Discussion Paper No. 53Williams Project on the Economics of Higher EducationDenison GatehouseWilliams CollegeWilliamstown, MA 01267*The authors are Professor of Economics at Vanderbilt University and Secretary-Treasurer of the AmericanEconomic Association, and Associate Professor of Economics at Montana State University, respectively.Support from the National Science Foundation through the Commission on Professionals in Science andTechnology and from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Project on the Economics of Higher Education atWilliams College is gratefully acknowledged. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions orrecommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Economic Association, the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology, theNational Science Foundation, or the Mellon Foundation. Kathryn Anderson, Robert Driskill, RonaldEhrenberg, Jon Hamilton, W. Lee Hansen, Peter Kennedy, James Ragan, and Robert Schwab provideduseful comments on an earlier draft.
SO YOU WANT TO EARN A PH.D. IN ECONOMICS
:
HOW LONG DO YOU THINK IT WILL TAKE?
John J. SiegfriedWendy A. Stock*March, 2000DP-53
1ABSTRACTThe elapsed time taken to earn a Ph.D. in economics is analyzed with data from620 (of about 950) 1996-97 Ph.D.s. The median is 5.3 years. A duration model indicatesthat those students at several of the most highly regarded programs, those supported byno-work fellowships, and those holding a prior masters degree finish faster than others.Americans, those who start jobs before completing their degree, and those who havechildren take longer. Kids slow the progress of women, but not of men. The onlydifference among fields is a longer time required for industrial organization andinternational economics. There is no difference in time-to-degree between men andwomen, married and single students, older and younger students, and those enrolled inlarger or smaller Ph.D. programs. Fellowship support is more important for speeding theprogress of women than that of men.
2Brochures describing economics Ph.D. programs commonly tell prospectivestudents that they should be able to complete the work required for a degree in fourcalendar years--usually two full years of course work, a third year to complete coursework and prepare a thesis proposal, and a final year to complete their thesis and seek employment.
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To encourage students to complete the requirements in that time frame,many programs limit financial aid to four years.
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In practice, however, less than twenty percent of those who eventually earn aPh.D. in economics do so within four calendar years of entering the program; the medianelapsed time between starting an economics Ph.D. program and earning a degree is nowabout 5.3 years. Because some people take extraordinarily long, the mean is about sixyears. With normal attrition rates factored in,
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the overall proportion of entering Ph.D.students who might reasonably expect to have a degree in hand four years later falls toabout ten percent. How long it takes to earn a degree should be of considerable interestto prospective students because, as study time expands, near-term costs of the degree riseand future expected benefits fall. An additional year of elapsed time spent in a Ph.D.program has an opportunity cost exceeding $50,000 for most students today.
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Slowerprogress toward a degree also has an indirect financial cost for men. Holding otherfactors constant, new male Ph.D.’s who take more than five years to earn their degreeincur a seven percent penalty in starting salary (Stock and Siegfried, 2000). Furthermore,additional elapsed Ph.D. study time reduces the length of an individual's independentscholarly or professional career.
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Institutions should also be concerned about elapsedstudy time because they bear a considerable proportion of the costs,
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accrue some of the
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PhD Time
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