Econ PhD Admissions

[newyorkecon]

Hey Tatonnement. Thanks for these posts. Two questions.

1. Do you have any advice for soemone starting a econ PhD in the fall about when and how to search for and successfully land an advisor? What things should we consider, especially if we don't have our field of interest narrowed down yet.

2. What are your feelings on NYU and the fields that they have a comparative advantage in? (I know some of this was touched on before, by not explicitly.)

You are the best, once again. I greatly appreciate it.

[lazyboy007]

Hi Tatonnement! Thank you for the wonderful posts.

I find that the discussion has been mostly US programmes. May I ask what you consider to be top or "good sounding" european programmes? I may be interested in placement in the future but so far I would like ot return to my home country. Btw, I will be a future international applicant taking a master's in math in my undergrad institution. I am mainly interested in fringe topics like agent-based simulations, computational economics, heterogeneous agent models.

Thank you very much.

[midori]

Originally Posted by newyorkecon

Hey Tatonnement. Thanks for these posts. Two questions.

1. Do you have any advice for soemone starting a econ PhD in the fall about when and how to search for and successfully land an advisor? What things should we consider, especially if we don't have our field of interest narrowed down yet.

2. What are your feelings on NYU and the fields that they have a comparative advantage in? (I know some of this was touched on before, by not explicitly.)

You are the best, once again. I greatly appreciate it.

Sorry for the interruption, I have posted the following message on another thread about NYU, hope this helps a bit

Hi, as an NYU undergrad, I can tell you something about NYU. At NYU we have some top people in some particular fields, ie. macro (Sargent, Benhabib), financial (Gale), Public Finance (Lizzeri), micro (Rubinstein, although he spends half of the year at Isreal), Labor (Flinn), we are good at metrics too (Xiao). Game theory group is also quite interesting. Most of the prof are very nice.

[newyorkecon]

Cheers for that Midori

[Tatonnement]

Originally Posted by newyorkecon

1. Do you have any advice for soemone starting a econ PhD in the fall about when and how to search for and successfully land an advisor? What things should we consider, especially if we don't have our field of interest narrowed down yet.

2. What are your feelings on NYU and the fields that they have a comparative advantage in? (I know some of this was touched on before, by not explicitly.)

1. It's a good idea to think about possible fields as early as possible, and from there pick an advisor. So really the field has to come first. You should try to have an advisor, or at least a couple of possibilities, by the end of your 2nd year. From the 3rd year on it's up to you to do research and having someone to talk to about it is a must. Plus many places also have "work in progress" workshops for students, which tend to be grouped by either field or advisor. It's a great idea to become involved in one of these, if possible. In terms of matching, ultimately you want someone who's interests overlap with yours (so that they can give you good feedback) and also who will be going to stick up for you come placement time. So in your classes keep an eye out, and also look at the past record of advisors' students. For instance, since you ask about NYU, Sargent is well known as one of the best "producers" of top students from his days at Minnesota, Chicago, and Stanford, and it's seeming to continue at NYU. Of course there are other great people at NYU too... (see below).

2. Midori listed many good people at NYU, but in overall terms I think the strengths are in macro and micro theory. In macro, in addition to Sargent there's Gertler, Leahy, Benhabib, and some good juniors. In addition, there are a lot of good people at Stern who seem to interact a lot with the dept. In micro, in addition to Rubinstein, there's Pearce and Stachetti among others -- Gale is really a theorist too.

Originally Posted by lazyboy007

I find that the discussion has been mostly US programmes. May I ask what you consider to be top or "good sounding" european programmes? I may be interested in placement in the future but so far I would like ot return to my home country. Btw, I will be a future international applicant taking a master's in math in my undergrad institution. I am mainly interested in fringe topics like agent-based simulations, computational economics, heterogeneous agent models.

It's true most of the discussion has been about the US, since that's what I know best, among other reasons... I've mentioned several good European programs above. Off the top of my head they include (I'm sure I'm forgetting many...)

UK: LSE, UCL, Oxford, Cambridge
France: Toulouse, DELTA
Spain: Pompeu Fabra
Netherlands: Tillburg
Italy: Bocconi (more for ug & masters), EUI
Germany: Humboldt, Goethe

The JEEA has published some Euorpean rankings which are worth checking out. There are also smaller pockets of people in various places. The "fringe" topics you mention also seem to be bigger in Europe -- the Society for Computational Econ seems to have a lot of people interested in this stuff, and they have a large European base.

[tm-newbie]

Could you comment on UCLA versus Maryland? For international, development, macroeconomics, or microeconomics, what advantages does one have over the other? Are there any circumstances that would justify choosing Maryland over UCLA? For instance, funding, future promise of policy research or DC-type jobs, or an opportunity to work full-time on one's research interests under a well-respected Maryland prof beginning in the summer or fall of the first year?

[lazyboy007]

Originally Posted by Tatonnement

It's true most of the discussion has been about the US, since that's what I know best, among other reasons... I've mentioned several good European programs above. Off the top of my head they include (I'm sure I'm forgetting many...)

UK: LSE, UCL, Oxford, Cambridge
France: Toulouse, DELTA
Spain: Pompeu Fabra
Netherlands: Tillburg
Italy: Bocconi (more for ug & masters), EUI
Germany: Humboldt, Goethe

The JEEA has published some Euorpean rankings which are worth checking out. There are also smaller pockets of people in various places. The "fringe" topics you mention also seem to be bigger in Europe -- the Society for Computational Econ seems to have a lot of people interested in this stuff, and they have a large European base.

Thanks Tatonnement for your input. I will be looking at those rankings. I think they are part of a symposium on economic research in Europe.If I have questions, I will just post again. Thanks.

[midori]

Originally Posted by newyorkecon

Cheers for that Midori

~and don't forget we have the Top Ranked Applied Mathematics department (Courant), with MIT the second. Our math department is just amazing~! So if you want to take some courses there, it will be great for you. And also you can take classes at Stern School of Business, Robert Engels is currently a finance professor there.

Originally Posted by Tatonnement

........... Gale is really a theorist too.

Agree, if you are interested in micro, his elective courses may be your cup of tea.~

[Tatonnement]

Originally Posted by tm-newbie

Could you comment on UCLA versus Maryland? For international, development, macroeconomics, or microeconomics, what advantages does one have over the other? Are there any circumstances that would justify choosing Maryland over UCLA? For instance, funding, future promise of policy research or DC-type jobs, or an opportunity to work full-time on one's research interests under a well-respected Maryland prof beginning in the summer or fall of the first year?

Overall, I'd put UCLA well above Maryland. Particularly for micro theory and for macro (again as I've mentioned they've lost some but are still pretty strong). The circumstances you mention do make Marlyand sound somewhat more attractive -- it is good for international & development, and if you work closely with someone there early on that is all to the good. But you may have similar opportunities at UCLA and simply put you'll likely get better overall training and be in a stronger position coming out of UCLA than Maryland.

[taka_sukunami]

Hi Tatonnement,

Thanks a lot for all your comments. Really instructive.

Was just wondering, any change on your perspectives regarding how the top 20 schools are faring since you last posted? I'm applying for Fall 2008 and would very much appreciate it if you shared your thoughts. Thanks and hope to hear from you soon.