Paris School of Economics (PSE) - APE vs. ETE

[Jim Mora]

Originally Posted by bscout

Therefore, I suppose the Greeks are still strong in Philosophy. After all, they had Parmenides, Socrates, etc. :P

@Jim Mora: just out of curiosity, how would you compare Paris 1 with PSE?

Actually Paris School of Economics was founded by several institutions, among which University Paris 1. Thus your question does not make much sense (no offense, I myself took some time before I understood how it worked).
Basically the best undergrad students in Paris 1 do the master ETE.
So it is better for a student to do the master ETE that to be a "mere" Paris 1 student.
Some Paris 1 researchers are also registered as PSE researchers. The affiliation of researchers is often "PSE and X", where X can be Paris 1, ENS, Ecole Polytechnique, EHESS...
What I forgot to say in my first post is that the two master programs (ETE and APE) are not totally independant from each other. For instance, if you are a student at APE and you want to do a class in microeconometrics, you can attend JM Robin's lectures at ETE and do the same exam. If you are a ETE student you can attend Jehiel's lectures on bounded rationality at APE.
One more thing: choosing APE over ETE (or the reverse) will not prevent you from choosing a PhD advisor in the other institution. There may be some sort of rivalry between the two master programs but I think that they are mostly complements.

[LouisBD]

Originally Posted by bscout

Therefore, I suppose the Greeks are still strong in Philosophy. After all, they had Parmenides, Socrates, etc. :P

@Jim Mora: just out of curiosity, how would you compare Paris 1 with PSE?

As you have noticed I was trying to give a sketch of the level of the French elite. I mentioned Bachelier and Lagrange because they are known by everyone who reads this. I could have metioned contemporary people but the argument would be more obscure.

Due to the specific nature of the French schooling system, French elite schools or universities do not appear high in rankings (I will not go into the bias towards American universities in these rankings).

I assume that people here are interested in the best education there is because they want to be challenged intellectually and get the most out of their capabillities. Then, rankings per se do not matter (only in so far as they are a signal) but what you are interested in is the best place to study.

I just wanted to point out that for this objective there are some great places in France.

Let me give you here a really impressive list (alumni of one renown institution) which can only be matched in the USA by the very best universities.
List of École Normale Supérieure people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Concerning philosophy, the majority of interesting contemporary philosphers (personal opinion) is French.

[Diplomer]

Originally Posted by LouisBD

As you have noticed I was trying to give a sketch of the level of the French elite. I mentioned Bachelier and Lagrange because they are known by everyone who reads this. I could have metioned contemporary people but the argument would be more obscure.

Can you name any contemporary french economist who is well known? Even in your list there is only one economist (Gerard Debreu, who left France and lived already 21 years in the United States before he got the Nobel Price).

Concerning philosophy, the majority of interesting contemporary philosphers (personal opinion) is French.

I think only Pierre Bordieu is interesting. Most other interesting contemporary philosophers are German (personal opinion).

Kind regards
Diplomer

[bscout]

Originally Posted by Jim Mora

Actually Paris School of Economics was founded by several institutions, among which University Paris 1. Thus your question does not make much sense (no offense, I myself took some time before I understood how it worked).
Basically the best undergrad students in Paris 1 do the master ETE.
So it is better for a student to do the master ETE that to be a "mere" Paris 1 student.
Some Paris 1 researchers are also registered as PSE researchers. The affiliation of researchers is often "PSE and X", where X can be Paris 1, ENS, Ecole Polytechnique, EHESS...
What I forgot to say in my first post is that the two master programs (ETE and APE) are not totally independant from each other. For instance, if you are a student at APE and you want to do a class in microeconometrics, you can attend JM Robin's lectures at ETE and do the same exam. If you are a ETE student you can attend Jehiel's lectures on bounded rationality at APE.
One more thing: choosing APE over ETE (or the reverse) will not prevent you from choosing a PhD advisor in the other institution. There may be some sort of rivalry between the two master programs but I think that they are mostly complements.

Thank you. I did not have any idea of how they were related.

[LouisBD]

Originally Posted by Diplomer

Can you name any contemporary french economist who is well known? Even in your list there is only one economist (Gerard Debreu, who left France and lived already 21 years in the United States before he got the Nobel Price).



I think only Pierre Bordieu is interesting. Most other interesting contemporary philosophers are German (personal opinion).

Kind regards
Diplomer

A bit off topic and I am sorry therefor;
the list was just of one School and indeed not that known for producing economists who received big prizes. I guess I am not that good at making a point or people are unwilling to see the point because I just wanted to point out that Paris does have a great intellectual scene. As for the philosophers, are you kidding? I can understand that -perhaps due to your education- you like some Germans better but stating that there are hardly any well known french philosophers is a bridge too far.
About wellknown french economists you should really do your homework befor stating such a thing. Perhaps you can take a look at Category:French economists - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I will not engage myself further in this discussion, because is does not seem to lead anywhere. I try to make only serious posts and I have not the habit of telling things where I do not know anything about.

[representative_agent]

Originally Posted by Diplomer

Can you name any contemporary french economist who is well known?

O Diplomer, sic tacuisses!

Jean-Jacques Laffont, Jean Tirole, Philippe Aghion, Olivier Blanchard, Roland Bénabou, Patrick Rey, Patrick Bolton, Esther Duflo, ...


I guess that's hard to beat for us Germans

[Diplomer]

Originally Posted by LouisBD

I will not engage myself further in this discussion, because is does not seem to lead anywhere. I try to make only serious posts and I have not the habit of telling things where I do not know anything about.

I did not mean to offense you. And I cannot see how I could have done this. However, the point somewhere in this discussion was that french universities are not the best. The same applies to the German ones. I was just curious about whether the famous french economists have been studying at France or whether they left France and became famous after this move. The same applied to German economists for long time now. As soon as they were good enough to be accepted by foreign universities, they left.

Famous economists can choose among many universities as their employer, hence it seems reasonable to investigate how many famous French economists actually live in France. If this amount is small, something has to be wrong with the french universities. Hence it follows that the point about french universities might be true, if the amount is small.

However, you are right that this is offtopic. You could regard this as applied economics of migration...

Kind regards
Diplomer

ps: regarding the philosophers: I do not mean people like Rousseau. I mean people that live and publish now. From this subset of french philosophers, I think Bordieu is the only one that is really famous.

[Diplomer]

Jean-Jacques Laffont: Harvard
Jean Tirole: MIT
Philippe Aghion: Harvard
Olivier Blanchard: MIT
Roland Bénabou: MIT
Patrick Rey: Toulouse
Patrick Bolton: LSE
Esther Duflo: MIT

Only one of these did their PhD in France. So it seems as if French universities are pretty much like the German ones: as soon as a student is good enough to leave the "home system", they do so. Or why did they not stay in France? Why did they choose to make their PhD abroad?

Perhaps that might be a good proxy variable in some regression...

Kind regards
Diplomer

[Zarti]

Do you guys know by any chance what is the placement of APE?
How many students carry on with the PhD at APE? How many leave for the US or the UK?

[Jim Mora]

Unfortunately there aren't any official placement records (as far as I know) but you can have an idea on what their record is by checking on their web site:
Formation Analyse et politique Economiques (APE)
Then you copy-paste the names and google them :-(
I did that for a couple of names and it seems that they have a decent record (LBS, LSE for instance). But I'll ask them if they have an official record
As for the number of students currently on PhD:
Formation Analyse et politique Economiques (APE)