nauru

Just wondering if anyone has any comments regarding the above post? I remember seeing it on a blog somewhere...

Really? Based solely on his pedigree from decades ago while knowing nothing of his productivity or reputation in his subfield, you feel comfortable 'strongly suggesting' he find someone else to write a letter instead?

Thanks for the replies, especially the American Society of Health Economists newsletter link.

Apologies if this has been asked beforeI often read on this forum people mentioning 'good job market paper' or 'bad job market paper' and the effect this has on placement. Can anyone concisely describe what separates the good from the average, the average from the mediocre, the mediocre from the bad? Or if anyone can link to a good explanation of this which might help me to educate myself on this, I'd appreciate it. I think it's obvious that a job market paper that happens to be forthcoming in AER is probably exceptional; but I'm more interested in the good, median, below average and bad, than the outliers on the far left/right of the distribution here. I realize that this may vary depending on subfield. But really is the purpose of the JMP to show off you math ability, or ability to do relevant high-impact research, or to show that you can figure out a new and useful methodology that nobody else published yet? Or something else, or all of the above? How would a thorough, highly original, and well-reasoned job market paper on an obscure/esoteric subject compare to a less original but moderately thought-provoking job market paper on a saturated research topic? Many thanks.

I'm just wondering how people would weigh these factors. One place I'm considering has ~50% of graduates ending up in post-doc positions. Since academia is my last choice after international organisations, private sector and government, a post-doc seems to be nearly the worst job market outcome for me IMO. However this place has a very well-regarded full professor in my field, who is an editor of the top field journal for my field, and has really good links to all the international organisations that I would be targeting in the job market. Yet, the school seems to place hardly any (just 1 or 2 in the last five years) people in these organisations. Institution ranking is top 50. The other place has more people ending up in the international organisations that i'm targeting. And the academic positions seem to be predominantly assistant professor positions rather than post-docs (still not my first choice, but at least better than post-docs). The most suitable supervisor available seems to be an associate professor with fewer connections to the organisations I'm interested in. Institution ranking is top 100. The post-docs tend to be at slightly higher-ranked places than the assistant professor positions, but some of the assistant professor positions from the top 100 school would be IMO very desirable. I guess another question I have is what to make of post-doc positions. Is this something people accept when they are not able to secure a permanent position given their current profile? (kind of like some people taking a masters degree and reapplying for phd programs after being unsuccessful or unhappy with results the first time around) Or do some people actually want post-doc positions? If so, why? Thanks.

I'm just curious about how many PhD economists are placed in medical schools / faculties of medicine. I'm aware that most people aren't doing health economics. But in all my reading of departmental placement records I don't recall any medical schools. I suppose many of the placements just say the general name of the institution and not the specific school/faculty/department/group... Anyone know? (or have an anecdote they'd like to share?)

Hard data would be great, but if this is not available wild guesses are welcome! What is your guess on the split within academia? Outside academia? Overall? Many non-economists in North America seem to have a perception that between ~98% and 100% of economists are doing macro. But as a micro guy, my perception is different. So I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on this.

Tinbergen unfunded for first year (must have an average of 7 to get funding 2nd year) vs Bologna fully funded. Tinbergen unfunded for first year (must have an average of 7 to get funding 2nd year) vs Bonn fully funded. Any other thoughts?

On letting relationships develop organically: One of the reasons I'm wary of leaving relationships entirely to chance is that in my experience as an undergraduate it's quite possible that organic relationships develop with people whose research interests are not what you want to be doing, and whose work naturally leads to a career in a subfield that is definitely not what you want to be doing. For example: I did undergrad at a place with a large PhD-granting econ department with a lot of profs -- most of whom never taught me a single course. I did take courses from some econometricians who are very personable and generous with their time, but that doesn't make me any more inclined to specialize in econometric theory. Even if we would become best friends, the last thing I would want is to spend the rest of my career doing econometric theory. That this university is well-known for econometrics did not change this fact. I also got along really well with a monetary economics prof. We would chat casually about research in many subfields as well as random unrelated stuff. But monetary is my second-least favourite subject in econ! He ended up being one of my thesis advisors, and I ended up doing my thesis on a topic that wasn't really what I wanted to be doing. I did well nonetheless, and in the end it was no big deal because it's undergrad and my career is not in any way tied to that thesis. But I'm just not sure I can afford to have a similar thing happen at PhD level. The topic of the job market paper matters. So I'm naturally inclined to be proactive in making sure my research and relationships go in directions which are clearly in line with my interests and goals, and what I want to be doing for much of my working life. Yeah it's great if an ideal person for you happens to be teaching one of your classes and you get along well so they become your advisor naturally. We'd all love that. But if there is only one field course for a given subfield, then you will likely only have one course with a professor from that subfield. Even if there are 5 profs who work in that subfield, only one of them will be teaching you, right? If the one teaching you is doing a corner of that subfield which is really not the direction you want to go, and one of the other 4 profs is doing something really close to what you want to commit to, don't you owe it to yourself to ensure that relationship has every opportunity to develop, regardless of the fact that he doesn't happen to be teaching the field course the year you are taking it? On people "gravitating to the areas the school is strongest in": Really...? I thought it more likely that students will gravitate to the areas in which they have a genuine interest, areas to which they believe they have an ability and a desire to contribute meaningfully for decades to come. Adequate supervision is needed as well, but is it really necessary to be working in the department's strongest field in order to get adequate supervision? I doubt that, especially if you are in a large department. The only situation where I would imagine students just "drifting" and ending up doing whatever their department is strongest in, would be if after all the reading required in two years of coursework they still didn't find any topic in all of economics that genuinely interests them more than other topics. Not sure how common this is. Intuitively it seems unlikely since even undergraduates have preferences in my experience. But again I haven't been through a PhD cohort so I'm speculating here.

And if 1-5 are filled, but 6 is not, what then? It's been suggested that this is rare but from a small sample I've already found what I think are examples of this situation (PhD from waaaay outside the top 25, also outside top 50; with placement/tenure at top 25 or top 50 and great publication record), and which are relevant to my interests. I don't think the economics PhD admission process screens for most of the things in 1-5. Only weakly #3 and early signals for quality publication productivity in #4.

So from reading around I've come across some general themes which people seem to agree on, on the topic of choosing a PhD supervisor. Obviously it's a good idea to choose someone whose research interests are closely related to your own, so that their knowledge, experience and connections are relevant to your interests, research and job market aspirations. This seems to be the primary consideration. But other than this obvious one, what else? Some things I have heard which sound reasonable (but I have no idea if they are actually true so just putting them out there): 1. It's much better to have a supervisor who is productive and active in the research community, than someone who was once productive but no longer is. 2. personality matters; you need to be able to get along with your supervisor; if they have an extremely difficult personality this could work very badly against you. 3. The more well-connected your supervisor is, the more they will [probably] be able to help you on the job market (but how does a fresh-faced PhD student compare the "connectedness" of potential supervisors?) 4. Higher-ranking supervisors (full professors) who are currently active with a long list of publications in reputable journals are strongly preferable to less experienced professors (assistant professors, associate professors) who show promise but have a much shorter publication record, all else being equal (research interest relevance, personality). 5. It's better to choose someone who is willing to invest time in helping you become an excellent economist, than someone who is too busy with their own stuff to invest much time in you. (how can you know this before finding out the hard way? Rumours around the department? Asking other faculty to talk behind a colleague's back??) 6. It's better to choose someone who completed their PhD at a top place than at someplace outside the top 50 or outside the top 100 (Does this really matter at all for choosing a PhD supervisor? And in particular, does it really matter for someone who finished their PhD 10, 15, 20 or more years ago and has a substantial publication record?). So can anyone please comment on how true or how false the above statements are, and how you would order them in terms of priority? Another thing I am wondering is what is the most effective way to compare people's publication records. Is the ranking of economists on ideas.repec.org the preferred tool to compare people's productivity, or is there a better way? If some experienced person has already put out a how-to guide on this topic I would be grateful for a link! Thanks.

Thanks for the response. I have already checked the faculty and already was 95% sure which one I will choose before making this thread. But I don't want to bias the responses by stating which one in the original post. I'm also curious to see if someone brings up a point to consider which I hadn't thought of.

Who is crying and moaning? Anyway thanks all for your thoughts and responses.

I have heard this as well, although I've never taken the GMAT so I don't know. RonSwanson, whether the GMAT is primarily used by business programs is irrelevant IMO; it should be judged on its utility vs alternatives for economics phd admissions, not on its name or who else uses it.

By 'prefer' I actually mean 'demand while rejecting all alternatives'. Is the content of one more relevant to economics phd than the other? If econ phd programs are so interested in ascertaining the math ability of applicants then why not just ask for the math subject test? The content looks more relevant to economics phd math than both the GRE general and the GMAT. GRE Subject Tests: Mathematics. Also, there probably would be less of a problem of each department having hundreds of econ phd applicants clustered above the 90th percentile since there wouldn't be hordes of education/english/history majors skewing the score distribution.