The Doctoral programs aim to cultivate high-level research talent with innovation spirit and practical skills. The graduates will gain a solid and extensive understanding of the basic theories as well as systematic and in-depth specialized knowledge of Finance. They will acquire the skill to independently conduct scientific research, and will be adapt at carrying out innovative research using modern economic- and finance-research methods. Following their graduation, they will be able to conduct highly effective research on frontier issues related to fields such as economics and finance education at tertiary and research institutes.

The School of Finance was granted the right to offer the PhD Degree in Finance in 1998. In 2012, the Financial Engineering major began recruiting students, and a joint-recruitment approach, whereby doctoral students were admitted following the national entrance examination or based on the successive postgraduate and doctoral programs, was introduced the following year. The School began admitting foreign doctoral students to its full-English programs in 2014, and its Fintech Doctoral program began recruiting in 2019. Currently, the School offers three majors, namely Finance, Financial Engineering and Fintech, which cover research directions such as Monetary Theories and Policies, International Finance, Financial Development and Structures, Bank Management, Capital Market and Corporate Finance, Financial History and History of Financial Thought, Financial Asset Pricing, Financial Risk Management, Fintech and Financial Inclusion, Financial Security Engineering and Supervision Technology, etc. The School has a total of 20 doctoral advisors, including two part-time advisors.

In terms of the curriculum, the School offers three specialized foundation courses, namely Advanced Microeconomics, Advanced Macroeconomics and Advanced Econometrics, and specialized courses such as Advanced Corporate Finance, Advanced Capital Market and Origins and Development of Chinese and Foreign Monetary Theories. The elective courses include Financial History and History of Financial Thought, Empirical Financial Research, Asset Pricing Theory Research, International Financial Issue Research and Advanced Financial Economics. The curriculum will help doctoral students gain a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the specialized theoretical systems. Furthermore, to broaden the research skills and perspectives of the students, the School offers specialized courses such as Frontier Finance and Selected Readings, International Financial Issue Research, etc.  

In addition, the School places great emphasis on the academic training of the doctoral students, and has developed a structured and comprehensive academic-research and -support system, covering academic-paper writing, academic exchange, joint training and dissertation presentation for the academic year. The School introduced the fostering of advisors for doctoral students of Financial Engineering in 2013, and the initiative was expanded to all the other majors in 2015. The advisors would select two to three young lecturers (aged under 40) from the School, famous universities at home or abroad or other institutions as assistant doctoral advisors. Dedicated and responsible, these assistant doctoral advisors are selected based on the research directions of the students and have accomplished exceptional scientific-research results. Advisory teams are formed to advise the students on their scientific research.

Students of the School’s Doctoral programs must complete a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 6 years of study before obtaining a Doctoral Degree in Economics.