Letters of Recommendation from Non-Economists?

[Bayern]

Replying to the original post... I think you should apply with the best resources you have. If 2 pol science professor can write you great letters for you, then you should try with those letters. Ideally, they want econ and math profs, but I am sure all the applicants do not have the same kind of profile. The problem is most of the people here are student themselves, many at undergrad levels... it is difficult for us to guess how much those letters will be discounted, and only the adcoms can you tell about it... we can just make assumptions from the current profiles and what some prof told us about this. It will be best, if you could contact a member of an adcoms at a good university with the help of your current economics professor.

[eqtisadi]

But what if I have two good LORs from Econ professors and I can have the third one from either a good Law professor (who is into Law and Economics among other interests) who knows me pretty well and thinks highly of me, OR another econ professor I will find in the department that is less enthusiastic about giving me a letter of reference?
Isn't there a diminishing marginal utility for LORs from the same department? Now, I'm not looking for comforting answers like "you'll be fine if you will get the 3rd letter of reference from a Law professor", because I have the other option. I just need to know which one will give a greater boost to my chances.
Oh, and although Law and Economics is interesting, I have many other interests, so I'm not planning on it as a concentration right now.

What do you think?

[savingtheplanet]

Letters not from economists are not worth very much. Seriously. I had a letter from a star political scientist that was GLOWING (i.e. best student i have had in xx years) -- but an admissions committee chair indicated that this didn't help me at all. A relativly impersonal letter from an intermediate micro professor carried more weight.

(Attending Michigan)

[Bayern]

eqtisadi... this post might help you, I posted it earlier in this post...
http://www.urch.com/forums/phd-econo...sequences.html

I am kind of in the same situation as you are...

[loudandclear]

Just to clarify, both of the letters come from quantitative researchers in poli sci, and one of them is a methodologist, so my research with him has been in developing new estimators, monte carlo studies, and programming. Further, one of the two took the econometric and micro series as part of his graduate training at Rochester, so he says that he could speak about my abilities to succeed in an econ program. My primary question is to what degree this will be discounted.

[Palimpsest]

Originally Posted by loudandclear

Just to clarify, both of the letters come from quantitative researchers in poli sci, and one of them is a methodologist, so my research with him has been in developing new estimators, monte carlo studies, and programming. Further, one of the two took the econometric and micro series as part of his graduate training at Rochester, so he says that he could speak about my abilities to succeed in an econ program. My primary question is to what degree this will be discounted.

I can't really speak to how much it would be discounted, but I would guess that a Rochester PhD would have a lot of sway as PS Profs go, as the program is pretty well-known for its application of of rigorous quantitative methods to PS.

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Common Tragedies--an environmental economics blog

[Journal of Finance]

Math really counts little in your sucess of reseach. People who focus on math will generate a feeling of self-fulfilment and repeat this so-called "sucessful remind" themselves especially when they become a loser in economic research. I got the top1 among 200,000 people in math exam during entrance exam in China. But, I don't think I am smart at all by giving a perfect score in a standard test. Standard test like math is more easier than research with open questions. Of course, lower-tier econ schools will put a high weight on math training simply because they have no greater eonomists.

I am not saying math is not important, but ususally this "apparently sucess" will let a Ph.D student lose in a bigger picture.

[kimbanator]

I'm not sure this has been discussed: If one of your fields of interest is Economic History, would a letter from a professor from the history department hold weight? He's renowned for quantitative methods in historical research and has done extensive work in American economic history. But, economic history ranks third or fourth in my fields of interest. If I got a letter from this professor, would adcoms immediately peg me as a historian, or would they see my history background (I'm a double major in it) as an additional strength? My primary interests are applied micro, international, and empirical I/O, so I don't want to be pegged as unable to handle the quantitative fields.

[Gecko]

well I don't think you will be stereotyped

[walt526]

Originally Posted by kimbanator

I'm not sure this has been discussed: If one of your fields of interest is Economic History, would a letter from a professor from the history department hold weight? He's renowned for quantitative methods in historical research and has done extensive work in American economic history. But, economic history ranks third or fourth in my fields of interest. If I got a letter from this professor, would adcoms immediately peg me as a historian, or would they see my history background (I'm a double major in it) as an additional strength? My primary interests are applied micro, international, and empirical I/O, so I don't want to be pegged as unable to handle the quantitative fields.

In general, I think that Economic Historians regard how they approach historical analysis as something quite different from how most "pure Historians" approach history. I've taken quite a few economic history classes (undergrad American from a past president of EHA, undergrad World from a best-selling author, and MA-level American from a Stanford grad) and in every class the professor makes jokes at a historian's expense and the assigned readings have almost exclusively been written by economists.

Obviously there are exceptions and your professor might be regarded as exceptional. But also consider that economic history is fairly marginalized within Economics. In all likelihood, the faculty on the adcom reading the letter of reference will not be economic historians, in which case even a well-established history professor who specializes in American economic history is likely unknown to them. As such, they're likely to just regard even a very positive letter of reference as "just another letter of reference from a Humanities instructor" and not give it the weight that it deserves.