Catrina Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 (edited) Hi Everyone! Given that the PhD program at Rice has been undergoing substantial changes and that I have already received a few messages from people asking me for information about Rice, I thought it might be helpful for me to provide some information regarding my impression of the program as a current first-year student and also pass on some information that I have received from the Director of Graduate Studies, Dr. Hulya Eraslan, regarding the future direction of the program. As those of you who followed my posts last year know, I had a very difficult time making my final decision regarding which program to attend. I ultimately made my decision to attend Rice after speaking to the new chair, Dr. Antonio Merlo from Penn, and hearing from him about all of the changes that he was planning for the program. In addition to Dr. Merlo, Rice hired Dr. Eraslan from Hopkins, and Dr. Ken Wolpin, Dr. Flavio Cunha, and Dr. Xun Tang from Penn, and they are planning on hiring five new faculty members in the near future. I am now sure that I made the correct choice. I have been very impressed with the program so far, and can tell that the program will continue to improve substantially over the next few years. The coursework is quite rigorous, with a strong focus on helping us develop the ability to produce research. I appreciate the relatively small size of the program (there are eight students in my cohort), and that there is a strong culture of cooperation among the students. There are monthly coffee hours and happy hours to provide opportunities for faculty-student interaction, and several faculty members are organizing a new voluntary reading group on weekends for graduate students to discuss structural estimation of game theoretic models. The focus of the program is on applied micro, defined broadly, including political economy, labor, and IO. In particular, there is a focus on structural estimation, and therefore the coursework focuses on microeconomic theory and econometrics for the purpose of applying these tools to address economic problems. One unique aspect of the program is the degree of collaboration between the economics department and the business school. Starting next year, the course that is currently second-semester macro will be replaced by a course on financial economics, so Rice would also be an excellent choice for anyone with interests in financial economics. I should add that one of my main concerns prior to making the decision to attend Rice was regarding the placement history. When I brought up this concern to my advisor from my MA program, he explained to me that placement is far more dependent on the advisor than the institution, so in this instance one should consider the placement records of the new faculty rather than the historical placement record of the institution. Feel free to ask me any questions, and good luck with your applications! -Catrina Edited January 8, 2015 by Catrina Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Food4Thought Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 With those new hires, do you see the focus of the department shifting or is it probably going to remain an empirical micro/labor dominated group? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catrina Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 Good question, Food4Thought. From what I understand the goal with the new hires will also be to focus on applied micro in general, and therefore the new hires will also be researchers that combine theory and empirics to address applied problems. However, the focus isn't on labor specific. Out of this year's new hires, only Ken Wolpin and Flavio Cunha focus primarily on labor, so there is no reason to assume that all of the new hires will be labor economists. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
publicaffairsny Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Do they do any policy work there or is it more industrial applied micro? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catrina Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 Do they do any policy work there or is it more industrial applied micro? The short answer to that question is "yes", although it depends on what you mean by "policy work". The faculty generally do research with implications for policy and much of applied micro research is policy-oriented, so there would be plenty of opportunities for a student who is interested in policy-oriented research. There are also faculty members who do research in particularly policy-oriented fields such as energy and health. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
publicaffairsny Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 The short answer to that question is "yes", although it depends on what you mean by "policy work". The faculty generally do research with implications for policy and much of applied micro research is policy-oriented, so there would be plenty of opportunities for a student who is interested in policy-oriented research. There are also faculty members who do research in particularly policy-oriented fields such as energy and health. Yeah, policy does not exclude industry. There has to be policy to regulate commerce. I often use policy to refer to applied micro dealing with public sector and non-profit organizations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tm_member Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Yeah, policy does not exclude industry. There has to be policy to regulate commerce. I often use policy to refer to applied micro dealing with public sector and non-profit organizations. That's the type of comment that could kick start a research agenda! It's certainly not a given fact, especially if by policy you mean government policy. :-) / end thread hijack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
publicaffairsny Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 That's the type of comment that could kick start a research agenda! It's certainly not a given fact, especially if by policy you mean government policy. :-) / end thread hijack I know right the only thing standing between us and pareto efficiency is that damn regulatory policy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YaSvoboden Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 I know right the only thing standing between us and pareto efficiency is that damn regulatory policy. Well, pure monopolies are pareto efficient. Pareto efficiency isn't really that high of a standard. Also, if you've paid any attention to politics (and I assume you have) there are many people that wouldn't take your original statement as given. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
publicaffairsny Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Well, pure monopolies are pareto efficient. Pareto efficiency isn't really that high of a standard. Also, if you've paid any attention to politics (and I assume you have) there are many people that wouldn't take your original statement as given. I thought conservative anti-regulatory dogma was based in market fundamentalism. But a perfectly competitive market only promises Pareto efficiency... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tm_member Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 I thought conservative anti-regulatory dogma was based in market fundamentalism. But a perfectly competitive market only promises Pareto efficiency... Conservative anti-regulatory dogma is rooted in the principles of liberty. The same ones that promote free speech and pour scorn on bigotry. However, conservatives tend to pick and choose where they are going to let liberty prevail. Think of issues such as abortion, gay marriage, etc. In fact, "efficiency" to many truly liberal (in the classical sense) folks is of secondary importance to respecting the choices made by consumers and producers about what to sell, buy, and how much to charge or pay. It's just convenient that if you do respect those choices, theory says you get some semblance of welfare maximization under certain conditions (ones close to PC). Pareto efficiency is a much weaker concept than welfare maximization and neither are good measures of anything in general despite being useful in certain instances. I've had basically this same argument with a friend of mine who is a brewer. He posted a joke on FB which said something like: Three libertarians walk into a bar and order a beer. They each take a sip of their beer and then die.from poisoning cause there's no regulation. End of joke... Ha ha. So many incorrectly characterize this version of anarcho-capitalism as the libertarian stance on market exchange but that couldn't be further from the truth. Libertarians of course realize there is no value in each person conducting their own health and safety inspections. They just don't think that the only alternative is formal government intervention and taxpayer money. They tend to prefer to rely on voluntary organizations to "regulate" the breweries to inspect and insure that they won't kill their next customer. There is no reason that government is the only (or even a) body capable of providing a stamp of safety or whatever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
publicaffairsny Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Conservative anti-regulatory dogma is rooted in the principles of liberty. The same ones that promote free speech and pour scorn on bigotry. However, conservatives tend to pick and choose where they are going to let liberty prevail. Think of issues such as abortion, gay marriage, etc. In fact, "efficiency" to many truly liberal (in the classical sense) folks is of secondary importance to respecting the choices made by consumers and producers about what to sell, buy, and how much to charge or pay. It's just convenient that if you do respect those choices, theory says you get some semblance of welfare maximization under certain conditions (ones close to PC). Pareto efficiency is a much weaker concept than welfare maximization and neither are good measures of anything in general despite being useful in certain instances. I've had basically this same argument with a friend of mine who is a brewer. He posted a joke on FB which said something like: Three libertarians walk into a bar and order a beer. They each take a sip of their beer and then die.from poisoning cause there's no regulation. End of joke... Ha ha. So many incorrectly characterize this version of anarcho-capitalism as the libertarian stance on market exchange but that couldn't be further from the truth. Libertarians of course realize there is no value in each person conducting their own health and safety inspections. They just don't think that the only alternative is formal government intervention and taxpayer money. They tend to prefer to rely on voluntary organizations to "regulate" the breweries to inspect and insure that they won't kill their next customer. There is no reason that government is the only (or even a) body capable of providing a stamp of safety or whatever. Amartya Sen who won the Nobel for Welfare Econ says that pareto efficient outcomes converge towards inequality. With that in mind i love these contrasting quotes from presidential front runner Jeb Bush. “While the last eight years have been pretty good ones for top earners, they’ve been a lost decade for the rest of America … the income gap is real.” (From his new PAC supporting his stance on inequality https://righttorisepac.org/what-we-believe/) "We should let market forces, not crony capitalism, decide where to invest and how to incentivize citizens to conserve," http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/jeb-bush-jack-kemp-leadership-dinner-99007.html Are these mutually exclusive statements? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voided Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=0CAUQjBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdata.archive.moe%2Fboard%2Fa%2Fimage%2F1337%2F27%2F1337270940050.jpg&ei=pWKvVIT-FKPRmAXKmYDADQ&psig=AFQjCNGSPrhsRVXajHYL4LMyzUk7XzuA4Q&ust=1420866597417077 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
publicaffairsny Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=0CAUQjBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdata.archive.moe%2Fboard%2Fa%2Fimage%2F1337%2F27%2F1337270940050.jpg&ei=pWKvVIT-FKPRmAXKmYDADQ&psig=AFQjCNGSPrhsRVXajHYL4LMyzUk7XzuA4Q&ust=1420866597417077 Don't worry, I'm still waiting for Catrina to tell me if they do public econ at Rice... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tm_member Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 As I said conservative politicians tend to flip and flop on their principles. However, there isn't a politician in the world who doesn't have two quotes that directly contradict one another. Jeb Bush's examples here are actually not that bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
publicaffairsny Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 (edited) As I said conservative politicians tend to flip and flop on their principles. However, there isn't a politician in the world who doesn't have two quotes that directly contradict one another. Jeb Bush's examples here are actually not that bad. They are significant though in that they represent a shift in conservative dogma. Conservatives have generally uniformly rejected "positive rights" or rights "to" anything such as education or health care. Bush's comfort embracing a right to economic opportunity is a departure from that and opens the door for evolving discussion of free market principles. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/do-americans-have-a-right-to-rise-jeb-bush-presidential-pac/384329/ Edited January 9, 2015 by publicaffairsny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Food4Thought Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 They are significant though in that they represent a shift in conservative dogma. Conservatives have generally uniformly rejected "positive rights" or rights "to" anything such as education or health care. Bush's comfort embracing a right to economic opportunity is a departure from that. (See today's article in the Atlantic. Can't get the link to paste right now) Many conservative viewpoints are grounded in a natural rights framework, which is by definition positive. The whole right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness thing is a positive right. Conservatives generally reject rights to specific material possessions, not necessarily positive rights. Equality of opportunity >> equality of outcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tm_member Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 They are significant though in that they represent a shift in conservative dogma. Conservatives have generally uniformly rejected "positive rights" or rights "to" anything such as education or health care. Bush's comfort embracing a right to economic opportunity is a departure from that and opens the door for evolving discussion of free market principles. (See today's article in the Atlantic. Can't get the link to paste right now) I don't think they represent a shift in anything. Jeb Bush and any other politician will say anything that helps them politically. No big ideological leaps have been made with those statements nor would they be if those statements were much more strongly worded. Moreover, equality of opportunity is very much a right-wing, libertarian concept. It is ex-ante equality, saying each and every person should be free to go out into the market and trade their way to whatever ends they desire. Equality of outcome is much more left-wing, requiring someone to enforce equality ex-post. I really worry how an Econ program will work for you. I went into my program with a mindset similar to yours but I wasn't committed to it and rarely engaged in political discussion. I was interested in experimental economics and decision theory. My interests moved towards applied micro work on labor markets. A couple of years reading academic work highlighting the negative consequences of the worst government intervention and the cost to achieve any kind of positive intervention made me give up on my long-held beliefs. I get the impression you are much more committed to your ideas than I was, but you will find the evidence in favor of a hands-off approach to the economy and people's lives difficult to square with your beliefs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
publicaffairsny Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 I don't think they represent a shift in anything. Jeb Bush and any other politician will say anything that helps them politically. No big ideological leaps have been made with those statements nor would they be if those statements were much more strongly worded. Moreover, equality of opportunity is very much a right-wing, libertarian concept. It is ex-ante equality, saying each and every person should be free to go out into the market and trade their way to whatever ends they desire. Equality of outcome is much more left-wing, requiring someone to enforce equality ex-post. I really worry how an Econ program will work for you. I went into my program with a mindset similar to yours but I wasn't committed to it and rarely engaged in political discussion. I was interested in experimental economics and decision theory. My interests moved towards applied micro work on labor markets. A couple of years reading academic work highlighting the negative consequences of the worst government intervention and the cost to achieve any kind of positive intervention made me give up on my long-held beliefs. I get the impression you are much more committed to your ideas than I was, but you will find the evidence in favor of a hands-off approach to the economy and people's lives difficult to square with your beliefs. I don't know don't a good number of economists still come out pretty left wing? Most of the guys I've talked to are. Anyways I'm more interested in tools than ideologies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
publicaffairsny Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Many conservative viewpoints are grounded in a natural rights framework, which is by definition positive. The whole right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness thing is a positive right. Conservatives generally reject rights to specific material possessions, not necessarily positive rights. Equality of opportunity >> equality of outcome. Yes, but the natural rights framework opens the door for a secondary interpretation, that they are actually negative rights or rights "from" something, namely intrusion from government or individuals that impedes liberty. Positive rights in this framework are material things granted by government, not natural rights protected by it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tm_member Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 I don't know don't a good number of economists still come out pretty left wing? Most of the guys I've talked to are. Anyways I'm more interested in tools than ideologies. They often do, but I see that as mainly due to their tendency to be socially liberal. I am not a US citizen so I don't vote here but if I did I would vote democrat as I think being socially liberal (immigration, abortion, gay marriage, marijuana control) is more important than maximizing GDP. I would prefer a candidate who is both socially and economically libertarian but they are rarely on the ballot. Those who are left leaning economically tend to see their research as proof that "if only the government had instead done what I have been suggesting...". Which is a logical fallacy to me. A lot of people in the academy have some serious god-complexes and see society as something to be tinkered with and "fixed" via unilateral government dictat. I don't get it, they ridicule government policy cause of it's unintended consequences and fail to see the unintended consequences of their alternative suggestion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
publicaffairsny Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 They often do, but I see that as mainly due to their tendency to be socially liberal. I am not a US citizen so I don't vote here but if I did I would vote democrat as I think being socially liberal (immigration, abortion, gay marriage, marijuana control) is more important than maximizing GDP. I would prefer a candidate who is both socially and economically libertarian but they are rarely on the ballot. Those who are left leaning economically tend to see their research as proof that "if only the government had instead done what I have been suggesting...". Which is a logical fallacy to me. A lot of people in the academy have some serious god-complexes and see society as something to be tinkered with and "fixed" via unilateral government dictat. I don't get it, they ridicule government policy cause of it's unintended consequences and fail to see the unintended consequences of their alternative suggestion. I reconcile it in a few ways. For a while i had trouble with self-interest, however i now understand that it provides the best explanation of behavior, even altruistic behavior and public interest. I think welfare economics provides some promising avenues for the application of social justice principles to policy analysis, but I need to learn more about it. The free market provides a nice framework for analyzing things, and useful tools to work with in analyzing commerce, but as the initial distribution of capital in the real world is inequitable, and competition is imperfect we don't need to be wedded to market principles to develop sound policy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tm_member Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 I reconcile it in a few ways. For a while i had trouble with self-interest, however i now understand that it provides the best explanation of behavior, even altruistic behavior and public interest. I think welfare economics provides some promising avenues for the application of social justice principles to policy analysis, but I need to learn more about it. The free market provides a nice framework for analyzing things, and useful tools to work with in analyzing commerce, but as the initial distribution of capital in the real world is inequitable, and competition is imperfect we don't need to be wedded to market principles to develop sound policy. While I agree that the initial distribution of capital in the world looks inequitable, I believe that a parent has the right to whatever they wish with their wealth when they die. If you disagree, that's fine, but an inequitable distribution of wealth and capital is a natural and arguably necessary byproduct of the marketplace over time. That is, if you start off with everyone equal in ability and endowment, random events will cause the children of those initial group to not be endowed equally. That's a fact of nature and solving the wealth equality issue doesn't solve the whole issue. People are unequal in many ways, not just wealth/capital. Competition is indeed imperfect but so what? That's no proof that government intervention can improve things. To convince people of your viewpoint you need to not say "things could be better", you need to explain how. Platitudes like "sound policy" and pleading to "inequality" doesn't explain what you or anyone intends to do about it. Making everyone equally well off monetarily or in market transactions only solves one dimension of inequality and because people respond to incentives will cause inequality in some other dimension to increase. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
publicaffairsny Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 While I agree that the initial distribution of capital in the world looks inequitable, I believe that a parent has the right to whatever they wish with their wealth when they die. If you disagree, that's fine, but an inequitable distribution of wealth and capital is a natural and arguably necessary byproduct of the marketplace over time. That is, if you start off with everyone equal in ability and endowment, random events will cause the children of those initial group to not be endowed equally. That's a fact of nature and solving the wealth equality issue doesn't solve the whole issue. People are unequal in many ways, not just wealth/capital. Competition is indeed imperfect but so what? That's no proof that government intervention can improve things. To convince people of your viewpoint you need to not say "things could be better", you need to explain how. Platitudes like "sound policy" and pleading to "inequality" doesn't explain what you or anyone intends to do about it. Making everyone equally well off monetarily or in market transactions only solves one dimension of inequality and because people respond to incentives will cause inequality in some other dimension to increase. No I absolutely believe in defined property rights. And I also believe in equal opportunity rather than equal outcome. The main problem with the allocation go capital is that is is the product of a legacy of oppression whereby elites were able to consolidate resources through domination and oppression. The resulting distribution. Fundamentally shapes society today. I am more into Friedman's idea of the negative income tax. Provide everyone the basic standard to ensure liberty and then allow market forces to incentivize and distribute based on ability and effort. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tm_member Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 No I absolutely believe in defined property rights. And I also believe in equal opportunity rather than equal outcome. The main problem with the allocation go capital is that is is the product of a legacy of oppression whereby elites were able to consolidate resources through domination and oppression. The resulting distribution. Fundamentally shapes society today. I am more into Friedman's idea of the negative income tax. Provide everyone the basic standard to ensure liberty and then allow market forces to incentivize and distribute based on ability and effort. Sure, it does fundamentally shape society, but that's still not a plan to solve anything. How do you identify who got rich via their ancestors oppression versus who got there via talent and a little luck? Think Mark Zuckerberg versus the descendant of a slave-owner. Moreover, it doesn't help you figure out who is poor because of oppression or because they are a gambling addict who throws away their family's fortune. It also doesn't prevent the same thing from happening again not due to oppression. What then? What's the point in doing all this redistribution on the grounds of centuries-old wrongs if it'll just be back to the same 2 generations from now. Then, I suppose everyone who got screwed in the first great redistribution would claim they were oppressed by political elites. It's a pointless endeavor. That's all stepping aside from the issue of why someone born today should be punished for their ancestors wrongdoings, which, of course, were likely perfectly legal at the time but feel wrong today in a way they didn't back then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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