TestMagic Forums - View Single Post - Fun with Econ: Would Steven Levitt get into MIT today?

asianecon · 2006 March 15th, 06:06 AM

hmm...just a speculation: what if ad coms nowadays are dominated by junior faculty that needs to publish a lot to get tenure and what if they dont really care about the research potential of the student but only his/her potential as a research assistant? this makes sense: you don't want a co-author but you want a brilliant kid who can solve your problems and prove your propositions/theorems. can the trend of wanting more math from applicants be due to this shift of the preference of ad coms and their private benefits?

i dont really buy the idea that more advanced level math is needed to get published. maybe if you're doing mathematical economics or macro (e.g. nonlinear dynamics and chaos) or econometric theory, you'll need it. but just look at the level of math in AER, QJE, JPE, IJIO, etc..rarely does it go beyond the calculus series (my supervisor even "scolded" me for writing too mathematically when preparing for a submission into one of these journals (actually 2)...he told me to reserve that for JET)

or maybe it's just that econ phd has become so popular and you need a quick and easy instrument to screen applicants. definitely it's hard to read writing samples from applicants (as practiced in Europe) if you have tons of them. hence math ability may be an an imperfect but workable instrument to predict research potential (some of you might be familiar with the belief that if you were good in math as a kid, people tend to think that u are "smarter")

so now on the Leveitt issue. if explanation 1 (first paragraph) is true, then Levitt won't be accepted. if explanation 2 (2nd paragraph) is true, then coming from Harvard and all, he has a big chance especially due to the proximity of Harvard to MIT since he won't need to attract ad coms with math...heck i dont think he even has to mail his apps to the grad school (his application will be personally handed in by professor X to professor Y who happens to chair the ad com at MIT...)

sorry for the long post!

2006 March 15th, 06:06 AM	#24 (permalink)
asianecon TestMagic Guru-in-Training Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 523	hmm...just a speculation: what if ad coms nowadays are dominated by junior faculty that needs to publish a lot to get tenure and what if they dont really care about the research potential of the student but only his/her potential as a research assistant? this makes sense: you don't want a co-author but you want a brilliant kid who can solve your problems and prove your propositions/theorems. can the trend of wanting more math from applicants be due to this shift of the preference of ad coms and their private benefits? i dont really buy the idea that more advanced level math is needed to get published. maybe if you're doing mathematical economics or macro (e.g. nonlinear dynamics and chaos) or econometric theory, you'll need it. but just look at the level of math in AER, QJE, JPE, IJIO, etc..rarely does it go beyond the calculus series (my supervisor even "scolded" me for writing too mathematically when preparing for a submission into one of these journals (actually 2)...he told me to reserve that for JET) or maybe it's just that econ phd has become so popular and you need a quick and easy instrument to screen applicants. definitely it's hard to read writing samples from applicants (as practiced in Europe) if you have tons of them. hence math ability may be an an imperfect but workable instrument to predict research potential (some of you might be familiar with the belief that if you were good in math as a kid, people tend to think that u are "smarter") so now on the Leveitt issue. if explanation 1 (first paragraph) is true, then Levitt won't be accepted. if explanation 2 (2nd paragraph) is true, then coming from Harvard and all, he has a big chance especially due to the proximity of Harvard to MIT since he won't need to attract ad coms with math...heck i dont think he even has to mail his apps to the grad school (his application will be personally handed in by professor X to professor Y who happens to chair the ad com at MIT...) sorry for the long post!