Information for New Students

Congratulations! We are very happy that you have decided to join the Program.

If you are new to the ANU, you can find many useful information about what to do on arrival in Canberra at the website of the international office, even if you are not an international student.

PhD Student Administrators are great sources of help and advice. We recommend that you go to the economics department or centre that you have received your offer from and introduce yourself to their Student Administrator as soon as you can.

Pre-PhD Courses:

Whether or not your offer is conditional on participation in our pre-PhD courses, we strongly recommend that you plan to arrive in Canberra four to six weeks before the beginning of the semester and take advantage of the following pre-PhD courses:

• Mathematical Techniques for Advanced Economic Analysis (January 13 to February 21, 2009)
• Introductory Academic Program at the Crawford School (link to be established)

PART A: The Coursework Component of the Economics PhD

Description of Part A:

Candidates are normally required to complete successfully eight semester-length courses (including four compulsory courses) over two consecutive semesters of full-time study. Candidates holding the Master of Economics degree or the Master of International and Development Economics degree from this University, or similar qualification from another University may be exempted from part of the coursework requirement of Part A at the discretion of the Economics Convener.

The four compulsory courses are:

• ECON8011 Microeconomic Theory A
• ECON8022 Macroeconomic Theory
• EMET8002 Case Studies in Applied Econometrics
• ECON8036 Economics Seminars

Candidate are encouraged to leave Case Studies in Applied Econometrics and Economics Seminars until the end of Part A.

The remaining four courses are selected in accordance with the candidate's research interests and normally taken, subject to the approval of the PhD Convener, from

ECHI8011 Classic Works of Economic Theory
ECON8002 Applied Welfare Economics
ECON8003 Economic Policy Issues
ECON8006 International Trade Theory
ECON8008 Japanese Economy and Economic Policy
ECON8009 International Monetary Economics
ECON8010 Public Economics
ECON8014 Mathematical Techniques in Economics 2
ECON8015 International Economics
ECON8018 Cost Benefit Analysis
ECON8021 Economics of Information and Uncertainty
ECON8034 Principles of Public Economics
ECON8037 Financial Economics
ECON8038 Industrial Organisation
ECON8039 Health Economics
ECON8040 Resource and Environmental Economics
ECON8041 Labour Economics and Industrial Relations
ECON8047 Law and Economics
ECON8049 South East Asian Economic Policy and Development
ECON8050 Economic Growth
ECON8053 Strategic Thinking
ECON8059 Mathematical Economics
ECON8070 Political Economy of Macroeconomic Policy
ECON8071 Modelling the Open Economy
EMET8001 Applied Micro-Econometrics
EMET8009 Special Topics in Econometrics
EMET8010 Applied Macro and Financial Econometrics
EMET8011 Econometric Modelling
EMET8012 Business and Economic Forecasting
EMET8005 Economic Models and Introductory Econometrics (not available to students who have already passed IDEC8017)
EMET8014 Advanced Econometric Models
FINM8010 Finance Theory

(b) Masters degree courses offered by the Crawford School of Economics and Government (CSEG). These may include the following courses (please note that not all courses are offered in all years and you should check on availability with CSEG):

EMDV8002 Methods for Environmental Decision Making
IDEC8004 Sustainability and Ecological Economics
IDEC8001 Applied Economics; Cost Benefit Analysis
IDEC8008 Open Economy Macroeconomics, Finance and Development
IDEC8010 Quantitative International Economics
IDEC8012 Monetary Policy and Central Banking in the Asia Pacific
IDEC8017 Econometric Techniques (not available to students who have already passed EMET8005)
IDEC8018 Agricultural Economics and Resource Policy
IDEC8021 The Chinese Economy
IDEC8053 Environmental Economics
IDEC8081 The Economics of Incentives and Institutions
IDEC8083 Financial Markets and Instruments for Economic Management and Development
IDEC8084 Personnel Economics for Management

(c) Specialist courses taught elsewhere in the ANU - for example, Mathematics or Finance and Applied Statistics - can be approved in exceptional circumstances at the PhD Convener's discretion.

Enrolment in Part A:

Make an appointment to see your proposed supervisor or the Head of Department or the PhD Convener of your area to plan your Part A. After that, fill the enrolment form and make an appointment to see the Convener of the Economics PhD Program for his or her approval.

Satisfactory Progress in Part A:

To progress to Part B of the PhD program, candidates must pass their Part A courses. Unless under very special circumstances (e.g. delays caused by ill-health or other non-academic factors beyond the candidate's control), all full-time PhD students must complete Part A within 18 months of start of their candidature.

A candidate who does not obtain a passing mark in either ECON8011 or ECON8022, conditional on having passed all other courses, will be automatically given a chance to sit a supplementary examination to be held in late January or early February of the following year in the subject that s/he failed. The supplementary examinations will be based on the same material covered in those courses. A candidate who fails in any of these supplementary examinations will be asked to leave the PhD program.

If a candidate does not obtain a passing mark in both ECON8011 and ECON8022, or fails another course in addition to failing in one of ECON8011 or ECON8022, the decision to allow the student to take the supplementary examinations in ECON8011 and/or ECON8022 will be at the discretion of the Board of Studies of the PhD Program.

The unit Economics Seminars is designed to assist students in the transition from coursework to thesis research and, as such, when a student has failed to achieve the minimum required grade after not more than 3 months of deferred assessment, the Board of Studies will normally recommend that the student's PhD candidacy be terminated. Furthermore, the Board of Studies pays particular attention to the student's performance in any unit whose subject matter is considered to be central to their intended program of research and a student will normally be expected to perform at Credit level or better in such key units. Where the Board of Studies considers that a student has not performed to a sufficient level in a key unit or units it may recommend that the student's PhD candidacy be terminated.

Under University rules, decisions on termination are a matter for the relevant College Dean but can be appealed to the DVC(E). See Part 5 of http://www.anu.edu.au/cabs/rules/ResearchAwardsRules.pdf for appeal procedures.

The Thesis Topic and the Supervisory Panel:

University rules require that the thesis area and the Chair of the supervisory panel are fully determined within one month, and the full supervisory panel is completely determined within three months of the commencement of Part A. The Head and the PhD Convener of the department where the student is located at determine the supervisory panel of each student in consultation with the student. However, we realise that the main question of the thesis may only become clearly formulated during the first year, and normally when students take the Economics Seminars. This may necessitate some changes in the supervisory panel, in which case your principle supervisor, the Head of Department or the PhD Convener of the Department will help you with it. All supervisory changes should be approved by the Convener of the Program.

Members of a supervisory panel may be from different economics departments at the ANU. Our goal is to provide the best available supervisory team given the interest of each student, so that the student can write a first class PhD thesis.

Annual Plan and Progress Report