Why UNC Finance

While none of the major business publications provide rankings of Finance PhD programs, UNC is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world by The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and U.S. News & World Report.

A key feature of the PhD program at UNC is its focus on collaboration between PhD students and faculty. At UNC, each PhD student is assigned to a faculty member and students learn the research process by working closely with faculty members on current research. Moreover, the environment at UNC encourages close collaboration between students and as a result, PhD students benefit from the mentoring provided by their classmates.

In addition, PhD students at UNC have the opportunity to take a wide range of classes, including courses at Duke. As a result of the large size of the UNC Finance department and the value it places on the PhD program, UNC is able to offer a large number of Finance courses that are specially designed to meet the needs of PhD students. Finally, UNC PhD students have the opportunity to attend regular research seminars given by some of the top faculty in the world. During the school year, research seminars are typically scheduled on Friday afternoons, and guest speakers regularly include faculty members from top business schools including Chicago, Columbia, Duke, Harvard, NYU, and Wharton.

Research Areas

Finance research can be broadly split into two main groups: asset pricing and corporate finance. Within these groups, research is often further divided into theoretical and empirical work. One of the unique features of UNC’s PhD program is that the Finance department at UNC has strong faculty support in all major research areas. As a result, PhD students have a wide variety of research areas to choose from and they can count on faculty support regardless of their chosen research focus.