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The Department of Economics has 31 permanent faculty members, all active in research, and by various ranking criteria the department consistently ranks between number 25 and 35 in the country.
The Ph.D. program is patterned similar to most other programs. The core first year sequence of microeconomics, macroeconomics and quantitative methods is followed by three elective fields chosen from advanced economic theory; econometrics; economic development; economic history; economy, justice and society; industrial organization; international economics; monetary economics and public economics. To assist graduate research the department maintains an active program of seminars and workshops.
The Ph.D. program has about 95 graduate students across all years. Its effective size is increased by complementarities with the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, which has a similar sized Ph.D. program.
Financial aid assistance varies for first year students. In subsequent years some students receive fellowships or work as research assistants, while the majority work as teaching assistants. At Davis teaching assistants do not teach their own classes. Instead they support faculty in teaching through holding discussion sections, office hours and grading.
The Department is proud of its job placement record relative to similarly-ranked departments. Over one-half of Ph.D. graduates get an academic job, including placements at top fifty universities (Tennessee, Oregon and Washington State since 1993). The remaining students usually obtain employment as economists in the California state government, the federal government or their own national government in the case of some foreign students.
U.C.-Davis is ideally located in northern California. The city of Davis, with 60,000 residents, doubles as a classic college town and a desirable "suburb" of the state capital Sacramento which is twelve miles away. Most students live on campus or within three miles of the campus in a city that provides an extensive bus system and a renowned system of bike paths and bike lanes. The Sierra Nevada mountains, California coast and city of San Francisco are all within two hours drive.
The university campus itself is old by California standards, starting in 1909, and has grown to 30,000 students. The campus is historically known for its tradition in agriculture and biological sciences and for supporting interdisciplinary research. More recently it has enjoyed success in many fields and supports professional schools in Law, Management, Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, in addition to Colleges of Letters and Science, Agriculture and Environment, and Engineering. The university usually ranks number ten amongst public universities in the U.S., according to the widely-cited rankings in U.S. News and World Report. U.C.-Davis enjoys all the advantages of being part of the University of California, including prestige and access to journals on-line via the California Digital Library.
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