A foundational belief of the program is that a wide variety of social phenomena are best understood as the consequence of intelligent decisions by individuals pursuing their own ends. Caltech social scientists have established that such decisions can be modeled and that conclusions concerning social events should be based on observable and measurable parameters of those theories.

Caltech was one of the pioneering research institutions to first use laboratory experimentation in the study of economics and political science, and HSS remains one of the top departments—if not the top—in the world in this field. Under faculty supervision, graduate students are major users of HSS research centers, including the Social Science Experimental Laboratory (SSEL) and the Caltech Brain Imaging Center (CBIC).

Graduate students in the social sciences PhD program are encouraged to begin largely independent research early in their graduate career. Many of the research projects involve direct collaboration between members of the faculty and graduate students.

Expected learning outcomes for a graduate student completing the social sciences PhD program include:

• a strong background in economics, political science, and econometrics;

• a solid understanding of the technical tools, which themselves require an understanding of different theoretical and empirical approaches, needed to carry out research at the frontier of the social sciences

• a demonstrated record of independent and high quality research; and

• an ability to collaborate and communicate across different fields in the social sciences.