Kyaw Win admitted buying the bogus PhD from a fictitious online university - Brooklyn Park in the US - which sold fake qualifications from Pakistan.
He was caught when the National League for Democracy party, which is forming the new government, made his CV public.
It remains to be seen if Kyaw Win remains on the list of cabinet ministers to take office next week.
A party spokesman told the BBC that the fake degree did not matter.
Confronted by the Myanmar Times newspaper, Kyaw Win admitted the degree was fake.
"I am not going to call myself 'Dr' any more, as I know now that it is a fake university. The PhD on my CV is not a real qualification," he told the newspaper.
A BBC check found the title still on his LinkedIn page, reports the BBC's Jonah Fisher.
Kyaw Win wrote a number of articles on economics and finance using his fake title.
Our correspondent says if the former civil servant is confirmed as minister, he will be responsible for a huge budget and his honesty and accuracy will be vital to the smooth running of Aung San Suu Kyi's new government in Myanmar, also called Burma.
Brooklyn Park University was among some 370 academic websites exposed as bogus last year by the New York Times which traced tens of millions of dollars in estimated revenue from fake degrees back to Pakistan.
The man proposed as Myanmar's new finance and planning minister has a fake degree in finance, it has emerged.