Marshall

Feel free to add your own ideas. Mine is that adcoms really ought to ask applicants to include a pic, and then include looks as a criteria. After all, on the job market looks probably play some part although nobody would admit it. Since job market outcomes are the most important measure of the program's quality adcoms probably want to maximize future job market performance, and looks are probably marginally more important than another math class, but have a lot better externalities. By the way, if you'd like to learn more about the relevance of looks: Freakonomics » Hamermesh on The Daily Show: Ugly People

Pretty sure berkeley did not have any such requirement. One thing Berkeley does have special is their diversity statement of purpose. Now I'm pretty sure nobody cares about it, but the strange thing is in 1996 CA passed proposition 209, and the next year the Supreme court allowed it to take effect. It banned Affirmative Action in public institutions.

A lot of US MAs don't place well. I've heard on TM a long time ago about one whose top person placed into a 25-50 range econ PhD. Obviously try to go to Canada or Europe. There are some places with funding there, and they're designed for further graduate study. Also for RA positions other than the usual places (FED, Brookings, Urban Institute, JPAL/IPA for development) I'd regularly check Research Assistant Positions not at the NBER

I feel like you don't have to sound like you want to go into academia and consulting. You should pick one and put it down in your SOP, probably teaching since private sector placements usually have a bit of a stigma. Also I think it'd help to talk more about possible future projects/research you'd like to do with your contacts in Australia and your country of origin.

In the top 30 look at Brown. I think they have a lot of urban planning people. However I word of caution. I feel that regional/urban economics is not so much a field (as in a set of questions), but more of a collection of econometric techniques/approaches. I think tons of great papers on urban/regional economics are written by people who generally do environmental, IO, etc., but when they need to will use GIS or spatial econometrics to answer to their questions. Long story short, I think you may miss some great opportunities if you're just looking for dept's people with specializations in regional/urban economics.

I'm not very familiar with who's doing what in SMEs, but in terms of mid-ranked places specializing in development, I think of Maryland, Vanderbilt, and Davis. Georgetown is a lower ranked place that's also good, but I think their admissions is more difficult than comparatively ranked schools so it's not the best choice for safeties. I'd also look into Berkeley ARE because more than half of the development people at Berkeley are in the ARE dept. so econ people at Berkeley frequently work with ARE and vice versa when it comes to development. The development field class is even cross-listed and taught together by the econ and ARE faculty. Still, you are closing yourself off from doing theory or macro, and I'm not sure if they allow you to apply to both Berkeley econ and ARE. Oh yes, and of course there's Cornell--little biased. Don't forget to check out not only their econ faculty but also their AEM (Applied economics and management) faculty, which is their ag econ program. I noticed a lot of the development people going on the job market use AEM profs like Barrett, Kanbur, and Chau. Still, be aware that even if a program has someone specialized in SMEs they could move, or they might not like to work with grad students.

Don't underestimate how hard it is to get your first job in public policy. I had a friend also with a masters who had a really tough time finding anything since he didn't have experience. Also, my impression of the top public policy programs is that they really like experience and they like quantitative backgrounds but it's not necessary to have heavy quant background like in econ. With an econ MA if you get good grades you'll probably be a little above the median in terms of quant. preparation. I think, though, because they place more weight on experience and intangibles (research potential) they probably weight letters even more highly.

Even if it doesn't come out pretty I wouldn't worry too much. AWA is not very important.

Actually, if I had internet access instead of saying what I mentioned earlier I'd just show them this: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

It looks like you've actually got a deeper problem than rekindling your curiosity for statistics. You've got to come up with a way to do well in classes regardless of whether you find them interesting. I mean it sounds like you could have done well, but didn't put in the effort because you dislike cookbook style learning. What happens if your first math econ or econometrics class is taught like that. You've got to be able put up with it and study hard anyway. There was plenty of 1st year material I learned that I thought "why am I learning this?" but studied anyway and I think that's the right attitude. At the very least, it's intellectually open minded.

I make bad guesses and then try to tell a miniscule narcissistic group of people. Thereby diminishing the damage I do. Oh yeah and we teach undergrads. This is basically what I answered a long time ago when somebody was asking me about how to fix the economy (the most common question) and answered I had no idea, but I've got some guesses on what not to do. He was appallingly disappointed, so I decided to go all in about the harsh realities of what we do...hah, and EJMR claims we're too optimistic.

Thought about it some more. Probably my overall pick would be Townsend. I like his work on financial services and his work on financial markets in developing countries was what I wanted to do. Then I started reading his papers. Now I wonder if I could add anything on that topic worth stating.

I'm not an MPA/ID graduate, but my impression is that Harvard's MPA/ID program expects you to get your own funding (personal, corporate or govt.), so just keep that in mind when weighing funded MEDEG Carlos with possible unfunded admissions to Harvard's MPA/ID.

Just wondering if you had an all-time favorite paper or body of work. I'll start with mine. I found this forthcoming ReStats paper from Sadoulet and Janvry pretty cool: http://are.berkeley.edu/~esadoulet/papers/Bolsa%20REStat%20final.pdf. Basically they show empirically if local leaders are up for reelection CCTs have much better outcomes. Thus, ceteris paribus decentralizing CCTs for the sake of efficiency should not occur when a lame duck is in office. Not sure, yet, who I'd pick overall.

Not by this American.

It all looks like good advice except 6. I strongly disagree with that. Professors are there because they've proven they can publish, or they're new and people think they're going to be able to publish at that level. The only way I could see it mattering is if you're talking about new assistant professors because they might know more active researchers if they came from a good dept. Even this, though, will only be a marginal effect if anything. Moreover, you really don't want a brand new assistant professor anyway because they'll be too busy trying to earn tenure usually and will probably lack contacts when you're on the job market.

My school lets some math classes take the place of econ classes (e.g. intro to statistics).

I thought he won a Nobel Prize... To me what makes Paul Krugman both a respected economist and the easiest punchline to throw is that he's both right and ridiculous. I mean seriously, we knew the Republican party were lying, two-faced, unwilling to listen to reason, possibly morally bankrupt and caricatures worthy of an Ayn Rand novel years ago. Yet he keeps on harping on it like the energizer bunny. Recently, he's harped on the media for unfairly trying to balance their coverage of Democratic faults (of which there are many) and Republican faults (of which there are many more). It's obvious, though, why the media does this. Being a Republican is kind of like being a member of a religion. It's not about the numbers or the facts but the beliefs (and for a select few your bank account), and no one is going to convince you to change via news. Furthermore, if the media were to present a portrait of politics not being balanced by affirmative action in favor of republicans I have no doubt more republicans would migrate away from these "biased" news agencies and towards places that at least match their views (i.e. Fox). Since Krugman hasn't gotten this he's reduced his readership to merely those who agree with his views and now preaches to the choir. Also Krugman's an abrasive, sensationalist type of person (at least on his blog) and many of the ways he's criticized his colleagues (i.e. freshwater economists) could have been said just as well in more diplomatic terms that would get people to listen to his viewpoint quicker rather than throw back a nasty statistic laden counter. I secretly suspect his frequent contact with the media has, instead of affecting them positively, infected him with their bad habits--namely the aforementioned sensationalism. Of course, we can't blame the media for all of his Krugman's Krugmanisms. I think his arrogant "I know better than you how to fix this so get out of the way" is actually quite characteristic of the whole economist profession and should more humbly be put "I'm ignorant but have a theoretical idea of how to fix it based on a very short time series. You, may or may not know it, but you're equally ignorant but have practical experience about how actually get this stuff implemented. Lets work together..."

Just saw this: Economy Face Off: Ron Paul vs Paul Krugman: Video - Bloomberg I'm in awe of the low quality of the debate. I mean there are good arguments for Conservative economic policy, but Ron doesn't really touch on them. This is the "smart guys" debate on economic policy? :cower:

By the way, fingure what others have been requesting is info like: PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: Undergrad GPA: Type of Grad: Grad GPA: GRE: Math Courses: Econ Courses (grad-level): Econ Courses (undergrad-level): Other Courses: Letters of Recommendation: Research Experience: Teaching Experience: Research Interests: SOP: Concerns: Other: Applying to: Even with all that people are not going to be able to tell you very accurately what your chances are because its so idiosyncratic and a major determinant (LORs) you might not even know the quality of. At this point, ask profs and use their opinions at your shot at a top 50-70 US program because obviously not many of us here are familiar with what range of placements is realistic from SFU. Also, what you heard about Queens and WO is wrong in that adcoms will take a lot more into account than just your micro grade. They look at the applicant as a whole, but that said your grad econ grades will be heavily weighted. The big determinant, though, will be your letters so another positive of asking your letter writers where you've got a shot is it might reveal something about the quality of their letters.

I agree with economist. I don't see it helping you.

I'm curious if anyone knows any good research being done test the rational expectations assumption (aka "the confidence fairy).

Don't worry Ondrej I totally agree with you. The only reason I can think of for why ETS would damage the credibility of the GRE as a fair indicator is out of greed. To really milk it, as an aspiring economist, I propose that they use escalating testing fees: 1st test: $150 2nd: $200 3rd: $250 4th: $300 5th: $350 etc. I mean if you really are just out there to maximize profits those who take it multiple times are revealing stronger preferences for high scores, or weaker budget constraints.

Don't worry that angering them (by requesting release) will result in withdrawal of the offer. I think it would be a violation on their side if they withdraw their offer for such a reason.

For stata if the prof you're working with has the documentation I'd start off reading "getting started with Stata for ______" the blank being Windows, Mac or Unix. After that your best textbook is the web IMHO.