Pinkee Posted March 22, 2011 Share Posted March 22, 2011 I'm mostly interested in development economics on the micro level, including issues such as education and health, and also political economy. I'm also quite concerned with placements in academia. I heard that UCB ARE has a joint program with the econ department regarding development economics. Any insights? Thank you very much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
citizenpku Posted March 22, 2011 Share Posted March 22, 2011 vote for NYU...Debraj is amazing ! Congratulations to shijie@@@ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LAecon Posted March 22, 2011 Share Posted March 22, 2011 Honestly, if you're into the city the vote is clearly for NYU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savingtheplanet Posted March 22, 2011 Share Posted March 22, 2011 At Berkeley, the development group makes essentially no distinction between Econ and ARE students. ARE students take the same development courses, and have equal access to the same professors. If anything, they have more mentoring from the the ARE professors than we econ students do. For development, I suspect that Berkeley ARE > NYU and UPenn. In addition, its a happy department in which people seem to get along, and the Bay Area is a very very nice place to live. But for every other field other than development and environmental economics, I would recommend NYU over Berkeley ARE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewhiterabbit Posted March 22, 2011 Share Posted March 22, 2011 Ooh, this is a really tough choice! Definitely not UPenn; not only do they not have much development to speak of, they have a reputation for a Chicago-esque environment with a lot of unfunded students, high failure rates, and just not the greatest atmosphere. Debraj Ray at NYU is amazing but is mostly a theorist, so that style of development will be pretty different than what's going on at ARE, I'd imagine. But overall it seems like a fantastic department with really great training available and small class sizes. When I was applying, although I am more a development person, the stuff I saw there on the theory side of development seemed really cool. I have heard great things about Berkeley ARE, very similar to what savingtheplanet says (one of my mentors really wanted me to apply instead of regular, and I probably should have done so). It's pretty clear if you're sure about development that you'd have the widest breadth and depth of mentorship there of the three places. That said, in terms of placements I believe it looks like a lower ranked school than NYU or Penn. (But you should definitely get ahold of placements for all three!) If you're a star, you'll be more than fine there, but you can't bank on that. I also was told (and I think there is evidence of this) that the job market is slowly trending towards looking deeper at lower ranked schools, and emphasizing more and more the job market paper. If that's true, it argues for going the place with best mentorship available to you, which is probably Berkeley, rather than focusing on rankings alone. But on the flip side, if you're not totally committed to development, and do find the things they do there interesting, it's probably best to go for NYU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LAecon Posted March 22, 2011 Share Posted March 22, 2011 (edited) Ooh, this is a really tough choice! Definitely not UPenn; not only do they not have much development to speak of, they have a reputation for a Chicago-esque environment with a lot of unfunded students, high failure rates, and just not the greatest atmosphere. I wish we had a Penn student on the forum to confirm this! I've read every Penn post on the forum and apart from a sample of uncofirmed failure rates there is virtually no information here. I can say that NYU students are all happy with their school and have lots of opportunities to work with faculty. In terms of development it is rather theoretical (check out Yaw Nyarko as well), but there are lots of empirical Labor/Education/Human Capital people who would atleast in terms of methods be of great help. Almost forgot Bill Easterly, great professor and development researcher, one of the best known in the development world (academic and popular). Edited March 22, 2011 by LAecon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewhiterabbit Posted March 22, 2011 Share Posted March 22, 2011 For what it's worth, the Penn reputation I cited is backed up by a friend of mine who left the department after the first year. Probably biased, but it was first-hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliephant Posted March 22, 2011 Share Posted March 22, 2011 My conversations with students at Penn econ and at Wharton agree with thewhiterabbit's assessment of the situation. If this is a big sticking point for you, why not just email some current students and talk to them first-hand? I'm sure they'd be more than happy to share their experiences. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EconForeThought Posted March 22, 2011 Share Posted March 22, 2011 Sorry this might sound silly, but have you been admitted already to all three or are you a prospective student for next cycle? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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