The PhD degree requires a minimum of 64 credit hours for the “traditional” program and 96 credit hours for the “straight-through” program, not including prerequisites. The curriculum is composed of four fundamental components:
1. Economic Theory and Applications
A theoretical component, taught by the highly ranked TAMU Department of Economics, consists of classes in macroeconomics, microeconomics, and econometric theory. The microeconomic component covers neoclassical theory, game theory, and risk analysis. This component may be complemented by additional economics courses depending on the student’s interests.
The agricultural economics core component brings together theory and quantitative methods in the context of applied research and managerial and policy analysis. Classes in this area cover analysis of economic problems concerning firm production, household consumption, markets, industrial organization, and distribution of welfare.
2. Quantitative Methods
An applied quantitative methods component, taught within the Department of Agricultural Economics, covers research applications supported by tools from econometrics, mathematical programming, dynamic and stochastic programming, optimal control, and simulation.
3. Primary Field Areas
The primary field area requires 6 credit hours. Three departmentally-defined field areas are available to choose from:
- Markets and Information Economics
- Environmental and Resource Economics
- Agribusiness
For each field area there are two required courses, a Fundamentals course and a Frontiers course.
| Markets and Information Economics: | Resource and Environmental Economics: | Agribusiness: |
| AGEC 672: Fundamentals of Markets and Information Economic | AGEC 673: Fundamentals of Resource and Environmental Economics | AGEC 671: Fundamentals of Agribusiness and Managerial Economics |
| AGEC 676: Frontiers in Markets and Information Economics | AGEC 677: Frontiers in Natural Resource and Environmental Economics | AGEC 695: Frontiers of Agribusiness and Managerial Economics |
4. Supporting Field Areas
In addition to two required primary field courses, students must take two field elective courses (6 credit hours) which will (1) provide greater depth in their primary field area or (2) constitute a second field. The field elective courses may be selected from AGEC courses in policy, consumption, resources, trade, production, and industrial organization, as well as from broader University offerings in finance, operations research, econometrics, statistics, and water resources, among many others.