pmillsoh

What do you guys think... I am dong a PhD in marketing, though I am taking a lot of econ classes as well (my masters was in econ). I took a PhD seminar course in experimental econ with John Kagel at OSU.. a really great course. I am interested in doing experiments in marketing strategy (i.e. how do firms behave, sometimes in the context of B2B for example). Everyone tells me this is a bad idea, and you get get stuff published because of validity problems (you can't study firms in a lab, especially using student subjects), or that the principal agent problem will confound decisions. But I have seen a few really good experiments in the literature, and it seems like such fertile ground for research. (Of course maybe fertile since nobody is dumb enough to do it) I have access to a new experimental lab, and was wondering what you think. Are "the old guard" being too pessimistic - or am I barking up the wrong tree?

I think the OP has the wrong idea about SOPs. They are not to tell about your family history and why you want to study economics. They are to explain why you are a good fit for the particular program you are applying to. That makes them NOT form letters. You should be relating your research interests with the research of a few faculty you might want to do research with. You should explain why their program appeals to you. I just spoke with one of my profs who is on the ADCOM at my school. They explained that each person has different criteria, but for him, the SOP was the most important part of the application. Their feeling was that by the time they got the stack the obviously unqualified were weeded out by GPAs and GREs and now they were looking for somebody with the right Reasons for wanting to be in the program, and the right Fit.

I have had a pretty good exposure to micro. My bachelor's and masters degrees are in econ. I had a graduate level micro theory course that was reasonably rigorous (unfortunately not Mas-Colell but Nicholson & Snyder as a text). I had a graduate level I/O course with some game theory (as well as oligopoly stuff), econometrics, and an applied econometric course as well. I would have enrolled in an econ PhD program but I could not relocate. The university I am attending has a decent PhD program in marketing (but not econ) so the econ courses are all master's level courses and not much help in furthering my formal education in that regard. There are some pretty good experimental economists here and I feel capable of doing the kind of work Humanomics suggests. I am immersed in literature (Ariely, Gneezy, List, Fehr, Camerer, Smith ... all the good guys). But I am a bit of an island in the marketing department without a strong econ department to bolster me. Hence my question was sort of "what math would I take as part of an econ PhD that focuses on behavioral as a research goal"? So, probably not Bellman equations, etc. -- Thanks

Okay - I could use some input. I am in a Marketing PhD program and interested in Behavioral Economics (but most likely from a marketing/consumer perspective). My department is more accustomed to traditional paths (e.g. CB, Strategy, Modeling) but are very accommodating. However, I need to figure out what kind of research techniques I should have (i.e. what mathematics courses to take). I have had a bunch of regression (linear statistical models, econometrics), and some ANOVA. Where to go from here? What type of techniques do you guys suggest - not for acceptance - but for actually doing behavioral econ. What techniques are researchers using?

Here's a link to the ETS Concordance Table: http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/concordance_information.pdf The 90th percentile (a 790 on the old scale) begins at a score of 164. (This was one of the goals of the new scoring system, to add more granularity to the upper 10% since the old system offered only two scores; 790 and 800 at the upper end). 75th percentile begins around 156 (old score of 720). In general I hear the (unofficial) "cutoff" is around 158-159 for some programs (old 740-750).

You should examine your weakness for the next round. It's not your GRE-Q score. How are your LOR? Your SOP? IMO, we (applicants) may have become more obsessed about GRE-Q and math courses than ad comms at this point. Maybe they are looking for some other qualities besides computing power.

While the "more math" mantra is hard to refute - you have enough math for what you want to do. How is your research experience? Have you written anything good? Can you use the time for a research paper/project? There's a secondary benefit to doing research in that it builds stronger personal ties to faculty who can write better LORs, and it strengthens your SOP.

At this point more math has diminishing returns on the value of your application to a PhD program. As a dual math/econ major with Real Analysis, (and assuming all the other stuff that precedes that) you have the math anybody would want. So More math is more of a benefit to the field you intend to pursue and whether you want to do theoretical work, or empirical work. (that would tip things from say modelling to time series). Look at papers in the econ fields you are interested in and see what techniques people are using in top publications. I am always in favor of "more math" ceretis paribus. Are there other areas you have neglected? e.g. computer stuff, maybe a psych course if you are going to do some behavioral work, another econ course. Doing more research has a secondary benefit - it builds relations with faculty for good LORs. A nd strong LORs (along with more research) trump "one more math class" IMO.

I gave a talk at the academy of behavioral finance and economics conference at UCLA this fall. (I am an econ guy not finance) but check out Academy of Behavioral Finance and Economics (Behavioral Finance Seminars and behavioral finance training) and the conference and you can see who is active.

Do yourself a favor though... if you are thinking of doing a Ph.D., use the time before you apply to become a good candidate. The boards here and at Grad Cafe are loaded with people getting rejected because they don't have research experience, don't have a personal rapport with profs to get good LORs, don't have enough math classes like linear algebra, dif eqs, or real analysis, didn't research programs and POIs they want to join.... waiting until submission deadlines to realize you are not a good candidate is too late.

Yesterday (Nov 26) I took the GRE and got a 163V 158Q score. I am not happy with my quant score. How close do the official scores come to the score they show you on test day? Is there any chance it goes up (even a 159Q might work for me).

I am wondering what to do: Went to Cleveland State University Undergrad GPA: 3.85 Grad (masters) GPA: 3.73 Excellent (really excellent) letters of recommendation but from CSU professors Did two original research papers, presented them at conferences, and one to be published Have been teaching principles of Micro and Macro as a part time instructor at a university Problem is my GRE I just took today: V: 163 (good) Q: 158 = Not so good = 740 or 80% on old scale Can't retake GRE before applications are due. Planned on Applying to: Ohio State Univ. of Pittsburgh Carnegie Mellon (school of decision sciences not econ) Purdue SUNY Buffalo Michigan State I am distraught over my GRE Quant score.... a little higher (159-160 or more) and I think I would have no reservations Do I apply? Wait a year? Say anything in my SOP? Advice please.....

Combinations and Permutations are my Kryptonite --- What am I missing here: Q: The Univ. of Maryland, Univ. of Vermont, and Emory Univ. each have 4 soccer players. If a team of 9 is to be formed with an equal number of players from each university, how many ways can the selection be done? My approach: (1) For each university there are 4C3 (4 choose 3) possible groups of 3 players that is 4!/(4-3)!3! = 24/6 = 4 different groups from each school. (2) There are 3 schools so there are 4 x 4 x 4 Step two seems like the same kind of problem as having 4 appetizers, 4 entrees, and 4 deserts - so how many different meals kind of question, right? So, 64 possible teams. Nova Says: 1) Each university can have 4C3 or 4 ways (same as my answer) and then (2) "The selection from the 3 universities can be done in 3x4=12 ways. So, 12. Their (2) doesn't seem right to me. Anybody?

Yes, thanks Mumbai- I saw the explanation in ETS as you present it - and it made sense. I just wasn't seeing why my method (which fails) is incorrect. I thought my approach was logical and I wasn't seeing the fallacy in it.

This problem is out of the new Revised GRE General Guide: A reading list for a humanities course consists of 10 books; of which 4 are biographies and the rest are novels. Each student is required to read a selection of 4 books from the list including 2 or more biographies. How many selections of 4 books satisfy the requirements? ------ My approach was to say that two of four places are restricted. That there are 4C2 combinations of biographies for these two positions (or 3 combinations). Then I thought this leaves a remaining pool of 8 books from which I can choose two at a time or 8C2. That is 28 combinations of the second two books. So I figured there are 3 x 28 = 84 combinations. What is wrong with this logic. (apparently it is wrong as the OA is 115)