Admission

The selection process is competitive. Only excellent students will be admitted to the Ph.D. Programme in Economics and Econometrics (PEcon). Admission to PEcon is based on Programme Committee’s evaluation of your submitted application documents (‘sur dossier’).

Admitted candidates will start their coursework in September 2023. Admitted candidates may be offered research assistant positions. Vacancies for Research Assistant Positions & Ph.D. in Economics and Econometrics (PEcon), intake September 2023, can be found below (this list is subject to regular updates):

Please refer to this list when you write the description of your research interests and explicitly state your most preferred Ph.D. supervisor(s) at the beginning of this description.

You may also bring your own funding, for example via a national grant (please explicitly state this in your application). In this case, consider also the list of all potential PEcon supervisors and of our faculty and their research interests.

Application procedure
1. The first and main step of the application is to submit the documents to the university’s job portal here (except for the reference letters, which should be sent directly to gpef@unisg.ch by the letter writers). No application fee needs to be paid at this point. University of St. Gallen master students may apply if they expect to finish their degree before August 31st 2023).

Required documents:

• Degree certificates from each university attended (bachelor and master, including exchange programmes and “transcripts of records” from unfinished programmes of study)
• Description of research interests (referring to the list of proposed fields/topics and potential supervisors). Please state your desired specialization (Economics or Econometrics) and indicate whether you already contacted a potential supervisor.
• GRE/GMAT (some applicants may be exempted from having to present a GRE or GMAT result; a PDF of the scores is enough) [recommended, can also be provided later]
• CV

Other necessary documents:

• Evidence of English language proficiency (can be provided later)
• Two reference letters, sent directly by the letter writers to gpef@unisg.ch

Review of applications:

The first review of applications will take place after 31 January 2023. Please make sure to submit your application by this date for full consideration. Thereafter, applications may still be accepted subject to availability of free spaces.

2. In a second step:

• external applicants who are offered research assistant positions and rematriculated applicants still need to upload their documents at a later stage at the university’s formal PhD admission portal (1.02.2023-15.08.2023). Please check which documents you will need to provide at that stage; at that point also the application/enrolment fee of 250 CHF needs to be paid.
• successful applicants who are currently enrolled as HSG Master students need to register through Compass (10.04.2023-30.06.2023). Documents to be submitted: CV, short application letter (choice of specialization; Supervisor available; Research Assistant at the University?), Request for credits, GRE Result (quantitative).
• external applicants who are not offered research assistant positions need to upload their documents at a later stage at the university’s formal PhD admission portal (1.02.2023-30.04.2023) Please check which documents you will need to provide at that stage; at that point also the application/enrolment fee of 250 CHF needs to be paid.

The selection process is competitive. Only excellent students will be admitted to the Ph.D. Programme in Finance (PiF). Admission to PiF is based on Programme Committee’s evaluation of your submitted application documents (‘sur dossier’).

Admitted candidates will start their coursework in September 2023. Admitted candidates may be offered research assistant positions. Vacancies for Research Assistant Positions & Ph.D. in Finance (PiF), intake September 2023, can be found below (this list is subject to regular updates):

Please refer to this list when you write the description of your research interests and explicitly state your most preferred Ph.D. supervisor(s) at the beginning of this description.

You may also bring your own funding, for example via a national grant (please explicitly state this in your application). In this case, consider also the list of all potential PiF supervisors.

Application Procedure

1. The first and main step of the application is to submit the documents to the university’s job portal here (except for the reference letters, which should be sent directly to gpef@unisg.ch by the letter writers). No application fee needs to be paid at this point. University of St. Gallen master students may apply if they expect to finish their degree before August 31st 2023).Please refer to this list when you write the description of your research interests and explicitly state your most preferred Ph.D. supervisor(s) at the beginning of this description.

Required documents:

• Degree certificates from each university attended (bachelor and master, including exchange programmes and “transcripts of records” from unfinished programmes of study)
• Description of research interests (referring to the list of proposed fields/topics and potential supervisors). Please state your desired specialization (Economics or Econometrics) and indicate whether you already contacted a potential supervisor.
• GRE/GMAT (some applicants may be exempted from having to present a GRE or GMAT result; a PDF of the scores is enough) [recommended, can also be provided later]
• CV

Other necessary documents:

• Evidence of English language proficiency (can be provided later)
• Two reference letters, sent directly by the letter writers to gpef@unisg.ch

Review of applications:
The first review of applications will take place after 31 January 2023. Please make sure to submit your application by this date for full consideration. Thereafter, applications may still be accepted subject to availability of free spaces.

2. In a second step:

• external applicants who are offered research assistant positions and rematriculated applicants still need to upload their documents at a later stage at the university’s formal PhD admission portal (1.02.2023-15.08.2023). Please check which documents you will need to provide at that stage; at that point also the application/enrolment fee of 250 CHF needs to be paid.
• successful applicants who are currently enrolled as HSG Master students need to register through Compass (10.04.2023-30.06.2023). Documents to be submitted: CV, motivation letter.
• external applicants who are not offered research assistant positions need to upload their documents at a later stage at the university’s formal PhD admission portal (1.02.2023-30.04.2023) Please check which documents you will need to provide at that stage; at that point also the application/enrolment fee of 250 CHF needs to be paid.

The selection process is competitive. Only excellent students will be admitted to the Ph.D. Programme in Finance (PiF). Admission to PiF is based on Programme Committee’s evaluation of your submitted application documents (‘sur dossier’).

Application Procedure

1. First main step: Application via the SFI platform for St. Gallen Campus.

Deadlines:

1.11 Application start on SFI platform

15.1 - 1st round review applications

31.3 - 2nd round review applications

SFI students must have an SFI supervisor and an SFI senior chair in their thesis committee.

Here is a list of PiF supervsiors who are also SFI faculty. Please refer to this list when you are asked to state your most preferred Ph.D. supervisor(s).

Admitted candidates will start their coursework in September 2023. Admitted candidates may be offered research assistant positions. Vacancies for Research Assistant Positions & Ph.D. in Finance (PiF), intake September 2023, can be found below (this list is subject to regular updates):

You may also bring your own funding, for example via a national grant (please explicitly state this in your application).

2. In a second step:

• external applicants who are offered research assistant positions and rematriculated applicants still need to upload their documents at a later stage at the university’s formal PhD admission portal (1.02.2023-15.08.2023). Please check which documents you will need to provide at that stage; at that point also the application/enrolment fee of 250 CHF needs to be paid.
• successful applicants who are currently enrolled as HSG Master students need to register through Compass (10.04.2023-30.06.2023)
• external applicants who are not offered research assistant positions need to upload their documents at a later stage at the university’s formal PhD admission portal (1.02.2023-30.04.2023) Please check which documents you will need to provide at that stage; at that point also the application/enrolment fee of 250 CHF needs to be paid.

GPEF Ph.D. students are funded via research assistant positions at the supervisors chair. Baseline salaries are determined in accordance with the salary table (pdf, in German*). Actual salaries vary by the employment contract and typically start between 30'000-40'000 CHF in the first year, and reach 60'000 CHF towards the end of the Ph.D. In addition, the GPEF PhD Programme offers generous funding for conference attendance.
*Reading example for the salary table: consider someone who finishes her master's degree right before starting the Ph.D. and obtains a 50% research assistant position earns about 41500 CHF per year ("F4 - Assistierende mit Masterabschluss", 1st line, 3rd column, divided by two). If this person has a 70% research assistant position two years later, she receives about 60500 CHF ("F4 - Assistierende mit Masterabschluss", 3rd line, 3rd column, multiplied by 0.7).