phd economics harvard faculty

Undergraduate

Economics is a social science that covers a broad subject matter in seeking to understand the social world. Economics studies the behavior of social systems—such as markets, corporations, legislatures, and families—as the outcome of interactions through institutions between goal-directed individuals. Doing economic research involves asking questions about the social world and addressing those questions with data and models, employing mathematical and statistical tools whenever possible to aid the analysis.

The Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree is designed for industry professionals with years of work experience who wish to complete their degrees part time, both on campus and online, without disruption to their employment. Our typical student is over 30, has previously completed one or two years of college, and works full time.

The Ph.D. program in the Department of Economics is addressed to students of high promise who wish to prepare themselves for careers in teaching and research in academia or for responsible positions in government, research organizations, or business enterprises. Students in the department are free to pursue research interests with scholars throughout the University. Faculty of Harvard Law School, Harvard Kennedy School, and Harvard Business School, for example, are available to students for consultation, instruction, and research guidance.

Business Economics

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In this program, students specialize in fields such as behavioral economics, development economics, econometrics, economic history, financial economics, industrial organization, international economics, organizational economics, labor economics, macroeconomics, political economics, public economics, and economic theory.

Students will receive the comprehensive training of a PhD in economics along with the opportunity to focus on business-related research questions. Using this training, students will delve into some of the most pressing and relevant topics in the field of economics through the practical lens of business.

The majority of graduates have gone on to secure faculty positions at such prestigious institutions as Brown University, INSEAD, London School of Economics and Political Science, MIT, Northwestern University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Toronto. Others have gone on to careers in organizations such as the Federal Reserve Bank, Federal Trade Commission, Cornerstone Research, and NERA.

Students in business economics are enrolled in and receive their degree from the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (Harvard Griffin GSAS) and work with faculty from both the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and  Harvard Business School  (HBS). Harvard Griffin GSAS has offered PhD programs in collaboration with HBS since 1916. In addition to Business Economics , Harvard Griffin GSAS and HBS collaborate on the programs in business administration (including Accounting and Management , Marketing , S trategy , and Technology and Operations Management ), Organizational Behavior , and Health Policy (Management Track) .

For more detailed information about the program, including information about financial support and student profiles, please visit the Harvard Business School Doctoral Programs website .

Admissions Requirements

Please review the admissions requirements and other information before applying. You can find degree program-specific admissions requirements below and access additional guidance on applying from the Harvard Business School Doctoral Programs website .

Personal Statement

Standardized tests.

GRE General or GMAT: Required iBT TOEFL preferred minimum score: 100 IELTS preferred minimum score: 7.5

Writing Sample

Writing sample is optional but highly recommended. It should largely be your own work and you should be prepared to discuss the content and your contributions. It should be no more than 10 pages of text, plus references.

Fall Grades

Fall term grades should be sent when available if attending school while applying to the program (prospective students may add this information to the Fall Grade Report, available in the Applicant Portal, after they have submitted their application).

For the coordinated JD/PhD , applicants must apply separately to each program and indicate in the application to the PhD Program in Business Economics that a concurrent application has been submitted to Harvard Law School.

See list of Business Economics faculty

APPLICATION DEADLINE

Questions about the program.

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Economics Track

In this section.

• Degree Requirements
• What We Look For

The Economics track in the PhD program in Public Policy provides a curriculum for doctoral students seeking rigorous disciplinary training, with a focus on applying the tools of economics to the study of major public policy issues.

Graduates will be prepared for academic teaching and research positions in schools of public policy, economics and other disciplinary departments, as well as policy positions in national governments and international institutions.

HKS has a strong core of faculty specializing in a diverse range of subfields of economics, including labor, public and applied microeconomics topics, behavioral economics and decision sciences, environmental economics, international trade, economic development, and other subjects.

The program embeds formal economics training within a unique interdisciplinary atmosphere of scholars and practitioners who are working on problems of practice in a wide range of settings. In addition, the PhD program offers teaching and research opportunities for students with leading scholars at HKS and elsewhere at Harvard. 

Justice Department Lawyer Spencer Smith Joins Michigan Law Faculty

• Intellectual Property and Antitrust
• Law and Social Sciences
• Public Interest Law

Professor Spencer Smith was initially drawn to the law as a way to make positive change in the world.

He has put that drive into practice at the US Department of Justice and as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. As he joins the Michigan Law faculty, the desire to spur change continues to motivate him into the world of academia.

While Smith has written on a number of topics, from taxation to torts, his recent focus, both in practice and in research, has been antitrust law. “I’m interested in what works,” he said. “How can the law create real competition and economic opportunity, free from monopoly power?”

The reach and impact of antitrust law

Born and raised by schoolteacher parents in Holland, Michigan, Smith got his bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics from U-M, then a master’s and doctorate in economics from Oxford University, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar. He earned a JD from Harvard Law School. 

“Even as I was doing graduate work in economics, it became clear that law was essential to work on some of the problems that I cared about most,” he said. “Law is, among other things, a powerful means to shape private conduct for the public good.”

Smith has worked for the Justice Department twice, most recently as counsel to Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Jonathan Kanter, who is known as a strong enforcer of the antitrust laws. 

“A lot has changed in our economy and our society, and antitrust law needs to keep up,” Smith said. “The antitrust statutes might be sufficiently flexible to address new forms of anticompetitive conduct. But for the law to develop, advocates and enforcers have to be creative, and they must be determined to bring hard cases.”

Smith previously served as a law clerk to Justice Sotomayor during the Supreme Court’s 2022–2023 term, when the Court confronted challenges to the Voting Rights Act, affirmative action in university admissions, and LGBTQ  rights. 

“Justice Sotomayor is an amazing mentor and role model,” Smith said. “She is brilliant, strategic, full of integrity, and tireless in her pursuit of justice. With her example in mind, I left the clerkship energized and recommitted to an approach to law that focuses on how legal rules and institutions affect people’s everyday lives.”

A coming home to academia

Smith was drawn to academia for two main reasons: the example of his parents, who were both public school teachers; and the chance to make a difference in the world through research and advocacy.

The opportunity to pursue teaching at Michigan Law, where he is now an assistant professor of law, was particularly appealing to him. “I was born and raised in Michigan and attended this university for college. The chance now to join this top-flight law school is something I’m deeply grateful for. I anticipate learning a lot from my remarkable colleagues and students.” 

On a personal level, it was at U-M that Smith met his future husband, who joined the faculty of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts last year—not long after Justice Sotomayor married them. 

“It is very special for us to be back where it all began,” Smith said.

Smith will teach antitrust law in the winter term, and he encourages students of all backgrounds and interests to study the subject. “Antitrust has a reputation for being a difficult course, and maybe that’s deserved,” he said. “But it’s not just a technical exercise in economics. Antitrust has it all: civil and criminal litigation, fascinating history, crossover politics, statutory interpretation, administrative law and regulatory policy, even some constitutional questions. There’s something for everyone.”

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Farmers market excursion, first day of classes, welcome tabling.

IGLP Visiting Researchers

The following scholars were affiliated with the IGLP for all or part of the 2023-2024 academic year.

2023-2024 Researchers

Yifeng Chen

Yifeng Chen joins the IGLP as an Associate Professor at Peking University Law School. His research aims to develop a historical account of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in its promotion of industrialism as both a desired form of economic life as well as a legitimate institution for labour governance. By focusing on labour protection through regulating the industrial conditions and industrial relations, the ILO invented itself profoundly an industrial, economic organization, as much as a humanitarian one.

His project mainly employs historical studies including research into the archives of the ILO as well as its official documents. In addition, the project, being interdisciplinary by nature, will also look into sociological studies, economics and political philosophy.

Petter Danckwardt

Petter Danckwardt is a PhD student in international law at Örebro University. His doctoral project focuses on recognition of states and governments in international law. He has taught international law and constitutional law at Stockholm and Uppsala University and has previously worked as a law clerk at Södertörn District Court and as a case officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He holds an LLM from Stockholm University and a master’s degree in political philosophy from Södertörn University.

Javier Garcia Amez

Javier Garcia Amez joins the IGLP as an Assistant Professor in Criminal Law at Oviedo University. He holds a Bachelor in Law (Oviedo University, 2005) and PhD in Law (Oviedo University, 2014). He has been a visiting researcher at Harvard Law School, Konstanz University (Germany), and Yale Law School (USA). He has published two books, book chapters (23), and articles (26) in topics such as Environmental Law, Criminal Law, and Gender Violence. At this moment, his research is focused on psychological harm to women and coercive control.

Anaïs Mattez

Anaïs Mattez is a PhD candidate and researcher at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), School of Law. Her research explores the restitution of cultural objects and the decolonisation of heritage more generally. In her doctoral dissertation, she analyses the ideological undertones and political influences surrounding the implementation of the 1970 UNESCO Convention. During her stay at IGLP, she plans to explore critical approaches to cultural property.

Claudia San Martin Rodriguez

Claudia San Martin graduated in Law at the Complutense University of Madrid and holds an LL.M. in Intellectual Property Law from the Carlos III University of Madrid. She is a researcher and PhD student at Complutense University of Madrid and has been a legal consultant in the Digital Transformation department at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), working on the IP Register in Blockchain project. Previously, she has been a legal consultant at Grant Thornton Madrid and training manager at the Santander Financial Institute (Banco Santander), in projects related to Blockchain.

Claudia is specialized in data protection and intellectual property, and has been lawyer for the brands Hackett, Tommy Hilfiger and Pepe Jeans London in Spain and Portugal. She is currently focused on research on this matter and Blockchain and during her stay at the IGLP she will analyze its applicable regulations in the US and Europe.

Adriane Sanctis de Brito

Adriane Sanctis is a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School’s IGLP (2023-2024). She is a co-founder of LAUT, a Brazilian think tank focused on authoritarianism. She holds a PhD from the University of São Paulo (USP) and was previously a professor (adjunct) at its International Relations Institute. She taught critical legal theory, comparative constitutionalism, and international law.

She researches the international histories of legal imagination related to peace, humanitarianism, and the suppression of the slave trade. Her book Seeking Capture, Resisting Seizure: An International Legal History of the Anglo-Brazilian Treaty for the Suppression of the Slave Trade (1826-1845) is forthcoming in the Max Planck Institute’s “Global Perspectives on Legal History” series. She worked on the research that led to her book while she was a Kathleen Fitzpatrick Fellow at the University of Melbourne, and a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Luxemburg and at the University of Helsinki. At LAUT, she has headed projects examining how contemporary reactionary movements reimagine and reconfigure legal language and human rights.

Adam Strobejko

Adam Strobeyko is a Visiting Researcher working on the topics of R&D for biometric devices and the regulation of Genomic Sequencing Data (GSD) sharing platforms. He holds a PhD in International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute (with distinction), a MA degree in International Public Management from Sciences Po Paris, and an LLB in European Law from Maastricht University.

Prior to joining IGLP, Adam was a Global Fellow at Guarini Global Law & Tech, NYU Law, and a doctoral researcher at the Global Health Centre, Geneva Graduate Institute, where he worked on issues related to countermeasure R&D, One Health, Access and Benefit Sharing and the Pandemic Treaty negotiations. Adam’s research focuses on the relation between public policy and innovation, and he is particularly interested in the role of expertise and novel regulatory approaches in global health law.

Nicole Stybnarova

Nicole Stybnarova is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Leiden University (Faculty of Global Governance and Affairs). Her PhD, completed at the University of Helsinki (Erik Castrén Insitute), addressed the regulation of marriage in Migration Law and Private International Law and its functioning in the global structure of wealth accumulation. Prior to joining Leiden University, she was a lecturer in International Law and Forced Migration at the University of Oxford (Refugee Studies Centre).

Nicole published multiple articles addressing topics at the intersections of migration law, IHRL, private international law, feminism, and political economy. She came to the IGLP to work on her current project which focuses on International Law and women’s social movements. She will study how women and their advocates used historically economic, feminist and international legal arguments to formulate their objectives for social emancipation and to have those advanced with international regulation.

Previous Researchers by Year

2023-2024   | 2022-2023  | 2021-2022   | 2020-2021 | 2019-2020 |  2018-2019  | 2017-2018 |  2016-2017

2015-2016 | 2014-2015 | 2013-2014 | 2012-2013 | 2011-2012 | 2010-2011 | 2009-2010 | 2008-2009

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ECON 3005 Graduate Student Workshop in Economic Development

Date: , location: .

Leonardo D'Amico (Harvard) "Financial Integration and the Geography of Economic Activity"

Alice Danon (Harvard Kennedy School)

Canvas site:  https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/138053 Contact: Jamie Murray /  [email protected] Directions to Littauer Center

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Upcoming Programs featuring Ankur Pandya

Benefit-cost analysis: valuing life and health, ankur pandya.

Dr. Pandya loves teaching introductory health decision science and conducting research built on these methods. His areas of interest are: 1) applied decision science studies evaluating cardiovascular disease policies; 2) connecting cost-effectiveness analysis with broader value-based health policies being implemented or piloted in U.S. health reform; and 3) methodological topics within cost-effectiveness modeling (calibration, validation, distributional cost-effectiveness analysis). His research has been covered in The New York Times, National Public Radio, NBC Nightly News, and other media outlets.

Before joining HPM, Dr. Pandya served as Assistant Professor of Healthcare Policy and Research with a secondary appointment in the Department of Radiology at Weill Cornell Medical College from 2012-2014. He graduated from the Harvard PhD Program in Health Policy in 2012, and holds an MPH from Yale University in Health Policy and Administration (2005) and a BS from Cornell University in Nutritional Sciences (2003). Prior to entering the PhD program, he worked for two years at a health economics/outcomes research consulting firm.

He received the “Outstanding Paper by a Young Investigator Award” from the Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM) in 2016. He was one of three recipients of the “Teaching Citation Award” from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2017. He received a “Centre for Health Economics Research Fellowship Award” from the University of York in 2018 (visitation in 2019). He was elected to the SMDM board in 2019 and currently holds the position of Vice President (2023-24). He received the “Roger L. Nichols Excellence in Teaching Award” from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2022. Dr. Pandya has received grant funding as principal investigator from the National Institutes of Health (R01NS104143, 2018-2023) and the American Heart Association (14CRP18730014, 2014-2015).

New Faculty Members Tim Layton and Andrew Simon Join UVA Batten

The UVA Batten School is extremely pleased to welcome two new faculty members this fall: Tim Layton joins us as an associate professor of public policy, and Andrew Simon joins us as an assistant professor of public policy.

"We are thrilled to welcome professors Tim Layton and Andrew Simon to the UVA community,” said UVA Batten Dean Ian Solomon. “We know they will be outstanding teachers, caring mentors, inspiring colleagues and groundbreaking policy scholars. They will be a strong addition to our impressive faculty roster.”

Layton joins us from Harvard Medical School, where he was the 30th Anniversary Associate Professor of Health Care Policy in the Department of Health Care Policy, and co-chair of the economics track of the Health Policy Ph.D. Program. 

Layton’s most recent research has centered on the economics of health insurance markets, with a particular focus on markets and social health insurance programs for low-income households. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and an affiliated researcher at J-PAL at MIT. 

This summer, the American Society of Health Economists recognized Layton’s achievements with the Willard G. Manning Award for Best Research in Health Econometrics . The award is given for significant contributions to the field of health economics, providing a platform to celebrate exceptional scholars and helping to elevate the field of health economics and promote continued excellence in research.

Layton received his bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University and Ph.D. from Boston University. See his bio for more details.

Simon’s research has focused on issues in state and local public finance and labor economics, with a particular interest in higher education policy and taxation. In addition to publishing numerous research papers and teaching graduate courses, he secured a Sloan Foundation Grant and Russell Sage Foundation Presidential Grant, both highly prestigious awards. 

Simon received his bachelor’s in economics and mathematics from Cornell University, and his master’s and Ph. D. in economics from the University of Michigan. In Spring 2025, he will be teaching Economics of Public Policy, a core course in Batten’s bachelor of arts curriculum. See his bio for more details

“It is my great pleasure to introduce professors Layton and Simon to the Batten School community,” said Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Eileen Chou. “Professor Layton excels as both a mentor to students and an exceptional teacher of quantitative methods. His award-winning research focuses on the economics of health insurance markets and programs, particularly those serving low-income households, such as Medicaid and the Health Insurance Marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act.

“Professor Simon explores crucial yet often overlooked topics within public finance and labor economics. His research on inequality, social policy and college access and affordability aligns closely with UVA’s and Batten's missions to broaden access to the profession. We are truly delighted to welcome Tim and Andrew to Batten.”

Professors Simon and Layton join an impressive Batten faculty, which in addition to providing students with an exceptional educational experience, is committed to a wide range of research in topics related to health, politics, psychology, economics, global humanitarianism, environment and the law.

Andrew Simon

Andrew Simon is an assistant professor of public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. He is a public finance economist who studies the incidence of state and local public policies across individuals and geography. His current research focuses on higher education finance, such as the causes and consequence of state divestment in public colleges, as well as taxation, and employment policy. 

Timothy Layton is an associate professor of public policy, specializing in health economics, at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Layton's research focuses on the economics of health insurance markets, with a particular focus on markets and social health insurance programs for low-income households. His research involves a mix of empirical and conceptual work studying how and why health insurance markets often struggle to provide the contracts consumers want at prices they can afford.

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