brown economics phd application

Graduate School

Ph.d. requirements.

• Academics & Research
• Programs & Requirements

Brown University awards more than 200 doctor of philosophy degrees annually.

The Brown Ph.D. is primarily a research degree. Teaching is an important part of many doctoral programs, and many departments require candidates for the Ph.D. to have teaching experience.

Brown University offers substantial financial support to doctoral students. All incoming doctoral students are guaranteed five years of support, which includes a stipend, full tuition remission, health-services fee, and a health-insurance subsidy. Doctoral students in the Humanities and Social Sciences are guaranteed six years of support. All promises of student support are subject to students making satisfactory academic progress, as determined by their programs of study. Please see related links for additional details regarding the University's commitment to doctoral education.

Ph.D. Funding

Funding guarantee, four general requirements for the doctor of philosophy.

The candidate must be formally admitted to his or her degree program.

The normal residency requirement is the equivalent of three Academic Years of full-time study beyond the bachelor's degree. Students who enter a PhD program at Brown already holding a master’s degree in a related field have a residency requirement equivalent to two Academic Years of full-time study upon entering the PhD program at Brown. Use of a previously earned master’s degree to reduce PhD residency requirements is contingent upon approval of the program Director of Graduate Study. Graduate work done at other institutions and not used in fulfillment of the requirements for any doctoral degree elsewhere may, on the approval of the program Director of Graduate Study, be counted in fulfillment of up to, but not exceeding, one year of the residency requirement. A student who desires credit for work done elsewhere should file a timely application with the program Director of Graduate Study; transfer credit forms are available through the  Office of the Registrar .

A student is advanced to candidacy for the Ph.D. when he or she has completed satisfactorily all the requirements, departmental and general, requisite to beginning work on the dissertation. Candidacy is determined by the department or program of study and certified by the Registrar. Most departments require a preliminary examination before advancing any student to candidacy. Most departments also require a final examination or defense. The examination is conducted by professors in the department and by such other members of the faculty as may be appointed.

The candidate must present a dissertation on a topic related to his or her area of specialization that presents the results of original research and gives evidence of excellent scholarship. The dissertation must be approved by the professor or committee under whose direction it is written and by the Graduate Council. All requirements for the Ph.D. must be completed within five years after advancement to candidacy.

Faculty Member Leaves Brown

If a faculty member working with a doctoral student leaves Brown for any reason before that student has completed his or her degree requirements, it may not always be possible for that faculty member to continue working with the student as an advisor. In such cases, departments will work with students to help them locate a new advisor.

Additional Requirements

Individual departments and programs may have additional requirements regarding the number of courses to be taken, proficiency in foreign languages, special examinations, and theses. The department should be consulted for specific information.

Political Science

Graduate program, graduate program handbook, graduate student intranet.

Brown's community of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, visiting scholars, and faculty members in political science is a close and collegial one.

We are committed to excellence in research and teaching, to methodological excellence, and to interdisciplinarity. We have grown from 35 Ph.D. students in 2008 to 52 Ph.D. students today. Our students benefit from the opportunity to work closely with leading scholars; they enjoy access to first rate libraries, a variety of research centers and institutes, and strong support for their own scholarship – from fieldwork to methods workshops to conference travel.

Incoming doctoral students receive five years of guaranteed financial support, including summers, a stipend, tuition remission, a health-services fee, and health and dental insurance. The Graduate School guarantees a sixth year of funding for all doctoral students in good standing in the humanities and social sciences. There are also additional interdisciplinary fellowship opportunities at Brown which many of our students secure.

Overall, Brown provides in-depth research and pedagogical training through research and coauthorship opportunities with faculty, as well as to be Teaching Fellows. 

Graduate Programs

Biostatistics.

The doctoral program in Biostatistics provides the training necessary to carry out independent research in theory, methodology and the application of statistics to important problems in biomedical research, including research biology, public health and clinical medicine.

The Ph.D. program is administered by an active, expanding and highly interdisciplinary faculty in the Department of Biostatistics. Major areas of research activity include Bayesian inference, analysis of biomarkers and diagnostic tests, causal inference and missing data, time series and functional data analysis, modeling of social networks, bioinformatics, longitudinal data, and multilevel modeling. Faculty collaborate actively with investigators in the areas of cancer prevention and screening, behavioral sciences, HIV/AIDS, health care policy, genetic epidemiology, neuroscience, and genomics.

Additional Resources

All PhD graduate students are provided with a new laptop computer and office space.  Students also have access to the computing infrastructure at the Center for Statistical Sciences, a high-end, continuously updated computing environment featuring both Unix and PC/MAC networks, with access to all major software for data analysis and numerical computing. CSS also maintains a considerable collection of statistics texts and journals in the Walter Freiberger Biostatistics Library.

Application Information

MCAT or LSAT tests cannot be substituted for the GRE. Applicants to the Ph.D. program should have taken courses in calculus (three semesters), and advanced undergraduate courses in linear algebra and probability. Experience with numerical computing is also recommended. Applications from students in applied fields such as biology, biochemistry, economics, and computer science are strongly encouraged, with the understanding that necessary mathematical coursework may have to be completed before or soon after enrollment in the program.

Applicants to this School of Public Health program should apply through  SOPHAS , a centralized application service for accredited schools and programs in public health. Brown University School of Public Health GRE reporting code: 7765.

Application Requirements

Gre subject:.

Not required

GRE General:

Official transcripts:, letters of recommendations:.

(3) Required

Personal Statement:

Additional materials:.

Application Fee

Additional Requirements:

International applicants.

• Language Proficiency (TOEFL or IELTS if applicable)
• Transcript Evaluation (if applicable)

Dates/Deadlines

Application deadline, completion requirements.

For all Ph.D. students, 24 credits are required of students matriculating in the program without a master's degree; 16 are required beyond the master's. For those with a related master's degree, up to eight units can be transferred. Both written and oral exams, plus a dissertation comprising an original contribution to the field, also are required. Students are expected to participate in academic activities such as the Statistics Seminar and faculty–organized working groups.

Alumni Careers

Contact and Location

Department of biostatistics, mailing address.

• Program Faculty
• Program Handbook
• Graduate School Handbook
• Public Health Career Outcomes

Department of Economics

Political economy at brown conference (peb)-october 18, 2024.

We look forward to the Political Economy at Brown Conference (PEB) on October 18, 2024, organized by Brian Knight and Gemma Dipoppa. This event is co-sponsored by the Bravo Center for Economic Research and the Center for PPE. To submit a paper, please complete this form by May 31.