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apropos · 02-15-2007, 12:10 PM

Is earning a Ph.D. in Economics in only four years either feasible or desirable these days? Let's say I might get into a decent Economics department, but not a top-10 school and that I haven't taken any graduate theory courses before.

Discuss.

Antichron · 02-15-2007, 12:16 PM

It's possible (for example, Princeton's PhD program is only four years long), but it won't be easy to do without prior graduate work. (Unless you are willing to work 25% harder than everyone else all four years.)

I plan on finishing my PhD in four years, but I don't think I'd be able to do so if I didn't already spend two years getting a Master's.

Is it desirable? It's sorta difficult to say. This year, MIT has one person who finished his PhD in four years, and he got a job offer from Stanford and flyouts from many other top departments. This is only one data point, and attributing his success to the fact that he finished in four years is likely to be pretty misleading. I imagine that if you can show that you are ambitious enough to finish your PhD in four years, it'll serve as a pretty strong signal and put you towards the top of your class, though. (At least I hope!)

daageep · 02-15-2007, 03:08 PM

The first two years are full of coursework, and the last years of graduate school are for your dissertation. It seems very plausible to me that someone can finish a dissertation within two years assuming that they have a topic beginning of their third year.

To the current grad students: what events keep current grad students from finishing the dissertation in two years? More elective classes? TA/RA experience? Procrastination?

asquare · 02-15-2007, 03:30 PM

daageep, you are on the right track. TA responsibilities take time away from research, so unless you have outside funding or attend a school that makes minimal demands on its graduate students (Princeton is in this category) you will be slowed somewhat by your teaching. Also, not everyone is done with classes by the end of second year. Michigan's program is structured in a way that makes it virtually impossible to be done with classes that soon. In addition to the regular micro/macro/econometrics sequence, there are two other required courses: an advanced quantitative methods class and a cognate (in another, related department -- stats is common). Also, most students take an applied econometrics course in addition to the two semesters of econometrics core.

Having a topic by the beginning of third year isn't trivial either. An even bigger problem for anyone wanting to do empirical work can be having data by the beginning of third year. No problem if you want to work with a big public data set like public use Census, but if you need restricted use data or specialized material, it can take a while to obtain.

And even at schools that aim to get people out in four years, it is not at all uncommon for it to actually take five. A quick look around Princeton's job market candidate page showed that most people on the market have been there for five years, not four.

If you come in with a masters and pass one or both of the qualifying exams at the start of your first year, that will speed things along. But I don't necessarily think that's the way to go. You'd spend two years getting a masters, which you are probably paying for, to avoid one year in a PhD, which you are not paying for. I think the single best thing to do to get yourself through the PhD quickly is to obtain funding that doesn't have strings/obligations attached, so that you can spend most of your time doing research.

As for whether or not it is desirable, I think it's better to come out in five years with a very strong job market paper and a couple of other things in the works, than to come out in four with a mediocre paper or even a good paper but NO other work in progress. Schools that interview you will ask about your plans for future work, and you need to have something to tell them. Also, as an assistant professor, you need to publish to get tenure, and it helps to have things underway before you start. Being an assistant professor puts a LOT of extra demands on your time (teaching!) that you don't have as a graduate student. Why not get more work done before the tenure clock starts? There comes a point when taking too long sends a bad signal, and of course it sucks to get a grad student's salary rather than an assistant professor's. But I'm not sure that rushing to be done in five years is the strictly dominant strategy.

TradeOff · 02-15-2007, 03:31 PM

I completely agree with you guys that finishing Ph.D within four years is very likely to be a strong signal. However, I also heard from one of my recommender that even someone who could do that sometimes don't, because if he/she can write a better job market paper in an additional year, or the job market is too tight to be get good offers.

hockeytime · 02-15-2007, 03:41 PM

Don't forget that the job market starts up in the fall, and the big rush of interviews is usually in January, so you really have less than 1.5 years after you're done the coursework to prepare a job market paper (and have other projects in the works), if you want to finish in 4. I think Asquare is dead-on about it being better to come out with a strong job market paper in 5.

hereshoping · 02-15-2007, 06:09 PM

How does co-authoring papers with other faculty members factor into your attractiveness as a job market candidate? My impression is that your job market paper should be your individual work, but it is acceptable for you to do some collaborative work with faculty as well.

So it seems that in addition to the time you spend on your job market paper, you can allocate your research time in 2 ways: 1) you could work with a reputable faculty member in your department and attempt to get a paper published with them before you get on the job market, or 2) you could get other independent projects going so that they are 'in the works' when you are on the market. What are your guys' opinions of the tradeoffs between these 2?

Also, I've seen a lot of dissertations that are actually a collection of seperate papers (i.e. 3 essays on a related set of topics). Do people who do this write all these papers individually, or are some co-authored pieces with their advisors?

Antichron · 02-15-2007, 06:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hereshoping

How does co-authoring papers with other faculty members factor into your attractiveness as a job market candidate? My impression is that your job market paper should be your individual work, but it is acceptable for you to do some collaborative work with faculty as well.

So it seems that in addition to the time you spend on your job market paper, you can allocate your research time in 2 ways: 1) you could work with a reputable faculty member in your department and attempt to get a paper published with them before you get on the job market, or 2) you could get other independent projects going so that they are 'in the works' when you are on the market. What are your guys' opinions of the tradeoffs between these 2?

Also, I've seen a lot of dissertations that are actually a collection of seperate papers (i.e. 3 essays on a related set of topics). Do people who do this write all these papers individually, or are some co-authored pieces with their advisors?

It will definitely help in terms of your letters of recommendation. Your job market paper should be your own, though. (e.g. this year, Pierre Yared wrote several papers with Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson, but his job market paper was single authored.)

Most dissertations nowadays in economics are three papers that are loosely related. They need not be single authored.

Regarding your two options, if this is indeed the choice faced, I would probably write papers with a respected faculty member. Why not have some papers published and some papers "in the works" with them? (or without them?) Your attention does not need to be focused on one or two projects, though. As others have pointed out, it does not have to take an entire three years to write three papers, and it definitely does not have to take three years to get three ideas "in the works."

asquare · 02-15-2007, 06:31 PM

hereshoping, it's very common now for people to write three separate papers that together count as the dissertation. These can be co-authored or individually authored; one of the three chapters is the job market paper. Most people are the sole authors of all three chapters, but coauthoring is becoming more common among grad students.

You are correct in your impression that the general advice is that your job market paper should be your own. However, there are some exceptions to this. For example, Nakumura and Steinson have cowritten their job market papers and nearly everything else (but they are married and doing a joint job search, so this may make more sense for them!). There was a job candidate from Berkeley speaking at U-Mich last week who had co-written his job market paper with another PhD student.

The downside of coauthored job market papers is obviously that people will wonder what part of the work you really deserve credit for. This is especially true if you work with a faculty member on their area of expertise. When the job market paper is coauthored with your advisor, then your advisor will write about your specific contributions in the letters of recommendation.

Also, the trade off isn't as simple as "co-author and get published or work alone and have things in progress." Even for faculty members, it takes a long time to get things published. And while having publications is obviously a plus on the job market, you still need to have ideas and plans for future work.

apfphd · 02-15-2007, 06:55 PM

hi guys thanks so much for the insights. I have a question on the three essays.. you both said that they have to be loosely connected. does that mean that they at least have to be in the same broad area? if someone is interested in broadly in dev econ, and ends up writing on three essays development from three different perspectives: say, growth, trade and micro-dev or behavior then would that person be able to market himself as a dev econ guy? or would that be too all-over the place? i guess i havent seen anyone who does both trade/dev and micro-dev... but it's not inconcieveable is it?

02-15-2007, 12:10 PM	#1 (permalink)
apropos TestMagic Guru-in-Training Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 766	Economics Ph.D. in four years Is earning a Ph.D. in Economics in only four years either feasible or desirable these days? Let's say I might get into a decent Economics department, but not a top-10 school and that I haven't taken any graduate theory courses before. Discuss.

02-15-2007, 12:16 PM	#2 (permalink)
Antichron TestMagic Guru-in-Training Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Cambridge, MA Posts: 605	It's possible (for example, Princeton's PhD program is only four years long), but it won't be easy to do without prior graduate work. (Unless you are willing to work 25% harder than everyone else all four years.) I plan on finishing my PhD in four years, but I don't think I'd be able to do so if I didn't already spend two years getting a Master's. Is it desirable? It's sorta difficult to say. This year, MIT has one person who finished his PhD in four years, and he got a job offer from Stanford and flyouts from many other top departments. This is only one data point, and attributing his success to the fact that he finished in four years is likely to be pretty misleading. I imagine that if you can show that you are ambitious enough to finish your PhD in four years, it'll serve as a pretty strong signal and put you towards the top of your class, though. (At least I hope!) _ _ _ _ SIG _ _ _ _ MIT Economics, class of 2011

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02-15-2007, 03:08 PM	#3 (permalink)
daageep Within my grasp! Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 249	The first two years are full of coursework, and the last years of graduate school are for your dissertation. It seems very plausible to me that someone can finish a dissertation within two years assuming that they have a topic beginning of their third year. To the current grad students: what events keep current grad students from finishing the dissertation in two years? More elective classes? TA/RA experience? Procrastination?

02-15-2007, 03:30 PM	#4 (permalink)
asquare TestMagic Guru Moderator Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Ann Arbor Posts: 1,380	daageep, you are on the right track. TA responsibilities take time away from research, so unless you have outside funding or attend a school that makes minimal demands on its graduate students (Princeton is in this category) you will be slowed somewhat by your teaching. Also, not everyone is done with classes by the end of second year. Michigan's program is structured in a way that makes it virtually impossible to be done with classes that soon. In addition to the regular micro/macro/econometrics sequence, there are two other required courses: an advanced quantitative methods class and a cognate (in another, related department -- stats is common). Also, most students take an applied econometrics course in addition to the two semesters of econometrics core. Having a topic by the beginning of third year isn't trivial either. An even bigger problem for anyone wanting to do empirical work can be having data by the beginning of third year. No problem if you want to work with a big public data set like public use Census, but if you need restricted use data or specialized material, it can take a while to obtain. And even at schools that aim to get people out in four years, it is not at all uncommon for it to actually take five. A quick look around Princeton's job market candidate page showed that most people on the market have been there for five years, not four. If you come in with a masters and pass one or both of the qualifying exams at the start of your first year, that will speed things along. But I don't necessarily think that's the way to go. You'd spend two years getting a masters, which you are probably paying for, to avoid one year in a PhD, which you are not paying for. I think the single best thing to do to get yourself through the PhD quickly is to obtain funding that doesn't have strings/obligations attached, so that you can spend most of your time doing research. As for whether or not it is desirable, I think it's better to come out in five years with a very strong job market paper and a couple of other things in the works, than to come out in four with a mediocre paper or even a good paper but NO other work in progress. Schools that interview you will ask about your plans for future work, and you need to have something to tell them. Also, as an assistant professor, you need to publish to get tenure, and it helps to have things underway before you start. Being an assistant professor puts a LOT of extra demands on your time (teaching!) that you don't have as a graduate student. Why not get more work done before the tenure clock starts? There comes a point when taking too long sends a bad signal, and of course it sucks to get a grad student's salary rather than an assistant professor's. But I'm not sure that rushing to be done in five years is the strictly dominant strategy.

02-15-2007, 03:31 PM	#5 (permalink)
TradeOff Trying to make mom and pop proud Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 9	I completely agree with you guys that finishing Ph.D within four years is very likely to be a strong signal. However, I also heard from one of my recommender that even someone who could do that sometimes don't, because if he/she can write a better job market paper in an additional year, or the job market is too tight to be get good offers.

02-15-2007, 03:41 PM	#6 (permalink)
hockeytime Eager! Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 51	Don't forget that the job market starts up in the fall, and the big rush of interviews is usually in January, so you really have less than 1.5 years after you're done the coursework to prepare a job market paper (and have other projects in the works), if you want to finish in 4. I think Asquare is dead-on about it being better to come out with a strong job market paper in 5.

02-15-2007, 06:09 PM	#7 (permalink)
hereshoping Trying to make mom and pop proud Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 21	How does co-authoring papers with other faculty members factor into your attractiveness as a job market candidate? My impression is that your job market paper should be your individual work, but it is acceptable for you to do some collaborative work with faculty as well. So it seems that in addition to the time you spend on your job market paper, you can allocate your research time in 2 ways: 1) you could work with a reputable faculty member in your department and attempt to get a paper published with them before you get on the job market, or 2) you could get other independent projects going so that they are 'in the works' when you are on the market. What are your guys' opinions of the tradeoffs between these 2? Also, I've seen a lot of dissertations that are actually a collection of seperate papers (i.e. 3 essays on a related set of topics). Do people who do this write all these papers individually, or are some co-authored pieces with their advisors?

02-15-2007, 06:31 PM	#9 (permalink)
asquare TestMagic Guru Moderator Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Ann Arbor Posts: 1,380	hereshoping, it's very common now for people to write three separate papers that together count as the dissertation. These can be co-authored or individually authored; one of the three chapters is the job market paper. Most people are the sole authors of all three chapters, but coauthoring is becoming more common among grad students. You are correct in your impression that the general advice is that your job market paper should be your own. However, there are some exceptions to this. For example, Nakumura and Steinson have cowritten their job market papers and nearly everything else (but they are married and doing a joint job search, so this may make more sense for them!). There was a job candidate from Berkeley speaking at U-Mich last week who had co-written his job market paper with another PhD student. The downside of coauthored job market papers is obviously that people will wonder what part of the work you really deserve credit for. This is especially true if you work with a faculty member on their area of expertise. When the job market paper is coauthored with your advisor, then your advisor will write about your specific contributions in the letters of recommendation. Also, the trade off isn't as simple as "co-author and get published or work alone and have things in progress." Even for faculty members, it takes a long time to get things published. And while having publications is obviously a plus on the job market, you still need to have ideas and plans for future work.

02-15-2007, 06:55 PM	#10 (permalink)
apfphd Eager! Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 67	hi guys thanks so much for the insights. I have a question on the three essays.. you both said that they have to be loosely connected. does that mean that they at least have to be in the same broad area? if someone is interested in broadly in dev econ, and ends up writing on three essays development from three different perspectives: say, growth, trade and micro-dev or behavior then would that person be able to market himself as a dev econ guy? or would that be too all-over the place? i guess i havent seen anyone who does both trade/dev and micro-dev... but it's not inconcieveable is it?

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