Degree Requirments
Both the College of Business and the Department of Finance have course Requirements for the PhD degree that, in total, form a student's program of study. These requirements are summarized below (credit hours are based on the semester system).
For additional information on degree requirements, see Eli Broad Graduate School of Management and Graduate Education.
- A student must maintain at least a 3.25 GPA on all coursework by the end of the second semester of full-time enrollment and thereafter to remain in the program.
- The major field of study is finance. The major in finance consists of:
FI 980 Theory of Finance (3 credits)
Introduction to the financial theory of the firm. Theoretical models dealing with capital structure, cost of capital, dividend policy and leasing.FI 981 Corporate Finance Theory (3 credits)
Theoretical foundations. Recent empirical research in capital structure, dividend policy, and agency theory.FI 982 Investment Theory (3 credits)
Market efficiency, stochastic processes, option pricing, efficient set mathematics, intertemporal asset pricing and arbitrage pricing theory.FI 983 Financial Econometrics (3 credits)
Econometric techniques of relevance to problems in finance: asset pricing. Interpretation of the results and limitations of recent empirical finance research.From time to time the department offers other finance seminar courses which all doctoral students are encouraged to complete.
- Each student has a minor field of study. The minor is a minimum of 9 hours of course work. The minor is intended to provide theoretical framework, perspective, and content as a basis to conduct research in finance. Examples of minors are economics or statistics
- Competence in research related areas is required. This requirement may be satisfied by completing a minimum of 12 credits in research related areas with a four course minimum. This phrase "research related areas" suggests that care be used to select course work that is expected to be relevant to the student's research. These courses typically are research-method and statistics courses offered in the departments of economics, statistics, and accounting. The specific courses taken must be approved by the doctoral program director.
- Upon successful completion of all of the courses in the program of study, a student may take the comprehensive examination in finance. This examination is given in May. The purpose of this examination is to test a student's knowledge of the scholarly finance literature.