FootlooseEcon

I am the Grad Captain for the Recruitment Weekend at UCI (a fancy title that means I make sure no one is stranded or lost), so feel free to ask me with any questions you have, especially if you aren't going to be able to make the flyout. Most of these questions are things that we will cover during the two days. As my one shameless plug for coming to the flyout, we have dinner at the beach and the temperature will be in the mid 70s. With regards to attrition, I can say that the number of people failing the prelim exams is between 2-4 students depending on the cohort size. The prelims are mainly just a way to make sure that you learned your stuff during the core courses, they aren't meant to weed people out of the program. As for TA responsibilities, they will average about 10 hours a week. 20 hours will only happen when you are grading midterms or finals.

I spent more than a fair amount of time at NEU, hit me up with any questions you may have and I will see if I can't answer them.

I know exactly how you feel. I hate writing that email, even if I know 100% that I am not going. It probably comes from my dislike of hurting other people's feelings, which is decidedly un-rational.

I have declined Georgia State and Kentucky so far, a few more to come as they roll in.

Institution: Georgia State Program: Economics PhD Decision: Accepted Funding: N/A Notification date: 03/15/12 Notified through: Status Check Online Posted on GC: no Comments: 6 for 6 so far.

Interestingly, the school I am getting my masters at is approximately 60% female in the economics PhD. Though that is largely driven by a very strange year that was about 75% female. Most years are about even, 50/50.

One of the best professors I have had in grad school did development at Oregon, so I am probably biased towards them. In all seriousness though, she speaks very highly of the department. I also think that their placement is better than the rest of the funded offers on the list.

I think they are the same people who bang on the glass at the zoo just to watch the animals freak out.

I was only there for a year as research assistant for the macroeconomic and labor economics team. It's pretty intense, projects come in and some are pretty simple and can be done in a day or two, others are month long endeavors. The challenge is managing the 20 or so different projects that are up in the air at any one time. The basic work doesn't require much beyond Excel, but the more complicated projects can require tons of econometrics training. I really enjoyed it though. I think it's a very different environment than academia and requires a different mindset, which is both a good and a bad thing. You learn to think on your feet and find creative work arounds to difficult questions. You also become an expert on data sources and collection very quickly. My firm was one of the best ones, so my co-workers were traveling the world for projects. I think one spent a month in Paris, another did a month in Singapore, as well as trips to Rio, Johannesberg, and Sydney. And the salaries people get can be pretty high, I know some of the senior people on the team were in the high 100s and low 200s, after only 10 years with the firm.

It all depends on the firm I guess. The premier firms have a relatively low ceiling for master's. If anything they take people with MAs keep them for three or four years and then push them out into PhD programs. Team leaders and client facing individuals are more likely to have a PhD. And your ability in econometrics is likely to be a very big factor in your end performance. Which is why PhDs tend to do better.

It's How I Met Your Mother. So who gets to be Robin Sparkles?

Beware the Ides of March.

I also saw that 4 of the 8 job market candidates this year are macro people with monetary and international trade fields, for whatever it's worth.

At UCI, ECON 260-269 are the Macro field courses. There are two in international economics and two in monetary, with a fifth being a seminar in advanced macroeconomics. It's on the graduate courses page.

ECON 260-269 is the Macro Fields. They have a field sequence in international economics and one in monetary, as well as a seminar course in advanced macroeconomics. Graduate Course Descriptions | UCI Economics

Lol unfortunately I work during the day, so when I am in the computer lab it's 8pm onward. So it's just me and the interwebs.

Been working a lot in Stata lately and I have been struggling with some of the more complicated data manipulation. I am looking for a guide to using Stata that is pretty comprehensive, but easy to read and understand. Anyone got any suggestions?

So I have two offers from schools already, both with funding. The Graduate Directors keep asking me about how much other schools are giving me and where I am waiting to hear back from. So my question is, how do I handle the talk of money? I obviously wouldn't mind getting more money if they want to start throwing more at me, but I don't want them to think that it's all about the money and that I am playing them.

All you need to get into Yale is to have a baby and join Glee club, it totes makes sense now why so many people got rejected this year. Now all they need to do is spontaneously break out in song.

Angus Maddison did some fascinating work on historical GDP and created a data set going back to 1AD. Though I wonder how useful a time series data set that long is, especially with the data problems and structural shifts in the economy. content

I think the problem is that macroeconomics has now been infused with this political element that was largely absent before 2008. You can't discuss Keynesian vs. Neoclassical without getting bogged down by the political responses to the financial meltdown. The challenge will be sorting out bad policy from bad politics from bad economics as we continue to do a post mortem on the crisis and how we responded.

All of the schools in Boston are off today as well. It's actually pretty common for US schools to get off President's Day.

I emailed David Neumark about when I could visit and he just gave me the date (April 2nd) so I could get time off work and said that more information would be emailed soon. I am willing to pay to visit SoCal in April, it's still winter in Boston that time of year.

UC Irvine's fly-out weekend will be April 2nd. So weird doing it on a Monday.

Institution: UC Irvine Program: PhD Economics Decision: Accepted Funding: Out of State Tuition Remission + 17k TA stipend Notification date: 2/18 Notified through: Email Posted on GC: yes Comments: Probably gonna take this offer.