GUIDE FOR PhD STUDENTS IN FINANCE

 

OVERVIEW OF REQUIREMENTS

The PhD requirements in the Department of Finance include:

*course work

*acceptable performance on work required for the assistantship (for those students who are on an assistantship)

*passing comprehensive exams

*having your dissertation proposal approved

*completing and successfully defending your dissertation

 

The PhD program is a full-time program, which means that students are required to take courses on a full-time basis, then take and pass the comprehensive exam, and then focus on the dissertation on a full-time basis. For the typical PhD student who enters the program with a master’s degree in business or in economics, the program is likely to take about 4 years on a full-time basis. Prospective students who are seeking a part-time PhD program in which they can maintain an outside job, or want to pursue a full-time job after finishing their courses and comprehensive exam requirements (instead of working full-time on their dissertation) should not consider this PhD program.

 

The requirements are described below:

 

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Ph.D. students in finance typically take 57 credit hours for the Ph.D. program, depending on the graduate courses that they have already taken before they enter the program. The PhD seminars are typical spread and sequenced in a manner so that they can all be taken over a period of 2 and one-half years. Given that you are starting course work in Fall, if you perform well in all of your courses while taking the full load each semester (including in the summer), you should complete all of your course requirements over a period of 2.5 years, and you should complete the course work at the end of the fall semester in your third year. The PhD student advisor in finance will provide you with the set of course requirements during the fall semester of your first year. Prompt the adviser if you have not received this information by that time.

 

The course requirements are provided here:

 

 

Required Tool Courses

 

Semester

Check when completed

QMB 7565

Research Methods

 

 

Fin 7932

Financial Data, Models, and Analysis (course may have a different name)

 

 

ECO 6426

Econometrics

 

 

ECON 6424

Topics in Econometrics

 

 

ECO 6403

Mathematical Economics

 

 

 

 

 

 

Required Finance Courses

 

 

 

Fin 6515

Investments

 

 

Fin 6246

Fin Markets

 

 

Fin 6537

Risk Management

 

 

Fin 6605

Int’l Fin Mgmt

 

 

Fin 6806

Corp Fin

 

 

FIN 6436

Financial Mgmt: Investment Decisions

 

 

Fin

Fin Math Seminar

 

 

Fin 7247

Capital Markets

Seminar

 

 

Fin 7527

Investments Seminar

 

 

Fin 7449

Corp Fin Seminar

 

 

Fin 7915

Research Seminar

 

 

Fin 7932

Int’l Fin Seminar

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 Elective Courses (your choice, subject to approval by your  Advisor before you register for these courses)

 

 

 

1.

 

 

 

2.

 

 

 

3.

 

 

 

 

The requirements may be adjusted if specific courses are offered that may be more suitable than the required courses shown here. A substitute course may be possible if a student already has credit for required course from another university with a grade of B or above. A substitute course is possible if a course listed above will not be offered within the time frame that the student is expected to be taking courses, if approved by the PhD Adviser.

 

Elective Courses

Three elective courses are required.  This area does not necessarily require 3 courses from the same department.  For example, a student may possibly pursue a background in E-commerce by taking 2 related graduate courses from the Information Technology department and 1 related graduate course from the Marketing department.  Students are encouraged to pursue the set of elective courses that would provide the best complement to their other skill sets.

 

There is some flexibility on elective courses so that students can attain knowledge that fits their preferences. The idea of the elective courses is to help students develop a niche in an area beyond the core material that is required. However, the elective courses must have some substance and standards in order to qualify as an elective course. The dept of finance wants to allow you some flexibility, but if the course has no standards and is viewed as an “easy A” course even at the MBA level, it is not suitable for credit toward a PhD. It is unfortunate that some courses that could provide useful content have instead chosen to be very light on content. We do not want the PhD degree to be watered down by courses that are viewed as a joke. In some situations, a dept. requires that students obtain a minor by taking PhD seminars in another field. For example, the Accounting Dept requires this. The Dept of Finance does not require this but certainly respects the Accounting Dept for maintaining such high standards. The point is that you should recognize that it is not so unusual for a department to at least require that the elective courses have useful content. If students viewed electives as a chance to find 3 joke courses in which all students get A’s without doing any work, the department would need to add more required courses and remove the flexibility. Please take advantage of the flexibility offered by searching for ways to create a niche for yourself rather than searching for courses that require no work. If students do not want to take 3 legitimate courses with standards to satisfy the required electives, they should reconsider whether this PhD program (or perhaps any legitimate PhD program) would be suitable for them.

 

Performance in Courses

To make sure that you perform well in courses, you are expected to show up for all of your courses. Second, you are expected to arrive at each class on time. Third, you should do your assignments on time. These requirements are a necessary condition to perform well, but you also need to allocate time for studying as well. Any student who is not abiding by these guidelines or keeping up with course work during the semester may lose their assistantship immediately.

 

If you receive a grade below a B in any course, or receive a grade of Incomplete that lasts one month beyond the semester, the PhD committee in the Finance Department will assess the situation. Possible actions include dismissal, or a requirement that you take the course over, or that you complete specified remedial work, the elimination of your assistantship or tuition waivers, or some combination of these actions.

 

While a grade of B is acceptable for a course, the department expects that a student’s aggregate performance to exceed the minimum required for any course. PhD students should be able to achieve very high grades in many of the courses required within the PhD program. In general, MBA students tend to perform well in the MBA courses, and PhD students should be able to perform better than MBA students. While the PhD courses tend to be more challenging than MBA courses, PhD students who achieve very high grades in the masters level courses also tend to perform well in the PhD courses.

 

Ph.D. students on an assistantship are expected to achieve a grade point average of at least 3.2 in any semester. If a student earns a grade point average of less than 3.2 in any semester, the finance PhD committee will assess the situation (including the student’s cumulative performance in courses and on assistantship duties) to determine whether the student’s assistantship should be continued. The goal of this guideline is to encourage PhD students to achieve strong performance (rather than just attempt to achieve the minimum acceptable grade) in all courses taken for the PhD program.

 

TUITION WAIVERS
PhD students who are on an assistantship receive tuition waivers. PhD students who are not on assistantship do not automatically receive tuition waivers. The College of Business can petition for tuition waivers for PhD students who are not on an assistantship under special circumstances, but there is no guarantee that the request will be granted.

  

ASSISTANTSHIP ASSIGNMENT

For students who receive an assistantship, Dr. Zarruk (the department chair) will give you your research assistant assignment. You should contact him via email (zarruke@fau.edu) or stop in the Boca Finance dept to see him. Perhaps you should call first (561-297-3995) to make sure he will be in his office if you are driving there.

 

Research Assignments

Regarding research assistantships, the normal required work time is 20 hours per week. In your first semester, you will be assigned 10 hours toward research. Dr. Zarruk will assign you to one or more faculty members who you will be working for. You should be able to work out an arrangement with the faculty member you work for so that you do not have to travel far to do your research assistance work. Much work can be done online wherever you want. If there is some work that requires you to be in the Boca library or a specific computer lab, you may want to structure your hours so that you put in most or all of your research assistantship time on one day to minimize traveling.

 

Developing Teaching Skills

You will be allowed to use the other 10 hours per week toward developing your teaching skills in your first semester of your assistantship only. Since you are getting paid 10 hours per week in that semester to develop your teaching notes, you are required to develop the type of course outline you would use to teach, and have your lecture notes for the basic finance course completed by the end of that semester. Sometime during the semester, the department chair, or the adviser to finance PhD students or another professor will ask to see the teaching notes that you developed. In addition, you are required to sit in on a few basic finance classes (FIN 3403) that is taught by a professor. You can learn a lot from monitoring HOW an experienced faculty member teaches, even though you will likely have your own style when you teach.

 

You should meet with Dr. Zarruk (the department chair) before your first semester begins:

(1)   ask him for a copy of the FIN 3403 textbook and teaching supplements like an instructor’s manual,  which he will provide to you for free,

(2)    ask him for a copy of the model syllabus for that course that you would follow when you teach some time in the future. It shows the allocation of time toward various finance concepts. You should obtain this now, because it can guide you as you develop your teaching notes for FIN 3403.  Dr. Zarruk may also have some other advice for you regarding the development of your teaching skills.

(3)   discuss with him the specific section of the FIN 3403 course you would like to sit in on. The specific section should be one in which the professor is experienced and one that fits your own schedule well.

 

If there is evidence that a PhD student is not using the allocated hours to do the teaching development tasks described here, their assistantship may be discontinued immediately.

 

You may be asked to teach courses for your assistantship instead of providing research assistance. This transition commonly occurs in the second year. The typical teaching load is a total of three courses over the fall and spring semesters, such as 1 in fall and 2 in spring, or vice versa. PhD students are not eligible to teach until they have at least 18 hours of graduate finance course credits. 

 

Teaching

If you are assigned to teach a class, you are expected to teach the content specified in the model syllabus. This is important because it ensures that all undergraduate students are receiving the proper content so that they have the background to perform well in higher level finance courses. You are expected to show up and be on time for each class. You are expected to give exams and grade them on timely basis. You should not make the test bank or an instructor’s manual accessible to students because other faculty members may be using them for exams and graded assignments. If you give multiple choice exams, you should collect the exams after you review the exams in class. You should attempt to discourage any of your students from cheating. Specifically, you should insert a clause on your syllabus regarding academic irregularities. You should not allow makeup exams unless there is a valid excuse (perhaps a medical emergency) that can be verified. You are expected to maintain standards, meaning that students should demonstrate their knowledge to receive a particular grade. At the end of the semester, you should assign grades that are in line with the demonstration of knowledge by the students. Your syllabus should communicate the general schedule of the classes, and the exam dates, and the weighting of all specific tasks (such as a required paper or class participation) that you use when assigning your final grades.

 

There is a set of teaching tips that was created by the finance department. PhD students can obtain this list from the finance Dept. Chair or the adviser to finance PhD students.

 

Qualifying to Teach

 

Various criteria are considered by the Dept. Chair when selecting PhD students to teach:

 

Overload Teaching  

The assistantship provides income for the fall and spring semesters. Since there is no additional income guaranteed in the summer, make sure that you budget your money properly.

 

In some cases, an adjunct teaching position is available in the summer that may pay about $3,000 for a course. Some PhD students have attempted to pursue teaching an overload course or some extra work to make more income than what is provided by the assistantship. Obviously, there is a tradeoff involved here. Making a little extra money could backfire if it adversely affects your performance in your courses, your assistantship work, your comprehensive exams, or your dissertation. It may also get in the way of various activities that could enhance your marketability, such as submitting papers to journals. Finally, it may even slow your progress toward the completion of your degree, which means that your pursuit of a full-time job may be delayed. When FAU finance PhD students enter the job market, some students are much more marketable than others because they have dedicated more time toward the activities that build their resumes. The investment of your time to build your resume during the PhD program can result in more job opportunities and better job offers.

 

COMPREHENSIVE EXAM

The comprehensive exam (called “comps”) is offered to students who are in good standing, are nearing the completion of their course work, and do not have any incomplete course work from previous semesters.

 

The Advisor for finance Ph.D. students notifies students about the date of the written exam, the general format of the exam, and faculty participants who make up the exam. Students should make sure that they are available on the date in which the comprehensive exam is scheduled. If students finish their course work in the fall of their third year, they would likely take the comps in December of that semester in which they are completing the course work.

 

The exam normally focuses on content from the PhD seminars, but may also include content from other courses.  The exam is typically scheduled for 2 days, 4 hours each day, although the specific format can change. The exam is typically created and graded by faculty members in the department of finance who have most recently taught the PhD seminars to the students who are taking the exam. Students can contact those faculty members who are making up the exam to inquire about the format of the exam, and the material that they should study for an exam. The faculty members who grade the exam will attempt to complete the grading within three weeks after the exam.

 

Students who do not pass the exam or a portion of the exam will be expected to completely retake a new comprehensive exam, or a portion of the exam, or an oral exam or some combination, depending on the specific situation. If a student is required to retake all or part of the written exam, the second written exam will be offered within three months. If a student fails the written exam a second time, the faculty involved in the grading of the exam along with the Finance PhD Committee will decide whether the student should be allowed to take the exam a third time. They may require various conditions that a student must meet before taking the written exam a third time, such as retaking specific course work.

 

If students receive a marginal pass on the written exam and showed specific deficiencies on their exam (for example, very weak performance on a specific topic that was an integral part of the exam), they may be required to take an oral exam. The oral exam would normally be offered within three months of the written exam.

 

One or more faculty who grade the written exam would conduct the oral exam, and would grade this exam. The general content of the oral exam would be communicated to the student near the time that the oral exam is scheduled. The content of the oral exam is focused to ensure that the student eliminates specific deficiencies that were detected in the written exam.

 

If a student fails the oral exam, a second oral exam will be scheduled within three months of the first oral exam. If the student fails the second oral exam, a the faculty involved in the grading of the exam along with the Finance PhD Committee will decide whether the student should be allowed to take the exam a third time. They may require various conditions that a student must meet before taking the written exam a third time, such as retaking specific course work.


ADMISSION TO CANDIDACY
PhD students who have completed course work and are about to register in a new semester in fall or spring need to be aware of the guidelines for admission to candidacy. If you have completed course work but have not yet taken comps or received notification that you completely passed comps (meaning the entire written exam and the oral exam if there was one) by the beginning of the new semester, you should register for FIN 7978 for 9 hours and should not register for dissertation credit hours.

 

If you recently took comps and have received notification that you have completely passed comps, you should register for dissertation hours on a full-time basis (at least 9 hours). In this case, you need to complete two different Admission to Candidacy forms, which certify that you are eligible to receive credit for dissertation hours. You can access these forms online at the FAU graduate studies web site http://graduate.fau.edu/#. Go to Graduate Studies – Forms. One of the forms called Admission to Candidacy requires you to list the tentative title of your dissertation, and the faculty members who will serve on your dissertation committee. Have the form signed by each of those faculty members and the Dean of the College of Business. You are not required to retain the dissertation title that you specify on this form. In addition, you can change the composition of your disser committee that is listed on the form if circumstances cause the need for such changes.

 

The second form is called Admission to Candidacy Compliance Verification, and requires you to state whether you are using human subjects, and/or animal subjects. Even if you are not, you must complete this form and have it signed by the adviser who is directing your dissertation. Submit the two forms to the Division of Graduate Studies.

When these forms are not submitted in a timely manner, the College of Business does not receive credit for these dissertation hours. Therefore, if you do not submit the forms within the first 2 weeks of the semester in which you have begun to enroll in dissertation hours, you will lose tuition waivers equal to the number of hours in for which you registered. You will then be required to pay for those hours with your own money. You can prevent the loss of tuition waivers by submitting the forms on time.
 

In addition to the admission to candidacy form, there is a second form called  regarding the use of human subjects that you must complete, even if you are not using human subjects. You can obtain  

 

DISSERTATION

 

The dissertation is a major part of the Ph.D. program. It is sometimes perceived to be a very comprehensive paper, commonly ranging between 150 and 200 pages. It should represent original work that contributes to the foundation of knowledge on a topic in finance.

 

Once you have received a passing grade on comps and have completed the admission to candidacy form, you can register for dissertation credit hours on a full-time basis. Since PhD students need a total of at least 72 credit hours in FAU’s program to qualify for graduation, the number of disser credit hours is the difference between the total of 72 credit hours and the credit hours of course work in the PhD program. But you need to register for a total of at least 18 disser credit hours.  If you have met the required 72 credit hours for the PhD program, but have not finished their dissertation before the graduation deadline in a given semester must sign up for 3 dissertation credit hours in the following semester.

 

Once you pass the comprehensive exam, you should register for the full-time load of 9 hours per semester, assuming that you have a dissertation idea. You are expected to work on the disser proposal on a full-time basis, except for work associated with your assistantship. You are graded by the chair of your dissertation committee on your dissertation credit hours, based on your progress during the semester. The chair can consider the dissertation committee’s assessment of your progress when assigning a grade. You need to make substantial progress on your dissertation to receive a grade of “satisfactory” on your dissertation credit hours. If you do not make substantial progress on the dissertation, you would receive a grade of “unsatisfactory.” Under these conditions, the PhD committee in the Finance Department will assess the situation. Possible actions might include dismissal, the elimination of your assistantship or tuition waivers, required remedial work to remove whatever deficiencies that may have caused the unsatisfactory performance on your dissertation, or some combination of these actions.

 

Dissertation Committee

A disser committee assesses your dissertation and may provide guidance during your development of the dissertation. You can decide which faculty members to ask. Start thinking about a dissertation topic well before you are at the point when you can devote all their time to it.  Try to develop a tentative dissertation topic before asking faculty members to be on your disser committee, since the topic may influence the appropriate members for the committee.  The committee consists of 4 faculty members, and normally at least 3 of the members will be in the finance department. Some faculty members may not serve on disser committees if their job assignment is not research related, or if they are overloaded with other work in a particular semester, or for other reasons.

 

Once you have a tentative dissertation topic, identify a faculty member who you would like to serve as the chair of the dissertation committee, and who fits the research background of the dissertation topic.  Discuss your idea with that faculty member. You can determine whether that faculty member may serve as chair. Once you select a faculty member who agrees to be the chair of the dissertation, you and that faculty member can discuss other faculty members who might fit the research topic and be willing to serve on the committee.  You should then meet with other faculty members to explain the general disser idea, and ask if they would be willing to serve on the committee. Keep in mind that some faculty members may decline the offer to be on a disser committee, as they may have many other assignments that would limit their ability to participate on the committee.  Alternatively, they may not think that the topic is suitable and therefore choose not to be involved, or believe that their background would not be of value in guiding the development of a dissertation. In summary, your first step in the disser process is to select a committee, tell them about your topic (they may prefer that you send them an abstract of the general idea), and get their approval for the general topic. At this point, you can get their signatures for the Admission to Candidacy Form, and submit it to the Division of Graduate Studies so that you can register for dissertation hours.

 

The process from the time the formation of the dissertation committee until it is completed normally takes at least one year.  To ensure completion of the dissertation, students should try to avoid distractions such as teaching overload courses.  There is an obvious tradeoff here, as teaching extra courses generates more income.  However, if the dissertation is delayed, this typically delays the time at which students can start a career, so teaching extra courses during the dissertation stage may have a large opportunity cost.

 

The PhD program is not only full-time for course work, but is also full-time for the dissertation stage. When you register for dissertation hours on a full-time basis, it is expected that you will be working on your dissertation full-time. That is, you would need to show substantial progress on the dissertation in order to receive a satisfactory grade each semester. To make substantial progress, you would need to be focused on the dissertation, and should not be involved in any form of outside employment. If you are not making substantial progress toward the completion of your dissertation when you are signed up for dissertation hours, their assistantship may be discontinued immediately.

 

Organization of the Dissertation Proposal

Once the committee approves the general idea of the dissertation, the dissertation proposal can be developed. The proposal explains the motivation, literature review, hypotheses, research design (which includes sample selection and methodology) necessary to test the hypotheses. These sections might be partitioned into chapters. For example, the motivation may be Chapter 1, the literature review may be Chapter 2, the hypotheses may be Chapter 3, and the research design may be Chapter 4. These chapters would ultimately be part of the final dissertation as well (although some revisions may be made in these chapters, even after the proposal is approved). After the disser proposal is approved, the results may be provided in Chapter 5, and the implications may be provided in Chapter 6.

 

Some dissertations represent a set of 3 essays on a broad topic, in which each essay is a more narrow topic. For example, a broad topic might be Restructuring by Technology Firms, which consists of 3 essays: (1) effects of international acquisitions on the operations and performance of technology firms, (2) effects of divestitures on the operations and performance of  technology firms, and (3) effects of restructuring on the executive compensation of technology firms. If the disser is structured by essays, the chapter organization of the disser proposal may be as follows (although there are many exceptions to this generalization):

 

Chapter 1 Brief introduction and motivation for studying the broad topic.

Chapter 2 General literature review of the broad topic

Chapter 3 Hypotheses (preceded by the literature directly related to each hypothesis), and research design of essay 1.

Chapter 4 Hypotheses (preceded by the literature directly related to each hypothesis), and research design of essay 2.

Chapter 5 Hypotheses (preceded by the literature directly related to each hypothesis), and research design of essay 3.

 

With this structure, once the proposal is approved, the results of each essay would be added to the chapter focused on that essay, and implications of all 3 essays may be provided in a final Chapter 6.

 

Components of a Dissertation

The key components of a disser include the following:

 

Motivation.  Explain in general terms how your topic differs from the existing related research (without getting too focused on the details of all related research). If a disser is not properly motivated, it will not be approved by a committee. While faculty members may have different views about proper motivation, an obvious key is that the paper contributes substantially to the existing literature. Thus, a study that repeats what was previously done a few years ago is unlikely to be viewed as a major contribution, unless there is good reason to repeat the research.

 

A dissertation topic might result from previous research that you did for a course. However, a dissertation should not be a consolidation of papers or analyses that you did while you were taking courses. The disser should reflect new work, not work that you already did for courses. When you first explain your proposed topic to your committee members, you should tell them if there is any overlap between your previous work and your disser topic. In addition, you should state this in your disser motivation section so that your committee fully understands the degree of any overlap that may exist between your previous work and your proposed disser topic.

 

Literature Search. It is your responsibility (not the disser committee’s) to ensure that your disser is not repeating existing studies. There are many situations in which students had to redo a part of their disser because they did not carefully search the literature when creating their idea. They missed some studies that were in the top journals, and therefore wasted much time working on a study that was already done.

 

1. If you have a rough idea of what you want to do, first determine whether the data are available if you pursue this idea. I mention this first, because if you can not obtain the data to do the study, there may be no reason to conduct a review of literature.

 

2. Determine what key terms would be in any abstract of related articles. For example, if you are doing a study on dividend policy, the related literature would surely have the word “dividend” in the abstract. The downside is that there will be hundreds of articles with this search term and if you try to reduce the list with an extra term (such as “dividend policy”), you may lose some important articles on your list. My suggestion is to accept the longer list and simply screen through it. Many of the articles will probably not be directly related to your purpose.

 

Some search terms have alternative words that are used in studies instead. For example, studies on acquisitions may use the term tender offers or takeovers instead, so a search of the term “acquisitions” will miss some articles. The term “abnormal return” might be called valuation effect or wealth effect or prediction error in some studies. You can just repeat the search with the other terms.

 

3. Go to SSRN (www.ssrn.com) and go to the Financial Economics Network (FEN) and insert your search terms. Screen through the abstracts that are listed. This site has abstracts of many unpublished (working) papers. You should cite any closely related papers, and make sure that you are not repeating what they are doing. Reviewers of journals will likely go to SSRN when reviewing a paper to recognize what other related working papers are in circulation or submitted to journals.

 

For each article that is related, pull a few sentences from the abstract and write them on an index card or type them in a file. Index cards are convenient because you can easily sort them and use them while your computer screen is loaded with other files.  Make a special mark for those articles that are closely related, which you should copy and read later.

 

4. Go to ABI Inform in the electronic library of FAU. Personally, I think the “Advanced” option of the ABI Inform is most effective. Insert your search terms, and the search covers a broad category of journals, including practical magazines. You can screen out the magazines to focus only on the scholarly journals, but I think the practical magazine articles can offer some practical insight that you may not get in the scholarly journals.

 

Again, write a few sentences from the abstract every article that is related to your idea, and make a special mark for those articles that are closely related and need to be read later.

 

5. There is always a chance that there is some literature that you missed simply because your search terms were not included in their abstract. For this reason, I suggest an old-fashioned method which does not take too long. Review the titles of articles of each issue of the main journals. Whether you do this with hard copies in the library or do it online, it takes about 20 seconds per issue to read the titles and determine if there are any articles in each issue that might be related to your topic. I suggest working backwards from the most recent issue until about 1985. Some new topics may not require you to go back very far. For example, exchange-traded funds have only existed since about 2000 so the research on them is only since that time. However, they are very similar to mutual funds, so the mutual fund research would have to be assessed in earlier years.

 

The following journals are the most widely cited in Finance:

Journal of Financial Economics (JFE)

Journal of Finance (JF)

Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (JFQA)

Review of Financial Studies (RFS)

 

In addition, these other finance journals are widely circulated:

Journal of Empirical Finance (JEF)

Journal of Banking and Finance (JBF)

Financial Management (FM)

Journal of Financial Research (JFR)

Financial Review (FR)

Journal of Corporate Finance (JCF)

 

If your paper is focused on a discipline such as Accounting, the set of key journals would differ from the list of journals I mention above.

 

By the time you are done with your literature search, you may end up with 100 or more index cards (with a 2-sentence summary), 1 per article, to cover anything that might be related. Then you could categorize these by sub-topic.

 

6. Another source of working papers is the set of academic meetings. In the finance field, here are the main association meetings where many working papers are presented:

 

Financial Management Association (FMA) http://www.fma.org/

American Finance Association (AFA) http://www.afajof.org/

Western Finance Association (WFA) http://wpweb2k.gsia.cmu.edu/wfa/

Southern Finance Association (SFA) http://www.southernfinance.org/

 

You should go to the web site of the association and determine if the papers from the last (or upcoming) meeting are posted there. If so, you can skim the paper titles to determine if there is any working paper presented at the meeting that is related to your idea.

 

7. In some cases, you might realize as a result of your search that you need to change your original idea. If so, you might still be able to salvage your literature review if you focus on the same general topic area.

 

8. If a published paper that suddenly appears, you should mention it to your disser committee. They may offer some advice on how you can work around that article to ensure that your work is separated from the published paper. You may be able to avoid this situation if you did a thorough check of working papers.

 

Hypotheses. Describe the relationships that you expect to find when conducting your analysis. Your disser committee members may suggest the format you use, such as formal structure of hypotheses, etc.

 

Methodology.  Include a step by step explanation of what you intend to do and clear description of your sample; describe the proxy used for any characteristic that you identify in your hypotheses. The research methods courses that you take in the PhD program should have given you the ability to develop the methodology and conduct the analyses. 

 

Developing the Disser Proposal

You can discuss with the chair of the committee how to proceed with the development of the proposal. Typically, the student creates a draft that contains the parts described above, and the chair may initially offer some feedback. The student will make several revisions of the draft based on suggestions by the chair. The chair typically indicates when the student should distribute the proposal to the other committee members. The committee members will normally suggest revisions to improve the proposal, and the student can make revisions based on the suggestions.

 

The dissertation process normally involves several revisions.  The dissertation committee should try to respond quickly when providing feedback on your dissertation.  Yet, disser committee members have other obligations that may prevent immediate feedback.  Therefore, disser committee members may take a week or longer to review whatever you ask them to review. Also, disser committee members are sometimes out of town, which may delay the feedback. Try to work efficiently by submitting one part of the dissertation to the committee, while working on another part until feedback is provided.  The dissertation committee may offer other ways in which you can continue to make progress while waiting for feedback on the submitted portions of the dissertation.

 

Presentation of the Disser Proposal

Once you have made all the revisions to the proposal in a manner that is satisfactory to the committee, a dissertation proposal presentation is scheduled, in which you present the proposal to faculty and other PhD students in the college of business. The presentation is normally about 30 to 45 minutes, followed by questions or comments from the audience. The disser committee meets immediately after the presentation is over, and decides whether any revisions to the disser proposal are necessary. For example, the committee may decide that the proposal is acceptable, contingent on the inclusion of some suggestions that other faculty members made during the presentation. The committee communicates these revisions, so that you can make these revisions. In this situation, there is no need to do another presentation of your disser proposal. You would just need to complete the revisions that are requested by the committee.

 

After the Disser Proposal is Approved

Once the committee approves the proposal (even if subject to a few additions), you can start obtaining the data and conducting analysis that is necessary to complete the dissertation. Even after the disser proposal is approved, there will likely be several phases of the review process, in which the committee reviews the dissertation, and provides suggestions, and you make revisions in response and resubmit another draft to them, and so on.

 

Dissertation Defense

Once you have completed the dissertation in a manner that is satisfactory to the committee, a date is set in which you can present the dissertation to the committee and other faculty members and PhD students who attend. During this so-called dissertation defense, faculty members may have questions or offer comments. After the proposal defense, the dissertation committee meets to determine whether any other work needs to be done, and communicates this to the student. It is not unusual for the committee to determine that some additional minor changes are needed in response to suggestions offered by faculty members during the disser defense. This does not mean that the disser defense was a failure, but is simply a phase of the disser process. 

 

Since disser committee members are commonly out of town in some parts of the summer, try to organize your work so that you give them sufficient time to review your work.

 

Phases of the PhD Program

In summary, here are the typical phases of the PhD program (although there are exceptions):

1.     Students typically begin the program in fall and finish course work at the end of fall semester in their third year. They typically take comps at the end of fall semester of their third year.

2.     In the spring semester of their third year, they start working on their dissertation proposal. They sign up for dissertation hours on full-time basis and are expected to be working on the disser on a full-time basis, except for work associated with their assistantship. If they are properly focused, they should be able to complete their disser proposal by the summer or early fall, and have it approved by their committee by then.

3.     After the disser proposal has been defended and approved by the committee, students focus on completing the disser by doing the tasks as described in the disser. Thus, the main functions in this phase are running analyses and writing up the results. During this phase, students are typically going on some campus interviews, which can be time-consuming. This slows down the progress on the disser.

 

Ideally, you should attempt to have most of the disser completed before the semester in which you are interviewing. It allows you more time to prepare for their campus interviews. In addition, you can demonstrate how much of your disser has been completed during your campus interviews, and therefore prove that you will easily complete the disser before taking a job with the university. Therefore, a goal is to have most of the disser completed by the beginning of the spring semester of your 4th year. It allows them more time to prepare for campus interviews. In addition, you can demonstrate how much you have completed during their campus interviews, and therefore prove that you will easily complete the disser before taking a job with the university.  

 

This time line summarizes the 3 phases:

 

Course work à----à-----à------à Comps                 Disser Proposal       Complete Disser           

_____________________________________   ______________    _____________

Fall Year 1                           End of Fall,Year 3   Spring Year 3 to     Fall Year 4 to

Fall Year 4       Summer Year 4

 

How Your Dissertation Progress Affects Your Marketability

Ideally, you should have their dissertation proposal approved by the summer or early fall before the FMA meeting, because this will make you more marketable when you interview at the FMA meeting. This will lead to more job interviews at the FMA meeting, and means that you will likely to be invited to more campus interviews. A university that has a job opening will normally interview about 15 to 25 candidates at the FMA meeting, and based on those interviews, will invite about 2 to 4 of those candidates to their campus for an on-campus interview. 

 

You should be in a position to have your dissertation proposal completed by the end (summer) of your third year. If you plan to seek a university position, and stay on track, you would interview at the Financial Management Association (FMA) meeting in October of your 4th year for positions that would begin in the following summer or fall. That is, if you finished the course work in 2.5 years, and pass comps near the time that you complete course work, you would have about 6 months before the June deadline to submit your resume to the FMA web site.

 

The resume that you submit to the FMA web site is very important because universities commonly make hiring plans in the summer one year before the job position actually begins. They review the resumes on the FMA web site when deciding which candidates to interview at the FMA meeting in October. Universities carefully assess the likelihood that candidates will have completed their disser by the time they are supposed to take a job, because the universities want to only interview candidates who are likely to arrive with their Ph.D. If your dissertation proposal is approved by the time you submit your resume to the FMA web site, this is beneficial. It means that you have at least a year to complete all the dissertation requirements before actually taking a job at a university. Thus, universities are more likely to interview you because you have much time to complete the dissertation requirements before you would be taking a job.

 

An obvious goal is to get many interviews at the FMA meeting, which increases your probability of being invited to more campus interviews. A university that has a job opening will normally interview about 15 to 25 candidates at the FMA meeting, and based on those interviews, will invite about 2 to 4 of those candidates to their campus for an on-campus interview (but there are many exceptions to this generalization).  Some of FAU’s finance PhD students have had interviews with more than 25 universities at the FMA meeting. Others have had less than 10 interviews. Your marketability is partially due to market conditions, which means the number of universities that are hiring (demand for PhD candidates) in the year that you are in the market, relative to the supply of other PhD candidates who are trying to get a job. But your marketability is also influenced by your progress on your disser as of the time that the universities assess your resume, and at the time you have campus interviews. PhD candidates who have not made much progress on their disser proposal might not get any interviews from universities. [Other factors are also relevant, such as your performance in the program, your teaching performance, and your research publications or submissions to journals.] 

 

Example of a Common Dissertation Dilemma

Here is one common trend that has occurred with some PhD students (at many universities). John Doe (name is fictional) is a PhD student who worked diligently on his disser, and in March, he receives a job offer from Florida University (name is fictional). The job starts on August 20. Florida University says that the offer is contingent on John Doe having his degree when he starts the job, or the salary will be reduced by $20,000. John gladly accepts the job offer in March, as he expects that he will easily be able to complete the degree before then. However, his dissertation progress is slower than he expected for the following reasons:

*he had not already collected all of the data and experienced some data problems,

*he took some time off because he no longer felt pressure to demonstrate his weekly progress in order to receive a job offer,

*he felt that he still had much time before the August 20 deadline.

 

In July, John still had a lot of work left. He emailed his latest work on his disser to the committee members on July 10, hoping that he could finish by August 1.  Two of the committee members were out of town, one member was focused on unrelated research that had a specific deadline, and the other was teaching a short course that was condensed into a 10-day period. John expected that the committee members would always be available to immediately respond to his drafts, and therefore was disappointed that he received no responses for two weeks. He was disappointed even further when the committee members still required the same revisions that they had requested months ago. John’s logic was that he needed to ignore these revisions because he has a deadline and needs to finish his disser now. He had also applied for graduation in the summer and therefore told his committee that he needs to complete the disser for this reason as well. Had John done the work that was requested 2 months ago, he may have received approval from his committee to defend the dissertation and a date could have been set. The committee responded to John on July 25, and explained to John that they would review the next draft once John made the revisions that he was supposed to make. As it turned out, John ultimately completed his dissertation on September 25. John needed about 3 weeks to properly complete the work that was requested. Then the committee took about 2 weeks to review these revisions. Then, a date was set for the dissertation defense about a week after the committee agreed that John was ready to defend. Then at the dissertation defense, there were a few good suggestions on how John could improve the disser, which required some minor revisions. John made the revisions a week later, and the committee reviewed those changes over the next week, and signed off on the disser. Then John had to ensure that the format of the dissertation was consistent with the guidelines required by his university.

 

The point of this example is to be realistic about meeting a deadline. If you ensure quality control as you make the revisions requested by the committee, and allow enough time for the committee to review the disser and for the defense date and for possible changes resulting from the disser defense, you are less likely to be disappointed. Given the various phases of the disser, it is wise to strive for a completion date that is 3 months ahead of the actual deadline in which you have set for yourself.

 

Time Management During the Dissertation

The process from the formation of the dissertation committee until it is completed normally takes at least one year, and takes more than one year in many cases. Some dissertations are never completed. To ensure completion of the dissertation, students should try to avoid distractions such as teaching overload courses while they are working on their dissertation.  There is an obvious tradeoff here, as teaching extra courses generates more income.  However, if the dissertation is delayed, this typically delays the time at which students can start a career, so teaching extra courses during the dissertation stage may have a large opportunity cost.

 

As mentioned earlier in this guide, the PhD program is not only full-time for course work, but is also full-time for the dissertation stage. When you register for dissertation hours on a full-time basis, it is expected that you will be working on your dissertation full-time. Make sure you have read the details regarding this requirement.

 

Satisfying Deadlines to Complete the Dissertation

Given the various time periods needed for the dissertation writing process explained above, you need to be organized and disciplined to complete the dissertation in a timely manner. The process is explained here to avoid any misunderstandings about how the process works. Thus, if you want to complete your dissertation by a particular date, consider the different time lags involved in the process above.  From the committee’s perspective, the dissertation will not be approved just because the student says he or she needs to graduate by a specific date. The dissertation will be approved once the student has completed the work specified in the proposal in a suitable manner by following the sequence of steps mentioned above. The best way for a student to meet a particular deadline for finishing the dissertation is to start far in advance of that date and to be organized and disciplined in getting the work done.

 

Format of the Dissertation

There are specific guidelines regarding the format of the dissertation. Contact the Division of Graduate Studies at FAU to obtain the latest guidelines. Your disser committee is not responsible for assessing your guidelines or ensuring that you followed the guidelines. It is highly recommended that you follow the required format when you begin your dissertation and continue to follow that format so that you do not have to revise your format later in order to satisfy format requirements.

 

Striving for Academic Publications

The ultimate objective of most students pursuing the Finance Ph.D. at FAU is to attain a teaching/research position at a university.  Their marketability would be enhanced if they are able to get articles published in academic journals.  This task is achievable.  Some of the possible means for doing research that may be published are:

(1)  Any paper required for a class may be structured to be submitted to a journal.  After having the paper evaluated by the professor who assigned the project, students can make final revisions and submit the paper to a journal.

(2)  If their schedule permits, students may consider taking an independent study to do a research project assigned by a professor, or to work with a professor in co-authoring an article.  They do not necessarily have to sign up officially to work on a project with a professor, but should not pursue the opportunity unless they feel you have some free time to do the research.

While a published article or two is worth pursuing, it should not interfere with other course work.  A published article means nothing for a student who is unable to maintain an adequate grade point average.

 

Faculty Presentations

The Department of Finance periodically interviews a Ph.D. student or faculty member from another university for a faculty position.  They are usually asked to present one of their research ideas.  In addition, research papers may also be periodically presented by the Finance faculty.  Ph.D. students present their dissertation proposal and their defense.   Students are invited to show up for these presentations. The main benefits of a such a presentation to Ph.D. students are (1) it indicates the types of research ideas that are being used for the dissertation, and may even lead to a dissertation idea, and (2) it allows Ph.D. students to see how some people presenting an idea handle themselves.  Ph.D. students may learn from watching others.

 

Accomplishments of Our Graduates

In the last few years, graduates from the Ph.D. Program in the Department of Finance have had their research published in numerous academic journals, including Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of International Money and Finance, Journal of Financial Research, Financial Review, Financial Analysts Journal, Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Journal of Financial Services Research, and Review of Financial Economics. In addition, our graduates have received research and teaching awards.

 

WHEN TO INTERVIEW

Those students who complete course work no later than summer and pass comps no later than the summer will have 12 months from that point in time in which they are expected to be enrolled full-time on their dissertation. So they would be eligible to interview at the next FMA meeting following their completion of comps for a faculty position that begins about 10 months after that. However, some students may not really be ready to interview at that point, and the pursuit of a job at that stage may backfire. Ideally, students should have their dissertation proposal completed and approved by their dissertation committee by the time they submit their resume to the FMA web site (about June) or at least by the time of the FMA meeting in which they pursue interviews. Students often need several months to complete the dissertation proposal. For example, students who finish course work in December and take comps shortly after that point are usually in good shape by the time they go to the FMA meeting in the following October.

 

If you have not developed your dissertation proposal before the FMA meeting, you may not be as marketable, meaning that you receive fewer interviews at the FMA meeting, or fewer on-campus interviews after the FMA meeting. In addition, the likelihood of finishing the dissertation by the summer following the FMA meeting in which you pursue interviews is reduced if you do not have the dissertation proposal approved by then (and this is why some universities might not want to interview candidates who are in that position).  Whatever job opportunities do occur may not be as desirable as if you had your dissertation proposal approved before pursuing interviews at the FMA meeting.

 

You may think that you can take an undesirable job this year and then go back in the market in the following year. However, there are significant time costs and transactions costs associated with two moves in two years. Also, some universities may be concerned about a candidate who takes a job at one university and then is immediately back in the market, seeking to switch universities. They may wonder why you would be satisfied at their university if you are already dissatisfied with your first job. So there can be a negative signal associated with trying to quickly jump from one job to another.

 

You may think that you have nothing to lose by pursuing interviews at the FMA meeting even if you do not have your dissertation proposal completed, since you could repeat the process in the following year if you do not receive a good job offer. However, when your resume is being circulated two years in a row, some universities may wonder why. They may presume that you were not wanted by other universities, or that you set expectations to finish your dissertation that were not realistic, and that could create a bad first impression.

 

It is difficult for students to pass up the chance to take a job that pays more than their present wage. However, it sometimes it makes more sense to defer the interviews even if it means that you will not take a faculty position until a semester or two later. Here are the potential benefits of deferring your pursuit of interviews until you have your dissertation proposal completed. First,  you may receive more interviews once you do pursue interviews at the FMA meeting. Second, you may receive more on-campus interviews. Third, you may receive job offers from more desirable universities. Fourth, your salary offer may be higher if your resume is more impressive and your dissertation progress is better. Fifth, you are more likely to have completed your dissertation, which allows you to get a better start once you do take a position at a university.

 

It is possible that you could be in a position to have your dissertation proposal completed shortly after taking comps in the summer. But it would require much effort and excellent organizational skills. Be careful not to focus so much on planning ahead for your dissertation that you ignore your course work or comps.

 

In general, a good plan may be to recognize the tradeoff explained here, and to assess your situation after taking comps. If you pass comps and have found time to develop your dissertation proposal by the summer, then perhaps you are ready to pursue interviews at the FMA meeting. Conversely, if you have not made much progress on your dissertation proposal by the summer, you may want to defer the interviewing process. You do not have to make the decision until the time at which you would be required to submit your resume to the FMA web site (perhaps June).

 

COMMUNICATION REQUIREMENTS

It is important that PhD students can speak and write English. Required papers for courses may require proper English grammar, and clear communication, since this is also necessary when submitting research papers to pursue publication. Sufficient English skills may also be necessary to perform well on class participation, presentations, and exams. 

 

When PhD students write their dissertation, proper English grammar is required. It is the responsibility of the student, not the dissertation committee, to ensure proper English grammar.

 

PhD students need verbal communication skills because many courses require communication in class. Moreover, PhD students are commonly expected to teach courses as a condition of their assistantship, and must be able to clearly communicate to undergraduate students when teaching courses. If PhD students are unable to clearly communicate as part of their teaching requirement, they could lose the assistantship.

 

CHECKLIST OF DEADLINES AND PROCEDURES

Here is a checklist to remind you about some common deadlines/procedures that may apply to you in this or other semesters.  Please keep this checklist and monitor it periodically.

 

a.  Does the Ph.D. Office have your present email address, mailing address and phone numberPlease contact Judith Benson at Benson@fau.edu or (954) 762-5248 with any changes.

 

b.  Check with your respective Ph.D. Faculty Advisor in your department several weeks before the upcoming semester to determine what courses you should take next semester. Review the course schedule for the next semester, and then meet with your Faculty Advisor.

 

c.  If you are on stipend, you need to provide the Ph.D. Office with any changes regarding stipend/registration/waiver information weeks before the beginning of the next semester.  Otherwise, it will be assumed that you are planning to be a full-time student taking full-time credit hours.  If you are on stipend, you must register for full-time hours; 9 credits in the fall and spring, 6 credits in the summer.

 

d. If you are on stipend and are receiving tuition waivers, you must pay your fees when designated, usually the week after the regular student deadline for paying fees.  That is when the waivers are applied.  You may contact the Ph.D. Office for the exact amount of your waivers and the time frame for paying your fees.

 

e. If you have completed all course work and passed your Comprehensive exams, you should submit the form for Admission to Candidacy.  This means having your dissertation Committee and your dissertation title.  (Please note that you must provide original signatures for your faculty committee members on the Admission to Candidacy Form.) There is also a second form that you must complete which is described in (g) below.

 

f. If you have completed your course work but are not yet admitted to candidacy at the time you need to register for a new semester, you should sign up for the course in your department listed as #7978, for as many hours as are needed to retain your full-time status (9 hours in fall or spring or 6 hours in the summer). For example, Management students would sign up for MAN 7978.

 

g.  In addition to the Admission to Candidacy form, there is now a second form which addresses whether you are using human subjects in your research.  This form must also be submitted even if you are not using human subjects in order for you to be officially admitted to candidacy. You can obtain these forms on-line or from the Graduate Studies Office located in Graduate Admissions in the Student Services Building on the Boca campus.

 

h.  When you are ABD (All But Dissertation) but not on stipend, you must register for a minimum of 3 credit hours per semester.

 

i. When you are working on your dissertation, you should follow the guidelines for the dissertation, which can be accessed from the FAU website http://www.fau.edu/academic/gradstud/pp.htm,    

 

j.  As you anticipate defending your dissertation and graduating, you must pay careful attention to the various deadlines as established by Graduate Studies.  As you begin the semester in which you plan to graduate, you must fill out an Application for Degree Form (which you can access online from the Graduate Studies web page) within the first two weeks of that semester.