Graduate Fellowships on Consumer Financial Management

Deadline to apply: January 8, 2026

Description   

To encourage research on consumer and household finance, with particular attention to the financial well-being of low- and moderate-income households, the NBER is sponsoring two dissertation fellowships for doctoral students in economics and finance for the academic year 2026–2027.

Fellowships will be awarded based on the recommendations of a selection panel of leading researchers in this field. The panel will assess each applicant’s potential to make an important contribution to understanding the determinants or consequences of consumer financial behavior and on the relevance of the proposed research to practical problems in consumer finance or to financial education. 

Fellowship recipients are expected to pursue academic research that is primarily related to consumer finance in the United States. Areas of inquiry may include, but are not limited to:

  • Saving and borrowing behavior.
  • Asset allocation.
  • The effects of credit reporting and scoring.
  • Retirement saving.
  • Homeownership and home equity accumulation.
  • Payday loans.
  • Credit card debt.
  • Other forms of borrowing.
  • Financial challenges facing low- and moderate-income households.
  • Links between consumer finance and income and wealth inequality.
  • Financial literacy.
  • The impact of regulatory policy on consumer financial decisions.

Compensation: Stipend of $37,500, up to $8,000 of tuition support, and a research fund of $5,000 that may be used to support the costs of data acquisition and travel to research meetings. 

Fellows may choose to reduce their stipend to fund a larger data purchase or other research support. 

Fellows will be invited to participate in the NBER Summer Institute workshop on Household Finance, which will be held in Cambridge, Massachusetts in July 2026. 

Fellows will be expected, to the extent possible, to make data collected for their research publicly available.

Eligibility

  • Enrolled as a full-time PhD student at a US or Canadian college or university, and must have advanced to dissertation candidacy status by the start of the fellowship period in fall 2026
  • PhD students in economics as well as business programs are encouraged to apply
  • No residency requirement at NBER
  • Must attest that their research is their primary activity for the fellowship year, and receive prior approval for any work as a research assistant or teaching assistant that will be carried out during the fellowship year
  • By May 1, 2027, fellows will be expected to provide the selection committee with a copy of one research paper on consumer finance, and to present a brief seminar on their paper’s findings to the funder ICMM
  • For fellows who do not complete their dissertations during the 2026–2027 academic year, a potential second-year renewal may be available for those making excellent progress and under exceptional conditions, pending funding availability.

Application Deadline 

Thursday, January 8, 2026, at 5:00 pm EST.

JOE Application Link (link will be live soon, please check back)

In fairness to all applicants, applications that are not complete, including the letter of recommendation, on January 8 will not be considered for support. 

Awards will be announced in February 2026.

Application Requirements

Required materials:

1) Single pdf proposal consisting of no more than the following:

  • Five pages of text.
  • Two pages of supplemental tables and graphs.
  • One page of references.

The proposal should describe the deliverables, such as research papers, that are likely to be finished at the end of the fellowship year. It should also include a brief explanation of how the proposed research might be applied to practical issues in consumer finance, particularly ones affecting low- and moderate-income households.

2) Curriculum vitae.

3) Letter of recommendation: applicants should ask their dissertation supervisor to upload a letter of recommendation to the same application link. Applicants are responsible for verifying that their letter of recommendation has been sent by the deadline. 

Funder

Institute of Consumer Money Management (ICMM)

Contact 

Elisa Pepe (epepe@nber.org)