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Doctor of Philosophy - PhD / DPhil
University of Essex
Full Time
Jan 2028
3 Year
Our Integrated PhD Finance provides a route to Doctoral study if you do not have a Masters degree or have little or no research training. It enables you to spend your first year completing a full-time Masters qualification, which will equip you with the business knowledge and research skills needed to begin PhD study the following year. Your PhD will then be studied full time, over the next three years. This PhD follows a 'three paper' thesis, where you produce three research articles, framed by an introduction and conclusion. Your supervisors will support you to submit these papers to conferences and for publication in international journals, so you can begin to build your international research portfolio well before graduation. You benefit from strong industry links with organisations such as Invesco Perpetual and HSBC. Many of our students have gained internships with international banking institutions and have collaborated with local organisations as part of their PhD. Global financial markets are facing an era of unprecedented upheaval. Just 10 years ago the world was beginning to recover from the financial crash of 2008, but now world markets must recover from a health pandemic that has driven national economies to the brink of collapse. Now more than ever, the finance sector needs decisive leadership and fresh thinking to navigate the crisis and the “new normal” that will emerge in the post-pandemic era. Our PhD Finance gives you the opportunity to specialise in a wide range of areas such as: financial econometrics behavioural finance corporate finance banking international finance portfolio and risk management commodity markets asset pricing financing of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) You study at Essex Business School (EBS) at our Colchester Campus. We are the largest department at the University of Essex and one of the most respected finance groups in the UK. We are a business school with an international outlook and our doctoral students join us from all over the world. The University of Essex is home to a number of cutting-edge financial research centres and institutes, where academics across disciplines and departments come together to collaborate around a common theme, often engaging with external partners at a national and international level. The Essex Finance Centre (EFiC) works with leading financial services firms and public sector organisations, governments and policy institutions to produce work that makes real-world impact across the globe. The Essex Centre for Macro and Financial Econometrics brings together academic and industry expertise from inside and outside the University of Essex to research and help solve important issues in financial markets. In addition within Essex Business School our Finance Group is one of the largest groups of finance researchers in the UK. Their research has been cited in the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve and is relevant to real people's lives.
Research skills are critical to a postgraduate research degree, regardless of the topic you are exploring. This module will reinforce the research methods and skills developed through your previous study and will address philosophical issues underlying management and business research and explain how to select research strategies and designs. It will offer a comprehensive view of methods of data collection and analysis to support the quality and value of research outcomes.
This module aims to give first year PhD students an up-to-date and thorough introduction to a range of state-of-the-art methods used in published financial econometrics literature. You’ll also gain an understanding of core methodology and empirical practice of modern financial econometrics, using statistics, mathematical skills, and real-life data.