Palikari

Congrats on having a wonderful dilemma-- you'll have great people to work with at both places. For macro finance, Stanford dominates with Piazzesi, Schneider and Taylor. The Stanford Macro faculty are supportive and very nice to their students (especially Piazzesi is a very nice person,) and Stanford recently has had better placements than Princeton. Palo Alto is also a very nice place to live, and the department has a friendly atmosphere. However, you can't really go wrong as both places are excellent.

What do you mean by changes? Chris Udry from Yale has an offer so he may come to Stanford. The list excludes private sector placements and does not include GSB students (although people from the GSB can advise econ students and vice versa.) Two people went to McKinsey, which is good for people that want to do that sort of thing. One person could not find an acceptable job. Fewer students went on the market this year since it was a tough year and they though they could do better next year, which is why the list may seem small.

"It’s been painfully obvious since the crisis broke that people at Minnesota, or even many people at Chicago, have no idea what New Keynesian economics is all about. I don’t mean they disagree, or think it’s garbage, they literally have no idea what the concepts are." This Krugman statement is categorically false. Take the following paper from star MN macro-economists-- New Keynesian Models: Not Yet Useful for Policy Analysis "New Keynesian Models: Not Yet Useful for Policy Analysis"

If you want to do theory a lot depends on your math background. You should be STELLAR at math, not just good, if you want to do theory. Booth people can get Chicago econ people on their committee, although it may be harder to convince them. Evanston is a nicer place to live than Hyde Park, but you have funding at Booth. Both are great options, this is a good problem to be having. You'll do fine at either place, you have the world in front of you and it will mainly matter how good a thesis you can write.

I wouldn't say that micro is stronger at Northwestern. Micro theory, yes, but Applied micro is stronger at Booth.

Ah OK, makes sense I was assuming that there were only 2 tries. That seems much better.

The placement list is missing Harvard (http://www.chicagobooth.edu/phd/phdgradsjobs.pdf) and Cornell (this year.) UBC and Washington are pretty good, I think so are the median placements. According to this (http://lsa.umich.edu/UMICH/econ/Home/Grad%20Study/PhD/Incoming%20&%20Current%20Students/survival07.pdf) Michigan has fairly high attrition rates by my standards, or at least they did. Maybe things have changed, you would know better than me.

Those are econ placements, the finance program is separate and has even better placements. The median was definitely not Iowa, that is easily in the lower quintile. Here's a rough list of top placements, the median placement is about top 20 Harvard, Booth, Northwestern (x2), Penn, Minnesota, Michigan, Stanford, Cornell, UBC. Michigan also has high attrition rates, right? Booth has very low attrition rates. I don't see why someone would want to be in an econ dept rather than a bschool. Basically the same job, just more money at the bschool. I agree that Michigan is great in public finance, but the OP might change what he wants to do. I think if he goes to Booth he is way more likely to have access to better faculty, will have more security, get a better placements, and make more money than if he goes to Michigan. Ann Arbor is a really nice place to live though, and the dept is still quite good. These are both good options but I think that Booth clearly dominates.

I think that Booth clearly dominates in placements. Michigan is a good place but at Booth in the past years you have students who have gone to Harvard, Penn, Stanford, Northwestern, Minnesota, Michigan, Cornell, and UBC. Keep in mind that the Michigan placements are only the top guys in classes of around 20. Booth accepts only about 2 students each year in the Econ program. Of those that go the academic route, about 50% get academic placements in the top 20. The guys who go into the private sector make megabucks with firms like GS, Barclays, KPMG, etc. To me the decision is a no brainer in favor of Booth, I view Booth as a top 10 maybe top 5 program. Booth is a very elite program which places the median student very well.

If you want to do applied work, this is one of the strongest departments in the world, probably the strongest. The Booth faculty is much more supportive than the regular Chicago faculty, and they are also much younger which is good for grad students. The dept is not as strong in theory as some other top programs. The student to faculty ratio is tremendously in your favor. It is also possible to get a lot of funding via Booth. There is not really a big wall between Booth Econ, finance, Chicago econ etc., you can work with anyone that is willing to work with you. I had really great impressions of the department. The program is very small, which is both a strength and a weakness. You can get a lot of faculty attention, but you won't have the peer group that you will find at a lot of other top programs. Due to the small size, there is also less structure so you have to take the initiative and seek out faculty with whom you want to work. Nobody will hold your hand, so it really depends on your personality type whether or not Booth or any small program in general is a good match for you. The placements are mixed, you have some really top placements but also a lot of private sector placements. I definitely think that the Booth program compares favorably with many other top 10 econ programs, although the structure is different so it may not be the best match for everyone.

Some faculty DEFINITELY read or at least skimmed my thesis and I think it played a part in my admissions. I got into two top 5 schools and at both places faculty members asked me about the paper.

There's a good paper by Prescott on the effects of marginal tax rates on hours worked. I believe it's called "Why do Americans work more than Europeans?" I don't think I have enough posts to post a link. Glaeser wrote a response claiming that the effects were mainly due to unions rather than marginal tax rates.

Keep an open mind, go to the flyouts, and see which department is a better fit for you. Personally I think I would choose Chicago over Berkeley, but that's just me. They are both great departments, but they both have very different styles so hopefully it should be easy to figure out which is a better fit after your visit. Something to consider is where you think you will stand in the class. If you are confident that you will be in the top third, and are willing to work hard enough to do it, go to Chicago. You will have access to the best faculty in the world, and more importantly you will have their support. However, Chicago is known for not supporting all students equally, and the bottom half of the class really has to struggle to get faculty attention and may even be kicked out. Berkeley is a low stress environment. They don't even have prelims! If you think you will have motivation problems, it is probably not a good environment in terms of productivity. At this level, neither program is strictly better and all doors are potentially open, it is all about which is the better fit for you on a personal level.

Maybe he likes living in a smaller town. Palo Alto, Berkeley and New Haven aren't really cities.