Students and Employment

I'm happy to supervise your thesis given capacity. To apply, send a 500 word description of your topic and your current academic record. You have to come up with your topic yourself. For BA theses, literature theses are OK. For MA theses, only original research is accepted. I supervise experimental work, survey work, theory work, and some applied economics work (analysis of existing data). 

I will need to submit your thesis title to OLAT. You can then officially start your thesis. 

You will be helped by a doctoral student or by me. Make sure we know what you are working on. An initial meeting hones your topic suggestion and determines the outline of your thesis and approach. If you run a survey or an experiment, have us look over your materials before you run it. Meet again for analysis. 

Carefully study the document with the rules.

Doctoral students at the UZH Department of Economics are accepted only through the centralized application system. Individual professors at the UZH Department of Economics cannot employ doctoral students independently. 

Preparing for a PhD in economics: 

• Academia is a rich-get-richer system. There are huge advantages from affiliation with a more highly ranked department. Hence, try to get into the best department you can. 

• A PhD in economics typically takes 6 years full time.

• A common misperception is that good US and UK universities are expensive. This is not true for doctoral students. You will (in most cases) not pay anything and receive a monthly stipend that permits a moderately comfortable life. (Master programs are the expensive cash cows. Some programs (e.g. Bocconi, a program with much success in placing graduates in top PhD programs) offer scholarships, too.)

• US universities not only have economics departments but also business schools, finance departments, and schools of government. They each offer their own PhD program. When applying to Stanford, for instance, consider applying not only to the Department of Economics, but also to the Business School, and to the MS&E department. 

• Your most important asset when applying for PhD programs are letters of reference from established professors. These letters need to credibly convey information about you that cannot be inferred from your academic record. For instance, is the candidate creative, does she have grit, does she finish things, is she conscientious, etc. Professors can write such letters only for students they know well, for instance because the student has worked as a research assitant for them, or because the student wrote a great BA or MA thesis under their supervision. 

• Academia is an up-or-out system. This means that you either progress to the next level after a set amount of years, or you are forced to leave. The chance you will be forced to leave is high. Unless the number of professorships is growing, or there is an outside demand (e.g. schools of government hiring but not educating economists) each professor will, on average, educate one PhD student that will replace her or him; the others will leave academia. 

• Geographic mobility is a must. This means that you will likely spend several years in countries other than your own, with no guarantee that you'll eventually end up where you would like to live. 

• Completing a PhD can be extremely rewarding (I would do it again in a heartbeat), but it is also difficult for most people. Accordingly, rates of mental health issues are clearly (and likely causally) elevated among PhD students. See here for research. 

• Do not accept a Fulbright scholarship. A Fulbright scholarship generally requires you to spend 2 years in your home country after graduation. Economics departments seek to place their students as professors into the best possible departments. The 2-year requirement severely limits your prospects and makes you an unattractive investment for economics departments. (Besides, they manage applications on your behalf, which they don't always do well. In my case, they just forgot to tell me that I had been admitted to Stanford, causing me to miss some deadlines, along with other administrative headaches.)

If you are interested in working as a research assistant, if you are a student at a Swiss university, and if you live in Zurich or close by, send me an email. I do not always have a need for research assistance, but I sporadically do. You should have a grade point average of at least 5.0. 

Research assistant work is sporadic; it will not provide a stable income. 

Due to administrative difficulties, I, unfortunately, cannot hire research assistants from outside Switzerland or the EU.