Program Structure

The Swiss Finance Institute PhD program in finance is a centralized program operating on multiple campuses. It builds on and strengthens the existing programs offered by the Swiss Finance Institute's partner universities based in Basel, Geneva, Lausanne, Lugano, St. Gallen, and Zurich.

The curriculum of Swiss Finance Institute’s PhD program in Finance comprises two phases: a preparatory year of intensive coursework followed by, on average, three years of advanced study and research. The program covers a wide range of subjects including economics, financial economics, corporate finance, mathematical finance, and econometrics.

The program begins with a series of core PhD courses. This intensive coursework aims to provide all candidates with a broad and complete education covering the basic building blocks and conceptual tools of finance and help orient students toward a specific field of research and thesis supervisor.

Each of the five campuses has established a program of core courses that reflects the strengths of its faculty (as set out below). These courses provide a sound working basis that enables students to successfully complete the PhD program, generally three years after completing the first phase. Each core course is followed by an examination. The faculty member in charge attributes each student a final grade for each course based on project assessments, in-class participation, and ongoing work submitted. Admission to the second phase (dissertation writing) is determined on the basis of the grades obtained from the core courses and on the successful completion of a summer research paper (for Léman and Zurich campuses) or a comprehensive examination (for Lugano campus) or a research proposal (for Basel and St. Gallen campus).

For courses in Basel campus, please refer to this document here.

Compulsory Courses

• Asset Pricing: Prof. Lorenzo Bretscher

• Banking and Contract Economics: Prof. Andreas Fuster / Prof. Anasatasia Kartasheva

• Big Data and Machine Learning for Financial Economics: Prof. Semyon Malamud

• Dynamic Asset Pricing: Prof. Daniel Andrei 

• Econometrics: Prof. Patrick Gagliardini

• Empirical Asset Pricing: Prof. Amit Goyal

• Empirical Corporate Finance: Prof. Rüdiger Fahlenbrach / Prof. Norman Schürhoff

• Financial Econometrics II: Valentin Kecht / Prof. Boris Nikolov

• Game Theory: Prof. Theodosios Dimopoulos

• Information and Asset Pricing: Prof. Pierre Collin-Dufresne

• International Finance: Prof. Harald Hau

• Probability and Stochastic Calculus: Elena Perazzi

• Theoretical corporate finance: Prof. Erwan Morellec / Prof. Francesco Celentano

For details of the courses please refer to EPFL’s website: https://www.epfl.ch/education/phd/edfi-finance/edfi-course-book/

First-year Courses

• Asset Pricing I: Prof. Paolo Colla

• Corporate Finance I: Prof. Fausto Panunzi

• Corporate Finance II: Empirical Methods for Corporate Finance: Prof. Laurent Frésard

• Econometrics: Prof. Patrick Gagliardini

• Empirical Asset Pricing: Prof. Francesco Franzoni

• Empirical Asset Pricing II: Prof. Alberto Plazzi

• Household Finance: Prof. Lorenz Küng

• Information and Financial Markets: Prof. Antonio Mele

• Quantitative Methods for Finance: Prof. Alberto Plazzi

• Time Series Analysis: Prof. Patrick Gagliardini

Elective Courses on Advanced Topics

• Bayesian methodology and advanced Monte Carlo Simulations with applications to finance and network data: Prof. Antonietta Mira

• Capital Markets and the Macroeconomy: Prof. Antonio Mele

• Firms in the Macroeconomy: Prof. Simone Lenzu

For details of the courses please refer to the University of Lugano’s website: https://www.ifin.usi.ch/program

Compulsory Courses

• Asset Pricing: Prof. Matthias Fengler

• Corporate Finance: Prof. Marc Arnold

• Econometrics for Finance: Prof. Paul Söderlind

• Microeconomics for Finance: Prof. Michèle Müller-Itten

• Mathematics for Finance: Prof. Andrea Barbon

Compulsory Elective Course

• Topics in Insurance Economics: Prof. Hato Schmeiser

For details of the courses please refer to the University of St.Gallen’s website:  
https://www.unisg.ch/en/research/phd/graduate-programme-in-economics-and-finance-gpef/your-curriculum/

Compulsory Courses Fall Term 2025

• Asset Pricing: Prof. Felix Kübler / Prof. Yucheng Yang

• Banking and Contract Economics: Prof. Andreas Fuster / Prof. Anasatasia Kartasheva

• Corporate Finance: Prof. Alexander Wagner / Prof. Kjell Nyborg

• Cultural Economics and Finance: Prof. Thorsten Hens

• Digital Tools for Finance: Prof. Thorsten Hens

• Econometrics for Research Students I: Prof. Damian Kozbur

• Empirical Corporate Finance: Prof. Per Östberg / Prof. Zacharias Sautner

• Mathematical Finance: Prof. Pablo Koch Medina / Prof. Markus Leippold 

• Microeconomics: Prof. Nick Netzer

Core Elective Modules Fall Term 2025

• Advances in Computational Economics and Finance: Prof. Felix Kübler

• Climate change and finance: metrics to assess risks and opportunities: Prof. Stefano Battiston

• Doctoral Colloquium: Prof. Thorsten Hens

• Doctoral Colloquium in Corporate Finance: Prof. Kjell Nyborg

• Recursive Methods: Prof. Felix Kübler

For details of the courses please refer to the University of Zurich’s website: https://www.df.uzh.ch/en/studies/phd/current-students/curriculum-courses.html

Upon admission to the second phase of the program or just before for the St. Gallen campus, Swiss Finance Institute PhD candidates select a thesis topic and choose their thesis supervisor. Typically, students participate in research projects carried out at an academic partner institution and work within their chosen project as a research or teaching assistant. These research projects' networks also guarantee intensive contact with PhD students from other Swiss universities and provide an excellent and stimulating research environment.

During this second phase all candidates are required to attend the "SFI Research Days" at the Study Center Gerzensee, the annual research conference organized by SFI, and the series of internal "brown-bag" lunch seminars organized by their local department or university. In addition, SFI organizes advanced courses to enable students to acquire the skills that are most relevant to their thesis work.

Recent examples of advanced doctoral courses are: "Blockchains and Cryptocurrencies" by Bruno Biais, HEC Paris (2024), "Empirical Asset Pricing" by Mikhail Chernov, University of California, Los Angeles (2024), "Finance and Product Markets: Theory, Evidence, and Measurements" by Gordon Philipps, Dartmouth College and Laurent Frésard, SFI & USI (2024 and 2025), and "Continuous-Time, Heterogeneous-Agents Models in Finance" by Stavros Panageas, UCLA Anderson School of Management (2025) and "Macro Finance Across Borders” by Nikolai Roussanov, University of Pennsylvania (2026), and "AI and Natural Language Processing in Financial Economics” by Gordon Philipps, Dartmouth College and Laurent Frésard, SFI & USI (2026). 

The completion of the PhD in Finance program requires two successful evaluations: the first phase evaluation and a final defense of the PhD dissertation. Università della Svizzera italiana, the University of Geneva, the University of Lausanne, and the University of Zurich award a "Doctorate in Economics with Specialization in Finance", the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne a "Doctorate in Science with Specialization in Finance", the University of St. Gallen a "Doctor of Philosophy in Finance", and the University of Basel a "Doctor rerum politicarum".