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The Queen's graduate program in Economics is one of the top two or three such programs in Canada. Each year we admit about forty M.A. students, and five to ten Ph.D. students, from Canada, U.S.A., U.K., Australia, New Zealand, India, China and many other countries. The high degree of competition for entry into the program is continuing to raise the quality of our students each year. As a result, the prestige of Queen's M.A. and Ph.D. degrees is continuing to increase, and our graduates are much in demand on the job market.

A further benefit is that the quality of our graduate education is improved by the interaction between some of the brightest Economics students in Canada. We recognize that some of the most important discoveries and discussions take place between graduate students outside the class-room.

Graduates from our Ph.D. program have continued to be successful in the job market, and to reinforce the Queen's reputation by their subsequent performance. In November 1996 we graduated our 197th Ph.D. in Economics: Michael Bennett was awarded his Ph.D. for his thesis on "Ownership Structure and the Market Assessment of Interfirm Asset Sales: An Empirical Analysis". Michael is now teaching for the School of Business here at Queen's University. Other successful graduates recently have been Christine Parlour, who has a full time position at Carnegie Mellon University, Lisa Powell, who is on the faculty of the School of Policy Studies at Queen's, and Kelly Bedard who is a Postdoctoral Fellow at McMaster University. An interesting observation from this list is that more than 50% of recent graduates are women.

The M.A. program has provided multiple opportunities for career enhancement. It is a recognized route for entry into the best Ph.D. programs in Canada and U.S. Each year a select group continue on in our own Ph.D. program. For those who do not wish to pursue further graduate study, the M.A. is an excellent qualification for employment in the public or private sector. Our M.A. is highly regarded in the public sector: many of our students can be found in Provincial and Federal departments and agencies.

More recently our graduates have been penetrating the private sector, particularly the financial sector, where skills in Econometrics and Financial Economics are in growing demand. In 1996-97, Financial Economics will be offered as a field of specialization for the first time. As a way of nurturing the new network of Queen's graduates in the private sector, a group of faculty members hosted a dinner in Toronto in May 1996 for graduates of our program. About 40 Queen's MAs working in Toronto attended, going back as far as the class of ‘78! We hope to repeat this successful experiment in subsequent years.

The 1995 C.A.Curtis Prize was awarded to Desiré Vencatachellum for his thesis on "Dynamic Research and Development Games: Applications to Endogenous Growth Theory", supervised by Bev Lapham and Tom McCurdy.

PhD Recipients

Just before press time we had 5 more Ph.D. students defend their thesis in the Department. Three of these students have submitted their final copies and will be awarded their degree's at Spring Convocation. They are: Douglas Tattrie, Frank Strobel and Dennis Lu.

We became aware of an interesting phenomenon regarding Dennis Lu. Dennis will be our 200th Ph.D. when he convocates this Spring! And.... coincidentally, it just so happens that Dennis' external examiner was Ed Nosal - the Department's 100th Ph.D. student!!! The Department is very excited about this and hopefully a celebration will be in the works after the Spring 1997 Convocation!

Last modified: 4 March 1997
URL: http://qed.econ.queensu.ca/pub/newsletter/1996-97/graduate.html