phd economics energy

Energy & Resources PhD

About the energy and resources group.

The mission of the Energy and Resources Group is research and teaching towards a sustainable environment and a just society. The Energy and Resources Group is a collaborative community of graduate students, core faculty, 200 affiliated faculty and researchers across the campus, and more than 600 alumni across the globe. The Energy and Resources Group provides advanced training in interdisciplinary analysis and research with the goal of creating transformative knowledge for the planet and its people.

As one of the first interdisciplinary programs in the field, Energy and Resources faculty and students have established an impressive track record of undertaking engaged, cutting-edge research and turning these ideas into effective actions from local to global levels.

Courses cover current developments in the field and emphasize a variety of disciplinary perspectives and methodologies: core areas include economics, social sciences, engineering, humanities, and environmental sciences.

Ph.D. in Energy and Resources

The Energy and Resources Group admits highly qualified applicants into the Ph.D. program, designed to support and empower doctoral students to pursue rigorous, interdisciplinary, and original research in the fields of energy, resources, and the environment. The Ph.D. Degree in Energy and Resources is typically completed four years beyond the Masters Degree.

Masters Degrees in Energy and Resources (M.A. or M.S.)

The Energy and Resources Masters Degree is a two-year program designed to educate the next generation of interdisciplinary leaders. The curriculum is intended to serve those students for whom the Masters Degree will be the final formal education in support of a professional career. It also serves as an interdisciplinary foundation for doctoral students preparing for dissertation research.

Students are taught the range of methods and subjects that they should be able to understand, advance, and critique, in order to address critical challenges stemming from the interaction of humans and the environment. To that end, the requirements for the Energy and Resources Masters Degree are both broad and deep, stressing analytic, theoretical, and practical approaches to problems in energy, resources, and the environment.

The course requirements provide for a substantive introduction to the disciplinary approaches that are employed in studying energy and resource issues. These approaches are codified as the A-F Breadth Requirements. For more detail on the A-F requirements please go to https://erg.berkeley.edu/

The program also ensures experience in interdisciplinary analysis applied to key resource concerns. The curriculum provides an opportunity, through a topical course cluster and an independent capstone project, to extend and deepen the areas of investigation and understanding to satisfy the intellectual interests of each student.

Concurrent Master's Degree of Public Policy and Energy and Resources

The Energy and Resources Group and The Goldman School of Public Policy offer a three-year concurrent Master's Degree program that integrates the strengths of public policy analytical tools with the interdisciplinary knowledge and expertise in energy and resources.

Undergraduate Minor in Energy and Resources

The ERG Minor offers knowledge and skills to enable students to address the complex and interdependent issues associated with the interaction of social, economic, political, technical, and environmental factors. Students in any major may add the ERG minor, which is composed of two core and three elective upper division courses. Several of these courses have prerequisites in mathematics or science.

Undergraduate Summer Minor / Certificate in Sustainability

This summer program offers a practical and relevant interdisciplinary approach at the intersection of environmental, economic, social, political, and cultural issues. It is open to matriculated UC Berkeley undergraduates, students from other institutions, and the general public. Upon completion, UC Berkeley undergraduates receive a Minor in Sustainability, while other participants receive a Certificate in Sustainability from UC Berkeley.

Contact Info

[email protected]

345 Giannini Hall

Berkeley, CA 94720

At a Glance

Department(s)

Energy & Resources Graduate Group

Admit Term(s)

Application Deadline

December 3, 2024

Degree Type(s)

Doctoral / PhD

Degree Awarded

GRE Requirements

• Directories

• Mineral and Energy Economics

Graduate Program at Colorado School of Mines

Want to gain a highly marketable degree that will allow you to make important contributions to the energy industry and wider world? Mines will make it happen.

Graduates in the world-renowned Mineral and Energy Economics program at Mines gain the skills necessary for understanding the complex interactions of markets and policy that influence the energy, mineral and environmental industries. The specialized program focuses on applied quantitative tools and models that form a foundation for sound business and public policy and will help propel your career forward to make a difference.

Dual degree option with Institut Français du Petrole in Paris

$116,300 average starting salary (master’s)

Academic partner with Global Association of Risk Professionals

Requirements and Costs

• Admission Requirements
• Degree Requirements
• Cost of Attendance

Master’s Non-Thesis

• Bachelor’s degree : Required 
• GRE : Not Required
• Letters of Recommendation : Required – two letters. Letters of recommendation are not required for current Mines students. 
• Resume or Curriculum Vitae (CV) : Required
• Statement of Purpose : Required
• Transcript(s) : Required. Must be submitted for all schools attended (unofficial transcripts accepted for admissions review and must show successful completion of any required prerequisite course(s).
• For international applicants or applicants whose native language is not English, please review the ENGLISH PROFICIENCY requirement

Master’s Thesis

• Bachelor’s degree : Required
• Letters of Recommendation : Required – three letters. 1 Letter for current Mines applicants.
• For international applicants or applicants whose native language is not English, please review the ENGLISH PROFICIENCY requirement.
• GRE : Required. Not required for current Mines students.

For additional information about these admissions requirements, please refer to the Admissions Requirements page

View the Mines Academic Catalog for more program-specific information 

*Allowance for fees based on mandatory fees charged to all students. Does not include fees for orientation, library, yearbook, refrigerator rental, voice messaging, etc.

At less than 4.5 credit hours, you may be ineligible for financial aid.

Request for additional information

Fill out this form to receive more information about this exciting program. 

Career Outcomes

• Career Types
• Where Alumni Work
• Career Resources
• Banking and investment
• International organizations
• Consulting firms
• Payne Institute for Public Policy
• State of Colorado
• Argonne National Labs
• BTU Analytics,
• Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
• Environmental Protection Agency

Career Services

Degree Options

Master’s of science.

• Dual Degree: Petroleum Economics and Management & Mineral and Energy Economics

Admissions Deadlines

Credential program applications are open! The early action deadline is November 12, 2024

Doing Your PhD in Energy and Environmental Economics at Harris

If you are considering a PhD in energy and environmental economics, or if you are a professor advising such a student, we encourage you to consider a PhD in Public Policy from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. Between the large (and still growing!) energy and environmental faculty group within Harris, related faculty in other units, and the intellectual hub provided by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago ( EPIC ), we believe that Harris is one of the very best places for PhD students to come study research problems at the intersection of energy and the environment, in both the developed and developing world.

The faculty group focused on energy and the environment has grown substantially in the past few years. At Harris, you will have the opportunity to take courses from and work with Fiona Burlig , Steve Cicala , Eyal Frank , Michael Greenstone , Koichiro Ito , Amir Jina , Ryan Kellogg , and Bob Rosner . We are currently on the market for yet more faculty in this area.

The total size of a Harris PhD cohort is modest—roughly 10 students per year total—so that admitted students receive a level of personal attention from faculty that is unusual for programs of this caliber. Beyond the core Harris energy faculty, students also have the opportunity to work with and learn from Harris’s deep bench of applied microeconomists and political economists, including faculty such as Oendrila Dube and Austin Wright who have studied the relationship between energy resources and conflict. Outside of Harris, our students can work with and learn from faculty in other units who work on energy and the environment, including Thom Covert , Elizabeth Moyer , Mark Templeton , and Bob Topel .

Like all Harris PhDs, students focusing on energy and the environment take a rigorous first-year course sequence on economics, econometrics, and political science. In their second year, students then take a three-quarter sequence on energy and environmental economics. This sequence is currently taught by Professors Greenstone, Kellogg, and Ito. These second-year courses are complemented by a suite of options for additional coursework in other economic subfields and in applied econometrics. Our students regularly enroll in PhD courses offered by the University of Chicago’s Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics.

New for 2018-2019, students will be able to apply for a traineeship program in Data Science for Energy and Environmental Research , funded by a $3 million grant from the NSF. This program is aimed at Harris PhD students who are particularly interested in learning frontier data science methods and applying these tools to interdisciplinary problems at the intersection of food, energy, water, and the environment. Harris PhD students who are admitted as trainees will receive two years of tuition and stipend support through this program. All Harris PhDs will have access to courses and workshops offered through this traineeship, which will include interdisciplinary offerings in data science and the geosciences.

Beyond formal classroom training, the rich seminar culture at Chicago offers many opportunities to see presentations of cutting-edge research. Options include the EPIC energy and environment lunch workshop , Harris public policy and economics workshop , Harris development lunch , Becker-Friedman workshop , and Booth applied economics workshop , among others. Students have opportunities to obtain feedback on their own work at both the EPIC lunch and the Harris Monday PhD workshop .

We encourage students from diverse backgrounds to apply. Our diverse faculty is a complementary resource that enables students to explore a wide range of research questions in energy and the environment. While we do expect our entering students to have a strong math background—multivariate calculus and statistical coursework are minima—do not let doubts about your technical training prevent you from applying. If we admit you, it’s because we think you’re smart enough to handle our technical PhD courses, and because we’re committed to providing the mathematical training you need.

Ryan Kellogg Professor and Deputy Dean for Academic Programs

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