professor Yigitcan Karabulut:

"My current research interest lies in household finance, with a particular emphasis on studying the factors that contribute to household wealth dynamics and their implications for the evolution of wealth inequality. In other words, I examine why some families are poor and some are wealthy and how this changes over time. Lately I am working mostly to understand the impact of robots on differences in wealth."

After a lot of hard work, the tangible output of research is a publication in a scientific journal. We asked Professor Sascha Steffen about the paper that is closest to his heart:

"Even though it is not my best published paper, I am very happy about my paper on the "dash for cash" of firms during the current COVID crisis. It was not only the first paper that scrutinized this but also unearthed some subtle drivers of corporate cash holdings.

More Less

First, cash does not seem to be just "negative debt" (or a waste of resources that some literature seems to suggest) but there is an economic rationale for holding cash. Second, credit risk matters for cash holdings (which has been somewhat neglected in the literature); it is not only default risk, though, but there is a "cliff risk" for firms to become downgraded to non-investment grade which significantly affects cash holdings."

Economics Faculty

Frankfurt School is among the few schools in Germany and even in Europe to offer fully-fledged coursework, which prepares students for the demands of dissertation research, on a par with what has traditionally only been available in top schools in the U.S. The programme has achieved remarkable successes:

Doctoral students have been invited for visiting scholarships in top schools in the U.S. (e.g., MIT) and in Australia (e.g. University of Melbourne).

Doctoral students have presented their dissertation work in highly visible and competitive conferences such as the Singapore Management University Accounting Symposium and the MIT-Asia conference.

Student funding and scholarships

Frankfurt School offers fully-funded study places for the doctoral programme in order to attract and support the brightest minds in academia.

Students are expected to devote 100% of their working time to their doctoral studies at Frankfurt School for up to five years.

Funding includes a tuition fee waiver and a cost-of-living stipend. The monthly stipend comprises of EUR 1,820.

The stipend will be granted for five years conditional on the continued satisfaction of all academic programme requirements.

From the first year onwards doctoral students will receive EUR 1,820 for the period of 5 years.

Furthermore Frankfurt School covers costs related to research, including conferences and overseas visits.

Application process

1. Target Group

Outstanding graduates of a Bachelor‘s or Master’s programme in economics or related fields, such as mathematics, statistics, business administration, and finance, who aspire to launch an academic career.

Candidates in the final year of a Master’s or Bachelor’s programme are welcome to apply with their most recent academic transcript. Please note that the degree has to be completed by the time of the beginning of the programme.

2. Online Application

The first step of our application process is to complete the online application form. You will need to upload the following required documents. Please note that you need a certified English or German translation for all documents, that are not originally in German or English. The application platform will be open between 15 September 2023 and 15 January 2024.

Required Documents

CV and list of publications (if existent)
Certified copy of your University Entrance Qualification (Abitur, A-levels or equivalent)
Certified copy of your University Degree Certificate or equivalent and academic transcript of records
Official GMAT or GRE results
Proof of English Language Proficiency Test (TOEFL IBT min. score of 100/IELTS min. score of 7.0)
Statement of Purpose (up to 2 pages): Why are you interested in your chosen field of study? What are the potential areas of research you might pursue? Have you completed any research projects with faculty? Is the research of any member of the FS faculty of interest to you?
Optional Statement: If you would like the committee to consider any of the following factors, you can describe their relevance in a separate statement within the application. This can contribute to the diversity of the entering class: background, extracurricular activities, work experience.
Two letters of recommendation: To request the letters from your recommenders, you have to register on a separate platform and send your request from there.

Please click on this link to access the platform: http://apply.interfolio.com/79802

Create a profile by clicking on the button “Apply now”.

If you require assistance, go to the “Home” tab and click the “Dossier Quick Start Guide”.

Once you send your request to your potential recommender, they will receive an e-mail together with a link where they can upload their recommendation letter confidentially. Please provide a deadline for your recommendation letter to ensure we receive it on time. Once the recommender has uploaded the letter, we will be notified and will be able to access it.

3. Interview

Successful applicants will be invited to a skype interview with faculty members.

4. Results

The final decision regarding admission to our doctoral programme will be made by the Committee for Doctorate Proceedings. It is based on the overall portfolio of the candiate and the interview. The results will be communicated after the final decision.

Request more information