greeneggs

They cover NK stuff like sticky prices/wages and calvo pricing at Minnesota and they also cover some monetary models. Also to Tex Jansen, the disagreement isn't over whether there are rigidities or not it's about how to properly model them and keep them consistent with empirical evidence as well as how to keep your model from turning into a black box. If you put nominal rigidities, externalities, incomplete markets, relaxation of REH, heterogeneous agents, etc. all into the same model and chuck it into the computer it doesn't make it interesting, it makes it a garbled mess where you have no idea what's going on. It completely gets rid of the point of having a model. Also in some situations sticky prices/wages don't even matter in terms of what the model predicts or what the policy implications are, but sometimes NK people can't help themselves and put it in anyway - doing nothing but needlessly complicating the model and obfuscating what's actually important. Also really do glance over the paper Palikari posted to get an idea of what some people on the other side think. I don't feel like getting into an argument here about the state of macro, but I do think that Krugman's post is more than just a little bit ironic and hypocritical.

you changed the wording in your example now, and that is of utmost importance. "Lets say I tell you Ill give you a dollar. You can take it or not, and you dont have to decide until the heat death of the universe." So here you are promising not to withdraw your offer, and then assuming I agree to that it could be a breach of contract to later withdraw your offer. In a sense you are creating a separate contract which we then agreed to and should be binding (like an option in finance). If instead it was "Lets say I offer you a dollar. You can take it or not" then you can withdraw your offer anytime up until it's accepted. In Pitts case he asked them how long he had to decide and they told him up until the day before classes starts. It was probably just them replying "if you don't tell us by then we'll assume you declined," but I think the OP took it to mean "we promise not to withdraw our offer until the day before classes" in which case withdrawing it could be seen as illegal. I'm not saying what Pitt did was illegal, since I don't think it was; but I am saying that there definitely is some grey area and the OP's confusion is not illegitimate. From the Handbook Of The Law Of Contracts : also from here

This is one of the reasons we have the legal system, to enforce agreements. In my state if this exact same situation played out I could take you to court and sue you and I would win. Of course it wouldn't be worth it for $1, but if you told me $30,000 or something like that I would in fact take you to court and they would decide that you owe me $30,000 (and it would be true for the other 50 people as well). Further if you didn't have the money right then I could get the state to garnish your wages until I was repaid. Maybe you could never pay me the full sum (think Madoff), but definitely you would have to pay me as much as possible. This probably is not the case for all states, but in my state an oral contract is treated the same way as a signed contract. Therefore I can definitely see how what Pitt did could have possibly been illegal. If it was illegal, I would imagine that you could sue them not only for the application fee but also possibly for the cost of distress and expected losses from not being able to attend a phd; people definitely sue over sillier things in the U.S. In reality it's not really possible, since if you threaten to sue the best case scenario is pretty much that they'll backtrack and honor the agreement by admitting you to the program, but also hate you and not fund you for 5 years. It also of course depends on the state and the fineprint. For example whoever you talked to may not have had any authority over the deadline, or they may have been misunderstood the university's policy. IMO that's almost certainly what happened; but still the people involved here definitely have the right to feel deceived. It's pretty shocking to me how little empathy they're getting from some people here.

If you email Kara Kersteter she should be able to answer any of your questions about the program, she's really great. I would imagine we'll be receiving a package of information within the next few weeks with more information. On the site it says the math camp starts in late July and goes for 4 weeks and that seems about right.

Congrats, see you in the Fall!

I think they have around a 60k/yr fellowship. Also there's always some strategy involved in admissions for lower ranked schools - since you don't want to admit somebody if you don't think it's very likely they'll attend.

Attending: University of Minnesota ($20k) Other Offers: NYU ($23k+), Princeton ($28.5k), Chicago ($21k), Northwestern ($21k), Yale ($37.5k), Stanford (32k) Comments: :)

PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: Triple Major (Econ, Math, Stat - all B.S.) from UMN Undergrad GPA: 3.75/4 Type of Grad: N/A Grad GPA: N/A GRE: 800Q, 570V, 4.5AWA Math Courses: Calculus I-IV, (HS,HS, B+, B+), Intro to Stat I-II (A,A-), Linear Algebra (A-), Intro to Proofs (A-), Real Analysis I-II (A-,A), Prob & Stat I-II (A,A), Math Modeling (A), Prediction & Filtering (A), Multivariate Stat (A-), Numerical Methods (A-), phd Real Analysis (B,B), phd Time Series (A-), phd Probability & Measure theory (B), phd Commutative and Homological Algebra (A) Econ Courses: Principles of Micro (A), Principles of Macro (A), Game Theory (A-), Intermediate Micro (A), Intermediate Macro (A), Econometrics (A-), International Trade (A), Macro Policy (A), Mathematical Econ (A), phd Micro I-IV (A,B,B,A-), phd Macro (A-,Spring), phd Trade (A,Spring) Other Courses: C/C++ (A-), Algorithms & Data Structures (A-) Letters of Recommendation: 1 amazing letter from a very well known researcher, 1 really good from a newer tenure track prof, and 1 not sure from a decently well known researcher - may change this last one though; I have a lot of options and I haven't talked to him for 2 years... Research Experience: Summer research and honors thesis in international trade (working with the Melitz model) Teaching Experience: None Research Interests: Trade, Macro, Growth SOP: Standard RESULTS: Attending: University of Minnesota ($20k) Acceptances: NYU ($23k+), Princeton ($28.5k), Chicago ($21k), Northwestern ($21k), Stanford ($32k) Waitlist: Yale (Accepted - $37.5k), MIT (rejected) Rejections: Harvard, Berkeley What would you have done differently? Not sure. People are going to think I'm crazy but I'm confident I made the right decision. Mind you it wasn't easy; I gave up going to a school with a fancy name (my family is taking it surprisingly well), I gave up thousands of dollars in funding, I gave up living with my girlfriend (she's got into a school near Stanford and one near Chicago - and we don't plan on breaking up), and I gave up seeing someplace new; but at the end of the day I know that Minnesota is the place for me. I still think it was important that I visited all of the departments of the schools I got into, so I don't feel like I just wasted my time and money staying where I am. One thing I would have done differently is I wish I hadn't started slacking off after I got my decisions now that I'm going to take the prelims right away this spring...

bleh, honorable mention. Anyways my ranking scores were: 1st: Excellent, Very Good 2nd: Excellent, Excellent 3rd: Very Good, Very Good The last guy wanted me to work at Goodwill to gain some real world experience.

A lot of the faculty that leave still come back to the fed and to visit the department. For example Prescott routinely comes back to Minnesota. I don't think the faculty quality is dropping regardless, they did a lot of hiring a few years back - and got some really good people. I don't know as much about Berkeley or Northwestern, but I wouldn't consider them declining programs either. The Tilburg ranking is one of the worst I have ever seen, so I wouldn't do any analysis with it. All publications weighted the same, no adjustment for program size, no anything really. They just wanted something that would place Tilburg as high as possible (and according to their ranking they are better than Minnesota). So no offense to untitled, since I love the stuff he puts together himself, but I think that post and this ranking do more harm than good in terms of educating the community here.

Thanks! I'll be sure to check that stuff out!

How long does it take to get to San Francisco? My girlfriend got into CCA for architecture and we're wondering if it would be possible to live together somewhere in between and both commute or something.

Institution: Stanford Program: PhD Economics Decision: Accepted Funding: $32,000k/yr Notification date: 3/11/2010 Notified through: E-mail Posted on GC: no Comments: I had already counted myself out. What a pleasant surprise!

just got one ^ ^

so what did other people decide to do? I sent Chicago an email asking if I could attend either the day before or after, but haven't heard back.