Economics PhD programs in Europe : completion times and job placement

Abstract

Stock, Finegan, and Siegfried establish that completion times in U.S. economics PhD programs have been on the rise, with the median steadily approaching six years. Do European programs experience the same trend? The authors of this article present new hand-collected data on job market candidates from the top European PhD programs in economics. In the past five years, completion times have been rising steadily, and the median is now approaching six years. Empirical evidence suggests that a shorter PhD duration is statistically associated with less prestigious placements. The authors further investigate how PhD duration and placement prestige vary with personal researcher characteristics such as gender or field of undergraduate studies.