The two departments split, and in all actuality, the unorthodox program has been taken off of life support. They are in their own building and no longer have new graduate students for the past few years.
As for the phd
program from the Department of Economics and Econometrics, the restructuring is complete. Each year they've been, are, and will continue to build the size of the faculty roster to approximately double its current size. As for rankings, look to
www.econphd.net at each subspecialty. It should be noted that the research economists that have offices in the business school have close ties to the economics department, including a "dual citizenship" between the two departments.
The ties of the dept's prof's through research to harvard, mit, chicago etc. professors, and the Fed banks is evident through friday seminars where graduate students meet these colleagues from their sister-institutions and are also presented with their current research.
The admissions is quite selective with last year's applicant pool having approximately a 7% admit rate. Mathematics backrounds of applicants are expected to be comparable to any top tier program. (The first year texts are the same as those used at MIT).
Research Assistantships are bountiful, and no one is forced to teach undergraduate courses. Financial stipends are quite nice as well, expecially since the cost of living is reasonable. The program/department is very friendly and a pleasure to be a part of.
-A graduate student who turned down doing a masters in engineering at mit to be a member of this community