GRADE GSEFM

Providing a scientific basis for policy

Research Focus

Already being the academic home for about 240 graduate students from more than 40 countries, the vision of GRADE GSEFM Economics, Finance, Management is to establish one of the premier centers in Europe for research-oriented doctoral education in economics, finance, and management. Research at GSEFM features an emphasis on applied and interdisciplinary analyses of relevance to society as a whole through a research focus on institutions. Exemplary for this research is work undertaken on financial stability and its impact on the economy at large; on monetary and fiscal policy in an integrating world; on incentives and economic behavior; and on labor market institutions, to name only a few. GSEFM doctoral students benefit from interaction with close to 60 faculty members from Goethe University Frankfurt, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and Technische Universität Darmstadt. GSEFM faculty members are involved in key international research networks, and have a wide range of research experience at excellent universities in Europe as well as the United States. GSEFM doctoral students also benefit from the faculty’s linkages to policy making institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the Deutsche Bundesbank, giving them the chance to engage in frontier research on substantive issues.


Objective

All Ph.D. programs at GSEFM involve a two-year course phase and a dissertation writing phase. The first-year courses provide the methodological and analytical foundations for research in economics and business administration, while the second-year courses are designed to allow catching up with the research frontier in a student’s select areas of specialization. Specializations offered at GSEFM include Development and International Economics, Econometrics, Finance, Macroeconomics, Management and Microeconomics, as well as Marketing. The Ph.D. program curricula beyond this course phase pay special attention to helping doctoral students with a smooth transition from the course phase to the dissertation writing phase, and contain various structural elements in the dissertation writing phase also (including seminars, research paper courses, and transferable skills courses). The Ph.D. program curricula culminate in an organized placement process for the doctoral candidates.