Master of Economics Program

 

Economics among Top 10 Master's degrees

Forbes has included Economics in its Top 10 list of the “Best Master’s Degrees for Jobs”. According to Forbes, the mid-career median pay is $115,000 for someone with a Master’s degree in Economics, and the projected employment increase for jobs associated with this degree is 14.3%.  For more information, read the story published in June 2012.

Deadline for preferred consideration is March 1, 2013.

 

Program Description

The Master’s in Economics program at Miami University provides students with advanced skills in economics and econometrics and prepares students to be analysts in the private or public sector, or to pursue a Ph.D. at another institution. Recent placements in the private sector include AC Nielsen, dunnhumby USA, Epic, Epsilon, Ernst &Young, IMS Health, and the RAND Corporation. Students from the Master’s program have gone on to study at Brown University, the University of Arizona, the University of California-Berkeley, Harvard University, the University of Maryland, the University of Wisconsin, and Vanderbilt University.

The Master’s program can be completed in one calendar year. Students may choose a concentration in either Applied Economics or Financial Economics. All students take the same core courses during the fall semester and the same two econometrics courses during the spring semester. Students with a concentration in Financial Economics take Investment Management and Applied Corporate Finance during the spring semester, while students with a concentration in Applied Economics complete two electives in their areas of interest (see below for details).

Fall Semester – Applied Economics and Financial Economics

  • ECO 514: Mathematical Economics (3)
  • ECO 615: Advanced Microeconomic Theory (3)
  • ECO 617: Advanced Macroeconomic Theory (3)
  • ECO 663: Econometrics (3)

Spring Semester - Applied Economics

  • ECO 671: Topics in Applied Econometrics(3)
  • ECO 672: Applied Time Series Analysis (3)
  • Two, 3 hour electives in area of interest

Spring Semester – Financial Economics

  • ECO 671: Topics in Applied Econometrics (3)
  • ECO 672: Applied Time Series Analysis (3)
  • FIN 635: Investment Management (3)
  • FIN 675: Applied Corporate Finance (3)

Miami’s MA program in Economics focuses heavily on developing strong skills in economic theory and econometrics, providing students with the ability to be an empirical researcher or analyst. The first semester lays a foundation of theory and testing used in the second semester courses. In the Applied Economics concentration, elective courses include International Trade, Environmental Economics, International Monetary Relations, Economic History, and Industrial Organization. The second semester econometrics courses teach students modern techniques such as qualitative dependent variable models, difference-in-difference models, bootstrapping, treatment effects models, survival models, quantile regressions, event studies in finance, and Fama-French models. Time series skills include ARMA models, Dickey-Fuller tests, cointegration, ARCH/GARCH, and nonlinear time series estimation including threshold autoregression, smooth transition autoregression, and the Markov-switching model. In both econometrics classes, modern finance examples and data are used to complement the courses taken by students in the Financial Economics Track.

During the summer, students in both concentrations can apply to write a thesis, or work in teams to complete a project supervised by a faculty member. Students who write a thesis work closely with a professor who guides the project, helping the student gain in-depth knowledge about the chosen subject and experience in carrying out a research project using the tools of modern economic theory and econometrics. Some recent titles of theses can be found on our website.

Our faculty has research interests in many areas, and publish in leading journals such as the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Economic Theory, the Southern Economic Journal, the Journal of Economic History, Public Choice, the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, and the International Journal of Money and Finance.

Miami University is ranked 1st in Ohio and 35th nationally among public institutions in 2012 according to Forbes magazine. BusinessWeek ranked the undergraduate program in the Farmer School of Business 8th among public universities and 22nd overall.

Last modified on 3/21/13 | Content maintained by Economics Department