leaving PhD program in economics

could always do a MFE/Fin Math which is seen as an alternative to a finance PhD for kids that want to be in industry.

Is this a year-round program? Do you have the summers off to do internships?

I could probably do a summer internship. This summer we have classes we have to do, but after the 2nd year I'm really at the mercy of what my advisor/department will allow. I think most people are expected to work on their research over the summer, but if I made it clear I wanted to something else I think it'd be okay.

Another thing to consider: when do you earn your masters degree along the way?

edit: reread OP, guess all you need is one year with your program

How many years do you have left? It might be worth staying those few years to have a PhD on your resume.

I have another four years. I could leave in a couple months with a masters though.

OP, I do have a PhD (though not in Econ) from HYPS, and to contradict the statement above, I feel a PhD is by and large a credential these days. Schools churn out massive numbers of doctorates and the apprenticeship model of old is gone. Everyone comes into doctoral programs thinking that they will become profs, and universities encourage this mindset, but reality starts to set in 3/4/5th year that A) they don’t want to do this research for the rest of their life B) even if they wanted to, getting a good tenure-track position these days is insanely difficult. Good for you for figuring out now that you don’t want to do this, as it allows you to plan ahead.

Since you have no WE (so I’m guessing no professional network), jumping ship this minute and getting a job won’t be so easy, esp since you’ve passed on ugrad OCR. If you don’t like what you are doing or you are not good at it, then yeah, get out, because the next four years will be awful for you. However, it seems like your primary concern (correct me if I’m wrong) is that you don’t want to become a prof. Most PhDs don’t, so I wouldn’t worry about that. If I were you I would hit up the career services at your school and talk to the senior grad students to feel out what the options are. For example, MBB has OCR at target grad schools and PhDs start at the same salary as MBAs. I’ve also seen colleagues in the Econ dept leave with their PhD to land in nice jobs at various consulting firms and banks.

Well, I am not so sure that molecular biology PhD is comparable to the Econ one because there are position where PhD in economics is considerable advantage (government, central banks, private). There are programs with 60% non-academic placements.