uhokay

Personally, I liked this advice document by a UC Davis guy: http://www.econphd.net/downloads/mp_surv.pdf

How easy is it to change your subdiscipline after one graduates from a PhD program? Let's say you did you dissertation in macro and later on find out that you want to do applied micro. Can one do this? Can people change their subdisciplines through post-doc work?

I believe John Malthus thought that human population would grow until resources were exhausted thus leaving each and every person to live at the level of subsistence and nothing more. No luxury, no fun, no ipods, etc. just enough to breath, live, and reproduce. Carlyle referred to this as dismal.

huh? what do you mean?

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Look for places that have professors in trade, development, and international affairs, and I think you'll get the closest to what you're looking for. Things such as corruption, transparency, the rule of law, the human development index, pricing for water and sanitation, health, education, etc. all fall into "human rights", but "human rights" is not an explicit subdiscipline in economics. The problem with development is that it's so vast and virtually anything can be called a human right these days. You can also model virtually anything using economics ;-). Are you interested in any particular sector of human rights/development?

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How much does it matter which field of economics one specializes in? Which specializations are generally most in demand in the private sector? Government? NGOs? Is it more a factor of skills than specialization? If so, which skills matter most?

nice =D

It depends where you will be going to grad school. If you are moving to a relatively stable housing market and can afford the $$$ and work at maintaining it, then it might be a smart thing to do. However, if you are moving to Detroit.... I would be less inclined to do this in a college town than I would in a large growing city.

If you are set on a job in the private sector, I would say pick the school whose name sounds the best overall. If you are set on a job working with economists, the rankings of the programs might be what you should look for. Also, don't underestimate the power of networking and building your rolodex with people in the private sector.... Getting an education doesn't mean you'll automatically get a private-sector job.

Or rationally hopeful...

any particular reason singmeat?

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UCSB is the other main contender. Syracuse maybe, if they ever send out decisions.