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Department of Economics

as.nyu.edu/econ 19 West Fourth Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10012-1119 • 212-998-8900 

Chair of the Department

Professor Ludvigson

Director of Undergraduate Studies

Professor Flinn

Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies

Clinical Associate Professor Fan

Clinical Assistant Professor Roeper

The Department of Economics prepares students to understand individual and group decision-making, the structure of markets and economies, and the relationship between regions within the global economy. Although the department is large, its students enjoy an excellent student-faculty rapport. Many of the faculty members are associated with distinguished research institutions. By being able to study with faculty who are actively engaged in research, students learn not only about the fundamentals of economic theory but also how such theory is utilized. They have the opportunity to conduct research on their own. Honors students are required to write an honors thesis under direct faculty supervision.

Students majoring in economics have many options open to them after graduation. The major prepares them for graduate school in economics, business management, or public administration. Preprofessional students will find that an economics major not only fosters the discipline medical or law school demands, but provides a solid foundation for these and other careers. Employers and professional schools appreciate the skills acquired by economics students and hire economics majors because they can think quantitatively, qualitatively, and analytically. Studying economics at New York University is especially rewarding because of its urban environment. Students often find career opportunities on Wall Street, at the United Nations, or in various corporate, financial, governmental, agency, and nonprofit institutional settings.

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Degrees and Fields of Study

• M.A. in Economics
• M.A.-J.D.  in Economics/Law (Dual Degree)
• M.S. in Quantitative Economics
• Ph.D. in Economics
• Ph.D.-J.D.  in Economics/Law (Dual Degree)

Application Deadlines

Applications and all supporting materials must be  submitted online by 5PM  Eastern Time. If a listed deadline falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or U.S. federal holiday, then the next business day will be the actual deadline.

M.A. Programs

• January 15 : Fall admission

M.S. Program

• February 15 : Summer admission
• Ph.D.-J.D. applicants must submit two separate applications — one to GSAS, and another to NYU Law. Please consult NYU Law Admissions for the J.D. application deadline.

Requirements

In addition to the general application requirements, the department specifically requires:

Test Scores

Gre or gmat required.

• Applicants may choose to submit either the GMAT or the GRE general test. Send official GMAT test scores to GSAS using school code 5TF-5G-76.

GRE Required

• All other programs

TOEFL/IELTS

Applicants must submit official TOEFL or IELTS scores unless they:

Are a native English speaker; OR

Are a US citizen or permanent resident; OR

Have completed (or will complete) a baccalaureate or master's degree at an institution where the language of instruction is English.

Statement of Academic Purpose

All programs.

In a concisely written statement, please describe your past and present work as it relates to your intended field of study, your educational objectives, and your career goals. In addition, please include your intellectual and professional reasons for choosing your field of study and why your studies/research can best be done at the Graduate School of Arts and Science at NYU. The statement should not exceed two double-spaced pages.

Writing Sample

Writing sample not required — it will not be reviewed by our Admissions Committee.

The submission of an original research paper is not a requirement of your application. If you do have an original research paper that you would like to submit with your application, please upload a copy of the paper in the Additional Information section of your application.

Writing sample not required, but evidence of original research is encouraged.

Video Statement

Applicants to the Ph.D. program should submit a short video statement. Please read the detailed instructions on the  Videos and Online Materials page .

Special Instructions

M.a. & m.s. programs.

All master's applicants must complete all parts of the online application, including the section labeled "Courses Taken" which requests information on economics and math courses completed previously.

Useful Links

• GSAS Bulletin
• Department Website
• Email (Ph.D.) [email protected]
• Email (M.S.) [email protected]
• Email (M.A.) [email protected]
• Application Portal
• Back to Programs, Requirements and Deadlines

The Graduate School of Arts and Science reserves the right to change this information at any time. This page supersedes all previous versions.

Last updated August 2023.

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Funding Packages for Full-Time PhD Students

If you are accepted as a full-time NYU Steinhardt PhD student, you are eligible for our generous funding package, which includes a stipend, scholarship, and healthcare coverage. Information is below and on our doctoral funding website. 

Funding Opportunities

The Steinhardt Fellowship Program

The standard Steinhardt Fellowship package includes an annual stipend, tuition remission for required course work, and student health insurance through your fifth year. The fellowship is reserved for full-time doctoral students. The 2024-2025 stipend is $33,867. Complete details are provided with each offer of admission.

Research Assistantships

Some doctoral students may be appointed to a Research Assistantship. Research Assistants are funded by external grants and work with a principal investigator on a funded research project. Unlike Steinhardt Fellows, Research Assistants agree to work 20 hours per week on an ongoing research project, typically with a team of faculty and other students. Research Assistants may not perform additional work assignments such as teaching or grading.

For the duration of the assistantship, Research Assistants receive funding that includes a stipend, tuition remission for required course work, and student health insurance.

Other Expenses to Consider

Beyond what is covered by your Steinhardt Fellowship or Research Assistantship, you may have additional expenses that you should keep in mind as you plan your budget. These may include, but are not limited to:

• Late registration fees
• Tuition for undergraduate courses
• Tuition for graduate courses not applicable to your degree
• Tuition for courses in excess of the total point requirement for your degree
• Tuition for courses completed after the end of the fifth year
• Tuition for courses and fees used to maintain official enrollment for study leading to a degree after the end of the fifth year; see doctoral student policies for more information
• Student health insurance for students beyond the fifth year (note that students who are employed by NYU, such as Research Assistants or Adjunct Instructors, may receive health insurance as an employee benefit)

Economics (MA)

Program description, dual degrees.

The Master of Arts program is designed to accommodate both full-time and part-time students. It requires a minimum of three semesters of full-time study. The time limit for completion of the degree is five years for both full- and part-time students.

Admission to the Master of Arts program in economics is limited to students of outstanding promise. First and foremost, we aim to admit students with excellent training in economics and quantitative methods—that is, students with grades of A-, A or A+ in economics and mathematics courses at undergraduate level. More specifically, strong applicants will meet the following requirements: GRE Quantitative Reasoning score > 80th percentile (≈ 159 on new scale); GRE Analytical Writing score > 80th percentile (≈ 5.0); GRE Verbal Reasoning score > 50th percentile (≈150), two undergraduate calculus courses (or one calculus & one linear algebra course), one statistics course & one course in econometrics, intermediate microeconomics and intermediate macroeconomics, plus four other undergraduate economics courses, overall GPA of 3.5 and above at the undergraduate level, and TOEFL > 105 (internet-based version) (TOEFL requirement is for international students only). A strong application will have ‘A’ grades in most of these courses (i.e. undergraduate economics, calculus, statistics & econometrics). Please note that we only accept GRE scores. The GRE general test is required for all applicants. No exceptions are granted. GMAT will not be accepted in place of the general GRE. We evaluate applications on their general merits. What is important is the total picture of an applicant’s competence, not performance on an individual criterion.

All applicants to the Graduate School of Arts and Science (GSAS) are required to submit the  general application requirements , which include:

• Academic Transcripts
• Test Scores  (if required)
• Applicant Statements
• Résumé or Curriculum Vitae
• Letters of Recommendation , and
• A non-refundable  application fee .

See Economics for admission requirements and instructions specific to this program.

The Economics Department offers two dual degrees with the NYU School of Law:

• Economics (MA)/Law (JD)
• Economics (PhD)/Law (JD)

See Economics for additional information and admission requirements specific to these programs.

Program Requirements

Formal requirements for the Master of Arts degree in economics are the satisfactory completion of graduate studies totaling at least 32 credits and the writing of a special project report. In order to graduate, students must complete at least 24 credits within the Department of Economics at New York University (i.e., courses with an ECON-GA prefix). Transfer credits do not count toward this requirement. Most courses carry 3 credits; the special project carries 2 credits. Students must have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.0 with 18 credits of B or better. Students may take 8 credits outside the Department of Economics.

Additional Program Requirements

Special project.

Students are required to complete a special project for this program.

Sample Plan of Study

Learning outcomes.

Upon successful completion of the program, graduates will have achieved the following skills and abilities:

• Skills in advanced economics, particularly mainstream macroeconomics and microeconomics. Students should acquire the analytical toolkit used in contemporary microeconomics and macroeconomics. Students should acquire knowledge of the main questions addressed in modern macroeconomics and microeconomics and how they relate to contemporary markets and economic systems. They should obtain knowledge of the determinants of the main macroeconomic aggregates, such as output, consumption, unemployment, wages, inflation and the interest rate.
• Skills in econometrics and statistics for quantitative research and analysis. They should acquire working knowledge of various topics in statistics that are needed to understand econometric theory, including random variables, mathematical expectations, estimation and inference. They should obtain a good grasp of the simple regression model, multivariable regression analysis, hypothesis testing, specification analysis and the generalized regression model (including random effects models), instrumental variable models, simultaneous equation models, some topics in macroeconometrics and microeconometrics. In addition, student should acquire knowledge of methodological issues related to generalized method of moments and maximum likelihood estimation. They should also obtain preliminary knowledge of the techniques of machine learning and their application in economics.
• Skills in mathematical techniques. Students should acquire knowledge of appropriate mathematical methods that relate to various types of economic analysis. They should acquire working knowledge of the concept of sets, set operations, functions, matrix algebra, partial differentiation, techniques for unconstrained optimization. They should be able to apply these techniques in economic equilibrium analysis.
• Skills in applied economic analysis and public policy analysis. This covers a diverse range of skills, reflecting the broad coverage of applied economics courses that we offer (e.g. applied game theory, economic analysis of law, financial economics).

NYU Policies

Graduate school of arts and science policies.

University-wide policies can be found on the New York University Policy pages .

Academic Policies for the Graduate School of Arts and Science can be found on the Academic Policies page . 

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With the help of NSF I-Corps, NYU Tandon faculty members and graduate students are taking their research to where it can do the most good

Like many NYU Tandon students, Srushti Katore and Prithvinath Reddy Garigapuram had the goal of using their tech skills and engineering education to help improve the world. Even more importantly, they had what they believed was a viable idea: with the World Health Organization listing stroke as one of the leading causes of long-term disability, what if there were a way for clinicians to preemptively identify and manage patients at high risk, such as those who had already suffered a stroke in the past? 

They collaborated to develop a cloud-based application that leverages data in order to noninvasively do just that. Cara Systems , as they called their enterprise, developed a noninvasive SaaS triage tool for intracranial aneurysms and stroke that provides clinicians with data-driven insights on patient-specific diagnoses, in order to enhance clinical decision-making and treatment outcomes. 

But the best idea in the world wouldn’t be of much use if it remained in a Tandon Lab. Even enlisting the help of clinicians at NYU Langone would not ensure that the system made it into the hands of a significant segment of medical practitioners out there on the front lines of patient care.

With the help of Industry Professor Iskender Sahin , who served as the team’s Technical Lead; Professor Emeritus Kurt Becker , as entrepreneurial advisor; Vadim Gordin , as industry mentor;  and Dr. Albert Favate , a neurologist and stroke specialist from NYU Langone as the clinical collaborator, they set a goal of taking part in an impactful National Science Foundation (NSF) program known as I-Corps .     

What is I-Corps?

Bench-to-bedside has become something of a buzz phrase in medical circles in recent years. The term refers to translational research — in other words, research that moves (or “translates”) quickly from the lab bench to bedside.

It’s a worthy goal in medicine, as Cara Systems shows, but is also a useful concept in any sector: findings made during the course of academic research can not only make patients healthier but cities more liveable, manufacturing more sustainable, and cyber systems more secure, to name just a few of the possibilities.

In 2012, recognizing that many of the transformative technologies developed thanks to grants from the NSF weren’t actually making it to the marketplace, where they could benefit society, the Foundation launched NSF I-Corps (pronounced "eye-core"), a seven-week program aimed at helping researchers become entrepreneurs.   

Since its inception, I-Corps has helped almost 1,400 research teams to launch startups, which have cumulatively raised more than $3 billion in subsequent funding. 

How it works

Researchers who hope to be admitted to I-Corps form teams consisting of, at minimum, a technical lead, an entrepreneurial lead, and an industry mentor. Teams then pitch the NSF on their technology and its potential commercial uses. If accepted, they receive a $50,000 grant and seven weeks of hands-on training in Lean Startup Methodology, a system that has long been popular in Silicon Valley and that calls for an intense early period of customer discovery.

At NYU, however, the process doesn’t start there. I-Corps is the middle step in a three-step process that begins with enrolling in a Tech Venture Workshop overseen by the University’s Entrepreneurial Institute and its executive director, Frank Rimalovski . During the workshop, faculty members and their Ph.D. students or postdocs who have conducted research with commercial potential are invited to test out their premises and learn about intellectual property, patents, market segments and other foundational topics.

Only after they’re deemed ready — with a potentially viable product and a rudimentary understanding of what it takes to launch a business — are they encouraged to apply to I-Corps. Even teams not advanced enough for that big leap benefit greatly from the workshop, however, with most saying it changed their way of thinking, gave them practical ideas for honing their research, and strengthened their resolve to pursue their work.  

Wael Itani, for example, a Ph.D. candidate supervised by  Dean Emeritus Katepalli Sreenivasan , a renowned physicist, is working on a project called QALB, which aims to develop quantum software able to quickly and accurately simulate fluid flows. The work is not theoretical, he explains, but rather computational. If the project turns out as he plans, it would be a building block to accelerating such simulations by orders of magnitude (for example, to validate the designs of airplane components in mere hours rather than days, or even weeks). One major roadblock: the needed hardware is still under development, “We are developing the software in parallel as major players in the industry are building the hardware,” he says. Attending the workshop, however, has made Itani more determined than ever to create the first such software for the market. Searching for early adopters in the market has a sizable effect on the development effort, down to the assumptions made for the software’s use cases. He now has a headstart in knowing what markets to target when the time is right to apply to I-Corps. “In addition to the commercial potential, we’ll be advancing fundamental scientific understanding,” he says. “Right now there are things we haven’t discovered about flows around soccer balls, let alone airplanes.” 

Similarly, Senior research assistant Jingqin Gao , who works as Assistant Director of Research at Tandon’s C2SMARTER University Transportation Center (formally C2SMART), which is funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation, was able to plan a path forward after attending a recent Tech Venture Workshop. In 2020, collaborating with C2SMART Director and Professor Kaan Ozbay , Gao had explored the idea of using crowdsourced traffic cameras to 6detect pedestrian density and social distancing patterns during the COVID pandemic; inspired by that work, they later turned to developing a deep learning-based data acquisition and analytics tool, called A-Eye Urban, that uses cameras to automatically recognize work zones in crowded and complex urban environments and visualize traffic hazards. Reasoning that such information might be useful not just to public agencies but to commercial entities, she aimed to learn more about topics like pursuing licensing or knowledge transfers, the patent process, customer discovery, and raising capital. “One day we’ll be ready to apply to I-Corps,” she says, “and in the meantime I gained so much knowledge; I’ve become a go-to person at C2SMARTER when researchers first start thinking of the commercial potential of their work.” 

Making it in

Once admitted to I-Corps, aspiring entrepreneurs receive $50,000 from the NSF. Katore and Garigapuram have used that funding to dive into customer discovery and have a pilot program in place by this summer; the ultimate goal, if all goes well with NYU’s Institutional Review Board, is to go to market by 2026. “We believe Cara Systems is going to push the boundaries of diagnostic efficiency and precision,” they say, “and it’s very satisfying to know your work is poised to make an impact; that’s every researcher’s dream.”

Professor André Taylor and his team, who are part of the latest I-Corps cohort, certainly share that dream. (I-Corps cohorts consist of about 24 carefully chosen teams, which are attached to one of the program’s regional hubs; NYU is part of the New York Region Hub led by CUNY.) Taylor works in the sphere of energy conversion and storage, developing innovative fuel cells, solar cells, and batteries, and his newest project is still in stealth mode. “While I can’t talk about it much right now,” he says, “I can say that we’re exceptionally excited to be in the program, and have already conducted more than 100 customer discovery interviews within the first four weeks with three more weeks remaining.”

Rimalovski and his colleagues at the Entrepreneurial Institute have helped at least 16 NYU projects gain admission to I-Corps cohorts, and many of those have been based at Tandon, including: 

• CAR-T Chips, microfluidic “organ on a chip” systems that aim to help clinicians better treat cancer (PI Weiqiang Chen )
• TAP Diagnostics, a rapid point-of-care test for viruses (PI Jin Kim Montclare )
• Heliotrope, a film coating able to boost the efficiency of solar cells (PI Eray Aydil )

Once a team has completed the I-Corps curriculum, it’s eligible for the third step in the Entrepreneurial Institute’s offerings: the Tech Venture Accelerator , an initiative launched this past year thanks to funding from alumnus and trustee Mark Leslie and his wife, Debra.

Participating teams receive an additional $50,000 in milestone-based funding, mentorship, and other resources needed to get their startups off the ground. The inaugural accelerator featured a team comprising Bilal Sher (Tandon ‘22), Talha Javed (Tandon ‘23), Sruti Madhusudhan (Tandon ‘23), and Professor Chen Feng , who designed an AI-enabled robotic building-inspection system ; and Vital Audio , a software platform that extracts clinical biomarkers from patients' speech through conventional phone lines founded by Nyamitse-Calvin Mahinda (Tandon '24), Harsh Sonthalia (Tandon '23), and Divya Mehta (Stern '23).

“The robotic building-inspection system has already gone on to receive a $1 million NSF Civic Innovation Challenge Phase II grant, and Vital Audio won NYU’s Entrepreneurs Challenge and participated in the highly selective TechStars LA accelerator program,” Rimalovski says. “We’re obviously excited to follow their progress, as well as to see what teams make it into our second cohort. As more and more academic researchers explore the incredible practical applications of their work and pivot to use-driven investigations, the better the chance that their technology will fill a pressing market need and make a real-world difference.” 

NYU Tech Venture Program

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Transaction Fee Mechanism Design (with and without MEV)

Co-authors: Maryam Bahrani and Pranav Garimidi

Abstract The incentive-compatibility (IC) properties of blockchain transaction fee mechanisms (TFMs) have been investigated with passive block producers that are motivated purely by the net rewards earned at the consensus layer. This paper introduces a model of active block producers that have their own private valuations for blocks (representing, for example, value derived from the application layer). The block producer surplus in our model can be interpreted as a common interpretation of the phrase “maximal extractable value (MEV).” We prove that TFM design is fundamentally more difficult with active block producers than with passive ones: With active block producers, no non-trivial or approximately welfare maximizing TFM can be IC for both users and block producers. These impossibility results can be interpreted as a mathematical justification for augmenting TFMs with additional components. We proceed to a more fine-grained model inspired by current practice, in which we distinguish the roles of “searchers” (who identify opportunities for value extraction) and “proposers” (who participate directly in consensus and choose the final published block). Here, we first consider a TFM that resembles the block production process in practice where each transaction is effectively sold to a searcher in a first-price auction. We then explore the design space more generally and design a mechanism that circumvents our previous impossibility results. Our mechanism (“SAKA”) is deterministic, IC (for users, searchers, and the block producer), sybil-proof, and guarantees roughly 50% of the maximum-possible welfare when transaction sizes are small relative to block sizes. We conclude with a matching negative result: even when transactions are small relative to blocks, no IC, sybil-proof, and deterministic TFM can guarantee more than 50% of the maximum-possible welfare.

Lindner College of Business » Programs » Graduate Programs & Certificates

Graduate Programs & Certificates

Learning is a lifelong pursuit. Whether you are seeking to level up your skills, pick up a credential or pivot into a new industry, our offerings can help you achieve your goals.

Lindner's diverse portfolio of graduate degrees help students expand their knowledge, hone their expertise and cultivate their network.

Our engaged, expert faculty craft courses that connect advanced business concepts to the applicable skills top employers demand.

Master's degree options

• Master of Business Administration (MBA)
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Graduate certificates

Fast, focused and relevant, our graduate certificates help students gain specialized knowledge of a business function or cross-disciplinary domain in as little as eight months.

Graduate certificates can be completed as standalone programs or in conjunction with the Lindner MBA or master's program.

• As a standalone option , graduate certificates help students effectively weave new skills into their existing knowledge, without the commitment of a degree.
• Graduate certificates can also serve as the preliminary step to starting a master's degree program. All credits taken as part of a graduate certificate may be subsequently applied towards an MBA or relevant MS degree.
• Finally, students can add even more value to their degree * by layering a graduate certificate into their current MBA or MS studies.

Certificate programs are not eligible for federal financial aid and the unversity will not issue an 1-20 for international applicants pursuing a standalone certificate.

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*Degree-seeking students must still apply for admission to the desired graduate certificate program. Please contact your academic advisor to apply.

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For those who are attracted to research or mastering  how to teach business, Lindner's apprentice-style PhD programs consistently help place emerging thought leaders in public and private business schools around the world.

PhD concentrations

• Operations, Business Analytics, and Information Systems (OBAIS)

Jeffrey Franke

Assistant Dean , Graduate Programs

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