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Yes, it is a huge jump, both are two totally different techniques. You will have to learn a lot of new stuff.

The last deadline I have heard was late September... one month from now... I would guess a lot of people should know the outcomes by now or, at least, have some information. Do you?

Hummmm, I would say this is pretty much about your risk aversion. Here in the US, the profs seem to enjoy focusing their whole exams in only one subject out of all the material that was taught during the course. For instance, if you went through a lot of models during the course, the exam will ask you to derive only one of them, on its totallity. So, as knowing 100% of the material 70%, is will guarantee you 70/100, knowing 70% of the material 100% will give you 100/100 wp 0.7 and 0/100 wp 0.3. So one should check if his/her certainty equivalent on the lottery above is higher/lower 70/100. That is, IMHO this is a really personal issue.

Marcelo Moreira (econometrician, from Harvard) has also accepted Columbia's offer.

at least regarding the skit night videos, berkeley is waaaaaaaaaaay better than columbia.

Guys, I think the stipend should be the last decision factor, ie, only if all others are the same, then you compare stipend (obviously given that we are talking about reasonable stipends). A couple of thousand dollars more per year will make totally no difference in your life during the program, trust me.

this gives me the idea (not feasible, I am afraid...) of testing whether there is wage difference between women with ambiguous names and women with clear female names... if there is (ceteris paribus), then it would be a good indication of discrimination...

I was just wondering if the guys who attended Columbia's visiting day have heard something interesting, or have some impressions to share. Thanks!!!!

Any news? Was it delayed again? The last releasing date I had heard was March, but I would not bet on that at all. :hmm:

Maybe, if someone really believes that completeness, transitivity, intertemporal utility maximization, perfect competition, etc, hold in the real world in all situations, this person is a religious indeed. However I think that few people are that naive, and the big majority of the economists know that such assumptions are merely theoretical tools. For those, economics is no religious at all, but a social science as any other.

What matters in the link above is her last paragraph: "While celebrating these accomplishments, we continue the quieter and continuous work of building the department by working to recruit and retain the best faculty and graduate students. At the tenured level, we were able to attract Serena Ng, a noted econometrician, and Massimo Morelli, who studies political economy (his appointment is joint with the Political Science Department). At the junior level, we were pleased to hire Jon Steinsson and Emi Nakamura (joint with the Business School), to strengthen our offerings in macroeconomics, which remains one of our most popular fields. These new colleagues are important hires. But we cannot rest on our laurels. We remain smaller than Economics departments in comparable schools, and very small relative to the huge demand for the teaching of Economics. Hence, building the department will continue to be a main focus of our activities in coming years" It seems to me a pretty strong signal of commitment.

Yes, Guest Who, I do know. Yeah, maybe it is indeed too much noise about Columbia's econ department. On the other hand, it seems that they do want to give signals that their improvement (professors hiring movement) is a strong trend. Take a look at Janet Currie's (the department chair) section in their fall newsletter: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/economics/about/docs/newsletter/Fall_07_Newsletter.pdf

domino effect!

Dear collegues, I constantly hear that Columbia's Econ department has been improving a lot for the last years. In fact, Gene Grossman, from Princeton said: “They can fight with Berkeley and Yale for six, seven, and eight.” - take a look on the third page of this link: The Freakonomics of Columbia University's Economics Department What do you think about that? Do you have some more concrete information? Correct me if I am wrong, but I think if Columbia's movement is indeed real, maybe it one of the best departments to be nowdays (not considering the top 5, of course).