German Schools

[murni]

Let me add one sentence about Munich: "Makro in München ist Schrott" [macro in Munich is crap], stated by one of the best economic researchers in Munich (obviously not a macroeconomist ).

[representative_agent]

For those of you who understand German there's an interesting series of articles about the state of economic research in Germany in the Handelsblatt:

Deutsche Ökonomen zerfleischen sich - Politik - Ökonomie - Ökonomie-Nachrichten - Handelsblatt.com

[murni]

And this plea is the reason for the Handelsblatt articles:
Volkswirtschaftslehre: Rettet die Wirtschaftspolitik an den Universitäten! - Wirtschaftswissen - Wirtschaft - FAZ.NET

Representants of German Ordnungspolitik are afraid chairs formely headed by Ordnungspolitiker are now filled with proper researchers. Ordungspolitiker are strange people: economics professors who reject any type of economic research and instead do policy advise using common sense/divine inspiration/belly button economics. The trigger for their plea is probably the Cologne macro group. Cologne was for a long time the hoard of Ordungspolitik. Until five years ago, there was roughly no research at all in Cologne. Now Cologne goes to the international job market to hire researchers. Ordnungspolitiker see their legacy endangered.

[Diplomer]

Actually, I think that this discussion about the WiPo-Lehrstühle is overrated. Virtually all professors who signed that plea are very old (some acutally already retired) and unimportant (=unknown). They are probably just a small minority making much noise. The only reason why the FAZ published that plea is that it seems to be engaged in a crusade against economic theory as can be seen by their numerous articles against mathematical economics.

[kkaman]

Hey guys, can you please elaborate on what is going on inside the German economic research institutes, what is the state of research and what are the job prospects, in the international market, of the graduates of these institutes?

btw, no one commented on the Dannish institutes??

[philecon]

Hi! I am also interested in applying to Bonn. One of my professors told me that it is a good school to go to. I'm curious, though, as to how many international students are admitted to the department, and what fields is Bonn "famous" for. I'm interested in speacializing in applied micro.

[murni]

I concur, the plea will not inhibit the development too much. In particular because it is wrong: successful economists these days are typically NOT theorist, but applied people who produce policy relevant research. But the profs who signed the plea probably know little about the international economic research culture, as most of them never did any good research.

The German research intsitutes (DIW etc) are all rather bad when it comes to research. They do applied work, but typically use old fashioned methods and people there never make it into the good journals. ECB is the exception (and of course IZA).

There is one more point you guys should have in mind when considering doing a PhD in Germany: "Draufschreiben". In case you do not have a stipend, you will probably work at a chair as "research assistant". Usually, the chairholder forces his research assistants to put his name on their articles. Having a "coauthor" who does not contribute to the paper is certainly a disadvantage on the job market. However, at the good universities (Frankfurt, Munich, Bonn, Mannheim), this is less prelevant.

[Diplomer]

The German research institutes (IfW, DIW, RWI...) are mainly concerned with German issues (as they are mainly financed by German tax payer's money). So you cannot expect that they produce research that is particularly interesting for international journals. But they typically have not much to do with the universities you would be studying at...

The Danish universities are Danish, so you might get some answers about them in a separate thread. "German schools" is not a good heading for asking about Danish universities... ;-)

[econgute]

@ philecon,
First of all, I want to say that Bonn is a theoretical micro school. So, if you are interested in a theoretical or mathematical side of applied micro, then Bonn is good for you. However, you should be better not to consider them to study empirical applied micro. Bonn's master program is quite internationally diversified, while their ph.d program is not. BUT this does not mean that they have a only strong bias toward Germans.

@ the OP,
I really have no idea about Danish schools, but if you still want to hear some others' opinion, then I rather say that they look like more econometric schools to me. (Of course, it could be hugely WRONG.) I have even hardly seen some post here about Danish univs. So, if you are not Danish, applying to Danish schools seems somewhat risky.

[murni]

Even taxpayer funded institutions can produce quality research, look at central banks/state universities. As far as I know, currently 80 Mio € per year are spent on the five 'leading' German 'research' institutes. I do not see any return. 80 Mio € is certainly more than the budget of Harvard's econ department.