PhD in Finance

Welcome to the University of Lausanne and thank you for your interest in pursuing a PhD in Finance at our school. A PhD in Finance is an exciting and life-changing experience. This is to provide you with some background information on our PhD program.

Finance, as an academic discipline, studies 1) the determination of prices and trading of stocks, bonds and other financial securities 2) the investment, financing and governance of firms 3) the functioning and regulation of the financial intermediation system.

Our doctoral studies, internationally recognized, are jointly operated across Switzerland’s leading universities and under the umbrella of the Swiss Finance Institute (http://www.swissfinanceinstitute.ch). The Swiss Finance Institute PhD Program operates at the three Swiss Finance Institute campuses in Lausanne/Geneva (Léman), Lugano, and Zurich. When you enter the Finance PhD program at the University of Lausanne, you automatically belong to the SFI’s Léman campus.

The PhD program in Finance has a single target: To create scientists in the discipline of Finance pursuing a career in renowned academic and research institutions.

The PhD program in Finance is geared towards the pursuit of academic excellence. It aims at providing an intellectual environment and a curriculum comparable with the top PhD programs in Europe and North America. Students are recruited from an international candidate pool with highly competitive admission and solely merit-based selection. Applicants should have a strong interest in research activities and the desire to pursue an academic career or to continue their career doing research in Finance within the public or private sector.

The PhD program in Finance at the University of Lausanne has a proven track record in placing students at the most prestigious international institutions. Recent placements include assistant professorships at UCLA Anderson School of Management, London School of Economics, Boston University, The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, and Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester, among others.

The Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Lausanne is one of the leading research-oriented and fully accredited business institutions in Europe. With about 60 full time faculty members and a long list of doctoral alumni, the expertise of our faculty, coupled with our excellent computer and library resources, provide opportunities for specialization matched by few others in Europe. In the University of Dallas rankings, which capture publications in top business journals, our school is being ranked 8th in Europe. Our objective is to make sure that we can keep up with these good records, and keep improving our research production in major outlets. Our PhD program takes an important role in that mission and, therefore, it constitutes a strategic part for our school.

Dealer Networks

Dan Li, Norman Schürhoff , Journal of Finance (forthcoming), 2018

Agency Conflicts around the world

Erwan Morrelec, Boris Nikolov, Norman Schürhoff , Review of Financial Studies (forthcoming), 2018

Equity Misvaluation and Default Options

Assaf Eisdorfer, Amit Goyal, Alexei Zhdanov, Journal of Finance (forthcoming), 2018

Cross-Sectional and Time-Series Tests of Return Predictability: What is the Difference?

Amit Goyal, Narasimhan Jegadeesh, Review of Financial Studies (forthcoming), 2018

Dynamic Corporate Liquidity

Boris Nikolov, Lukas Schmid, Roberto Steri, Journal of Financial Economics (forthcoming), 2018