Interdisciplinary PhD in Economics and Statistics

Students must complete their primary program’s degree requirements along with the IDPS requirements. Statistics requirements  must not unreasonably impact performance or progress in a student’s primary degree program.

The Economics program allows students to replace required courses in Probability and Statistics with more advanced courses by petition.

Special note about integrating IDPS requirements and Economics requirements:

The Doctoral Program in Economics requires students to complete two majors and two minors. IDPS requires one of these major fields to be Econometrics. The IDPS requirement for Computation & Statistics may be used to satisfy one of the minor field requirements in the Doctoral Program in Economics as long as the student’s other minor field is in Economics, and is not a research or ad-hoc minor.

PhD Earned on Completion: Economics and Statistics

IDPS/Economics ChairVictor Chernozhukov

Seminar                                                                                            Grade Requirement
IDS.190 Doctoral Seminar in Statistics.                                              P
Probability (pick one)
6.7700 (6.436) Fundamentals of Probability                                                 B
18.675 Theory of Probability                                                              B
Statistics (pick one)
18.655 Mathematical Statistics                                                          A-
18.6501 Fundamentals of Statistics                                                     A-
IDS.160 Mathematical Statistics – a Non-Asymptotic Approach       A-
Computation & Statistics (pick one)
9.520/6.7910 (6.860) Statistical Learning Theory and Applications                       B
6.7900 (6.867) Machine Learning                                                                   B
                                Or a more advanced subject by petition.
Data Analysis (pick one)
14.192 Advanced Research and Communication*                            P

and one of the following courses:

14.387 Applied Econometrics                                                           B
14.386 New Econometric Methods                                                   B

*Advanced Research and Communication – 14.192 – no longer requires a focus on Data Analysis. Students pursuing the IDPS will need to keep this focus on Data Analysis to successfully meet IDPS requirements.  The IDPS/Economics Chair will verify that admitted students submit a paper that satisfies the IDPS requirements.


MIT Statistics + Data Science Center
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
617-253-1764