Where should I apply for PhD (US/Europe)?

[econindia]

I completed a master's program in economics two years back in india with scores among the top 5% and one semester of an Mphil (discontinued). I have a year long gap afterwards and am currently hold an RA position. I am confident about doing well in GRE and would like to apply for a good PhD program next year, my areas of interest are: Labour Econ and Experimental Econ. I am interested in applying to Europe and US (I'd prefer living in Europe). Which universities should I be realistically targeting? These are my preferred choices (not in order of preference), do suggest more or shoot down the ones which am unlikely to be accepted at:

 

Tilburg, Toulouse, Bonn, Mannheim, Munich, NYU, Colombia, Brown, NWU, Yale, UC-Davis, Cornell

 

P.S: math and stat courses in undergrad and masters (Linear algebra and Calculus, Introductory Mathematical Methods, Mathematical Methods, Introductory statistics, Statistical Methods, Econometric Methods)

Edited August 18, 2014 by econindia
adding info

[jrdonsimoni]

Hi there :)

 

If you like experimental econ, you could have a look at Nottingham, U East Anglia, and Warwick. If you are keen on the overlap with Labour, and are interested in, say, behavioural labour economics you could look at the GSEFM (Frankfurt+Mainz+Darmstadt) in Germany, Mainz has an interesting macroeconomics group here who looks at behavioural macro and behavioural labour.

 

Disclaimer: I am biased since I did my masters at Notts and am going for phd at the GSEFM :D but the placement record at the GSEFM is excellent (see here), and Notts is a great place to live in and the guys for experimental are all very good and very accessible and friendly people (Starmer, Renner, Cubitt, etc.) and though I did not take the module, I only heard good things about the labour guy (R. Upward), not sure about the publications in labour though, but in experimental Notts definitely an interesting choice :D

[econindia]

Hi,

I wasn't too keen on UK because of limited finances, but I will definitely apply to Nott if they are that good with experimental. Adding GSEFM to my list of applications too since they do both labour and experimental! Thank you :)

[Insti]

You must be crazy to be interested in experimental and not consider Zurich

[jrdonsimoni]

For Notts, you can always secure funding via the ESRC when you apply (deadline is January I think, though come June time they sometimes have some scholarships left).

 

Warwick, I know their Behavioural Centre (inside the WBS) has subsidised programmes (where you get sponsored by an external organisation [company, public body looking to get a piece of research done, etc.]), UEA...dont know, sorry.

 

GSEFM, you have scholarships and even without you can find a teaching/research assistant job fairly easily (I didnt have a bursary before starting, but they advertised a job, I applied and got it, so it s always possible, even then there are no tuition fees.).

 

And obviously I cant believe I didnt think of Zurich :D though I dont know the situation there for financing.

[econindia]

I will apply to zurich only if assured of financing. It is an expensive city too after all. Finance is what is pulling me towards Germany! Thanks for the tip on WBS. :)

[cointegration]

I will apply to zurich only if assured of financing. It is an expensive city too after all. Finance is what is pulling me towards Germany! Thanks for the tip on WBS. :)

 

germany is cool. You dont get any funding for the masters degree but you have the chance to do a research degree and if you are succesful in your second year you become a phd student and get funding. I believe this scheme applies to both bonn and mannheim... England is also a good choice but you will have the option to take phd level courses in bonn or mannheim if you can get in. In nottingham for instance, you just do master's level econ courses which are not easy but also are not as demanding as first year phd classes. nottingham is not the best stepping stone. you do need to already have a good undergraduate degree if you wanna try higher rank schools. but if you are 100% sure of what you want to specialize in then going to england may be a good option. If you are good enough and have a good project then you can get the ESRC scholarship. But if you are not sure on what you wanna do and want to dig deeper into micro macro and metrics before deciding then englans is not the place to go.