Tex Jansen

Consider Levitt style reduced form microeconometrics. The skill in that is finding clever instruments and, by his own admission, being great in macro or micro theory is not necessary.

I wouldn't agree with that statement. But I would guess that at least 50% of microeconomists would.

There are a lot of micro people who would agree that you can be an excellent microeconomist while not being any good at macro. So if you make it clear that you want to do some type of micro, then the fact that you failed macro may not be a big strike against you. Especially if you are applying to a school that doesn't require a macro prelim. I doubt Arizona or Cal Tech, for example, would really care that you failed macro. I don't think as many macro people would agree that you can be really good at macro without being able to grasp micro at the level of MWG. So failing a micro prelim will be a bigger concern even if you indicate that you are interested in macro.

I suspect that your professor views anything except a solid R1 department to be Siberia. If you share these preferences, then he is largely correct. But if you like the idea of a department where teaching matters (LAC, regional university, etc.), then he is off the mark. For these places, the job market is fine. Anyone who is halfway decent can get such a placement even if they are from school #110.

Making a lateral move will be nearly impossible. But you almost surely can get into another program, the question is how far the list you have to go and whether you still want to do it. At my current place, we have some students who failed out of better schools. There is no stigma, we know we are not elite and that there is a set of students who do well here but couldn't make it at better places. My best advice would be to get someone at your old grad program to write you a letter. Ideally, they will say that you were somewhat close, but it is useful even if they only say that you were not completely out of your depth. Another approach that works is to express interest in the field which you passed. This works better for people who failed micro (micro people believe that failing macro may be uninformative but this doesn't work as ell in the other direction). But if you can reasonably express interest in macro, then this may help.

Getting a tenure track job at an R1 is brutal. But it still isn't too hard to get a TT job at a four year school. A tenure track job at a place without a Ph.D. program is a very common placement at most schools, whether high ranked or low ranked.

An MA can be a great way to overcome a mediocre undergrad record, but that isn't applicable to this applicant. He has a good record, he wants the Ph.D., he should go get it. Any benefit is far outset by the costs, a year or two in your twenties is a big thing.

Nobody here has a good idea of where exactly you can get in. To even make a good guess would require that we know the quality of your letters. If they are strong then any place on your list is realistic. If they are 3 form letters then you probably will end up at a a safety. I disagree, pretty strongly, that you should invest time on the GRE. The 760 may hurt a little bit a a place like BU or UDub, but your score is fine. I think your time is better spent trying to come up with a good list of places to apply. When you are not thinking top 25 this is especially important. The cost of screwing up and going to MIT when Harvard would have been a better fit is low, you will be fine either way. But there is a lot of hidden heterogeneity with lower ranked places. I can think of two mid ranked schools ranked next to each other by the NRC. One grad program is wonderful, the other should be shut down. To be blunt, I am not sure that you know what you are doing yet in this regard. Do you have firm research interests? If so, look for mid ranked places with senior people who have a good placement record in that area. At lower ranked places, the advisor, not the school, matter. Do you know if you want an academic placement? If so, some lower ranked schools place almost all of their grads at 4 year schools (obviously not Ivies) while others struggle. Do you want to do heterodox stuff. If not, then cross American and UMass off of your list.

Finance is just a well paid subfield of economics. So if you end up working in finance, then you are working in economics.

I don't get the OP's concern with his math record. It looks like he has plenty, at a good place, with good grades. Most of these places won't be bothered by a lack of analysis. I also cannot see how paying for an MA makes any sense.

Spiderpig, I don't think you have a problem here. It is good to have a writer who had you in a Ph.D. level class, the comparison to Ph.D. students is apples to apples. Wait until after an exam and then ask. That should give him or her plenty of time while also providing a basis for comparison. Two letters from profs that you are working with plus one from a grad class is excellent (as long as they are strong of course).

If you are currently enrolled in the prof's class, it is a good idea to talk to them about the Ph.D. early in the term. This will allow them to pay a little more attention to your work (i.e. not just have a TA grade it) which can result in a better letter.

You seem competitive but, given your user name and research interests, it seems odd that you are including two heterodox programs (UMass and American) on your list.

It isn't clear to me that there is great methodological disagreement within macroeconomics. Everyone is using DSGE models and solving them with the same set of techniques. A standard RBC model is nested in a New Keynesian model with capital and a neoclassical growth model is a special case of an endogenous growth model. There surely is massive methodological disagreement between macroeconomics and Austrians (models and math vs. stories). But the same could be said of micro and heterodox schools.

Of course it depends. My comment applied to the majority of private sector jobs.

The skills that you learn as as part of a Ph.D. program will generally be overkill for private sector work. In the private sector, econometrics is usually very simple, often times simple OLS. Fancy econometrics is largely limited to academia. And there isn't much of a private sector for theorists.

For most extracurriculars, it isn't even worth worrying about whether or not to put it on your cv. For something ideological, I would keep it out unless it is something like Students for Liberty at GMU or College Democrats at UMass.

Here is my theory on why the Math GRE is not used: Every serious applicant has training in the material covered on the quantitative section of the GRE. Variation on this section is thus a useful signal of ability. But not every applicant has training on the material on the Math GRE. The resulting variation is thus likely to pick up differences in coursework which are already apparent from transcripts. The test is thus redundant.

For every paper that I have written, I could complete it in the same time (+- 10%) using R, Matlab, Mathematica, SAS, or Gauss. I have preferences (R for me) but I don't get why people get snobbish about a certain type of software.

It certainly isn't useless as far as employment goes. There are ample opportunities for Ph.D.s in the private sector, a fact that benefits the entire supply side and makes it much easier to get an academic job for most Ph.D.s. I think that comment goes to the following: in most cases it does not make make sense to do an econ Ph.D. with the intent of going to the private sector. Getting an MBA instead offers a much better return on your investment. And it isn't like many people are passionate about going into consulting so they can write expert reports that nobody ever reads. The Ph.D. is really suited for people who either want to do research or want the academic lifestyle and are content to accept less money in exchange. A lot of people who go into the private sector do so because they could not find a suitable academic placement. Others realize that they don't want to teach.

In most cases this sort of thing will not have a noticeable effect on your chances. Students for Liberty might, however. I imagine it could be a helpful signal if you are applying to a school with a strong free market element like GMU. But it could also go the other way if an adcom is made up of people who can't stand that stuff.

If the paper really is good enough to land in a good field journal, then you should take your time with it and send it there rather than rushing it out to a lesser journal. The eventual benefit to your placement/tenure chances outweighs any benefit to your admissions chances. Keep in mind, that when people tell you it belongs in a tier I field journal, it probably actually belongs in a tier II journal. Especially being an unknown.

If you really want to teach economics at the college level, you should probably go for the Ph.D. The places that hire MAs are generally going to be lesser schools that don't pay well. Even bad 4 year schools want Ph.D.s. Perhaps this is inefficient, but that is the reality of the current market. Don't go for the Ph.D. if you don't want to do any research, you probably will never finish. Remember that there are better paying career paths, part of the appeal of a Ph.D. is the academic lifestyle. And don't get a Ph.D. if you want to save the world.

All else equal, go with the letter from the more famous person, as long as they are in a quantitative field. As for fields within economics, don't factor that in. I don't think that adcoms take students' stated field preferences very seriously. I can't imagine a letter being discounted because it is from a micro-theorist while the student wants to do applied macro.

Regarding the anecdote regarding Randy Wright, that happens at a lot of conferences with that group. They see the New Keynesian setup as inadequately micro founded and thus couldn't care less about a paper that relies on it. On the original point, recent events have improved the reputation of Keynesian economics (in which I include the New Keynesian framework). This school has a clear explanation for recent events which enjoys some empirical support, an adverse demand shock was boosted by a tightening of credit in imperfect credit markets. Compare that with the Classical setup which needs an adverse productivity shock to explain the recession. Prescott has resorted to blaming the downturn on the expected tax increases under Obama. I find this logic strained to say the least. As for the Austrians, very few academic economists pay them any attention. Their skepticism toward models and econometrics leaves them well outside the mainstream. It is true, that some pundits and politicians are proclaiming the death of Keynesian economics. But few of them are qualified to make such judgments.