assgf3

It needs to be said: OP no good.

Greg Mankiw's Blog: Home for the Holidays

Cool, thanks ZBG. Is anyone else foregoing the application cycle and applying for RA positions instead?

For individuals graduating in May or June 2012, when is the optimal time to apply for research assistant positions upon graduation? Now? January? February? Does it depend on the job? How about for Federal Reserve banks? Thanks guys...and good luck with the application cycle.

I think OP uses "normalize" to mean force the welfare distribution to approach a normal distribution. If so, I think there are interesting moral questions to answer as to whether this is preferable. It is certainly not pareto efficient. Anyway, on to two (and as a response to zomg), I highly doubt that 100% income tax or "serious" government intervention is the optimal solution. Wealth stock is dynamic and either of these would force the wealth stock to plummet. Moreover, substantial transaction costs will eat away at the available stock of wealth. Better instead to structure institutions to incentivize entrepreneurship and wealth creation and human capital investments, along with a minimal level of public assistance. There is a lot of focus among leftists on the "market failure" roots of poverty; these individuals ignore that "government failure" is often just as strong a force. If the rightsizing of government and the creation and refinement of appropriate institutions is pursued, "poverty" - by which I mean the condition of being unable to meet certain basic needs like food, clothing, shelter, etc... - will decrease naturally. The trend of history suggests that the poor are getting richer in two ways. First, the relative expenditures on basic needs has been plummeting: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/TC9NcrJvG0I/AAAAAAAAN3Y/S8hwBzi_3uk/s1600/food.jpg. Second, quality increases in goods and services almost consistently amount to "real" wealth improvements for each successive generation of impoverished.

Elliephant.

Which math courses are absolutely essential prerequisites for the average adv micro/macro course? Which math courses are recommended prerequisites?

John Lott - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ... and that only covers half of it.

1.) If I'm not mistaken, the OP is already in a masters program and is, presumably, nearing completion of said program. To do another masters program seems absurd. 2.) I wonder if the OP would consider a different kind of phd program. Perhaps Public Policy? 3.) Don't despair too much. A world that allows John Lott to continue to research is likely a world in which there is some place for you as an academic as well.

Ditto on stata, matlab and latex (!)

Happy New Years, all. Any relevant resolutions?

lol, I really hope this is a joke. ... If it isn't, start changing your career plans now, because you're never going to get in anywhere now.

.... :-O ... That's my university.... I just looked this guy up. I am so very curious to know whose name he put on that letter. Our department is fairly small and fairly tight. If the professor whose name was forged is tenured or tenure-track, then I can all but guarantee that our entire department will know soon enough if they don't already. From there, I wouldn't be surprised if your other letter writers contacted the universities for which they wrote recommendations and withdrew their support. It's not certain that they will do so, but I would counsel the OP to start preparing a new career plan. Yikes. Good detective work, SlowLearner.

I like stats more than formal math. Did any of you have similar tipping points for statistics?

Only some? Not most?