Master of Arts, Economics/Juris Doctor (MA/JD)

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Return to: USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Students are required to complete 92 units of law and economics course work, four units of which must constitute a thesis acceptable to the faculties of the USC Gould School of Law and the Department of Economics. Before enrolling in economics courses, students must have completed an undergraduate course in probability and statistical inference (e.g., BUAD 310 ). Students with undergraduate degrees in such disciplines as business, economics, mathematics and psychology will usually have taken such a course as part of their undergraduate program.

First Year:

Required law school courses.

Second and Third Years:

ECON 500 Microeconomic Analysis and Policy Units: 4
ECON 602 Macroeconomic Theory I Units: 4 or
ECON 513 Practice of Econometrics Units: 4

Two Additional Graduate-level Courses in Economics (8 Units):

ECON 680 Industrial Organization and ECON 681 Economics of Regulated Industries are recommended, but the student is free to choose any graduate level courses other than ECON 590 or ECON 790 in consultation with the program adviser. ECON 401 Mathematical Methods in Economics may be substituted for one of these courses, or ECON 419 Advanced Econometrics may be substituted for the other. (These three courses are applicable toward graduate credit.)

Four Units of Thesis:

The thesis must be acceptable to both the faculty of the law school and the faculty of the Department of Economics.

Thirty-nine Units of Law Courses:

Including one course in a subject matter related to economics (including but not necessarily limited to Taxation, International Business Transactions, Antitrust Law I, Regulated Industries, Labor Law, Administrative Law and Regulatory Policy, Corporate Taxation or Land Use. In addition to the LSAT, students interested in this dual degree program are required to take the aptitude and advanced economic portions of the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE).