CURRICULUM

During the course phase students have to hand in a detailed research proposal for their Ph.D. thesis and present it to their thesis committee in a colloquium. In the research proposal, Ph.D. students provide the thesis outline and discuss preliminary results. The research proposal is not graded, but it has to be accepted. Following the acceptance of the research proposal, students are admitted into the research phase. All courses have to be completted and passed. The research phase starts in the term when the research proposal is successfully defended.

In the Ph.D. seminars students present their research papers. They receive feedback from faculty and fellow Ph.D. students. The seminars offer a forum for an active scientific debate.

The finance Ph.D. seminars take place weekly, the schedule can be found  here.

The Ph.D. thesis is written in English as a cumulative thesis. It consists of (at least) three articles that represent the quality standards of good international refereed journals. At least one of the articles has to be single-authored by the Ph.D. candidate.

At the end of the research phase, students have to submit the thesis and present it to the members of their Ph.D. Thesis Committee in a pre-defence examination. At this stage the Thesis Committee can ask for changes or corrections to the submitted manuscript. After having successfully passed the pre-defence, the public defence is held. The final version of the thesis is printed according to the HSG regulations.

After the acceptance of the thesis, the dissertation is presented in a public Ph.D. defence which concludes the doctoral studies. Students who successfully had their public defense, are awarded the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Economics and Econometrics or Doctor of Philosophy in Finance from the University of St.Gallen (Ph.D. HSG).