ecoptimist

I would ask about how frequently students A: coauthor with faculty, B: work as RAs for faculty, and C: how many have fellowships. These are pretty important factors contributing to job market success.

I don't think this is strictly true. I know several people, myself included, who did an MA at Toronto without a full year of calculus. If you have enough other advanced math/econ courses, they may not care exactly how many calc courses you took.

Honestly, I would forget it. A PhD in economics is exceptionally difficult, especially at any program worth attending, and double especially if you lack the formal preparation. Given your grades, it is unlikely that you would get into any program worth attending. It's harsh, but you should consider this.

Minnesota has a pretty good IO group actually, second only to the macro people of course. Recent placements for io grads are pretty good too. In the last two years, there has been Yale SOM, Dartmouth, Georgia, Oregon, Copenhagen and a few other good places. I wouldn't discount it.

Is it an embarrassing job, like BA Economics at U of Whatever 2009-2013 Strip Club Bouncer 2013-2014 MA Economics at U of Wherever 2014-2015 If so, just leave it out and write BA Economics at U of Whatever 2009-2013 MA Economics at U of Wherever 2014-2015 If you think that the search committees are scrutinizing your CV to the degree that they would question this, then you are mistaken. If your job is something innocuous (consulting firm, internship, retail manager, whatever) then just put it in. Again, they don't care.

Sure. I was using an extreme example to make my point, which was "If you want an academic position at a top 100 econ department, you had better do your PhD at a top-30 (at least), and be above average for your cohort." Even in a good year, a top 10-20 school will only send a proportion of its cohort to tenure-track positions in top-100 schools. This proportion decreases precipitously as you get closer to rank 30. In a bad year, some of those schools send zero students to top-100 academic jobs. Look at the University of Virginia - a marginal top 30 program. Placement History | economics.virginia.edu They get maybe one top-100 placement a year, on average. So you basically have to be among the very best at a top-30 or above to have a reasonable chance. Remember that there are only 100 top-100 schools, and they hire between 0 and 2 positions a year. Even if they hire 200 total, there are about 200 candidates just from the top-10 schools every year competing for those jobs, never mind ranks 11 through 30.

Let's be realistic here. If you want an academic position at a top 100 econ department, you had better do your PhD at a top-30 (at least), and be above average for your cohort. For example, Michigan is just outside the top 10, and check it's placement record last year: https://lsa.umich.edu/econ/doctoral-program/past-job-market-placements.html Almost no top-100 academic placements.

Tough choice. If it was NWU unfunded vs. another top 10-15 funded, I would recommend the funded offer for sure. However, UBC and Rotman are not even close to NWU in terms of training or placement. Compare Placement: Department of Economics - Northwestern University with Placement | Vancouver School of Economics Not even the same universe. However, unfunded offers are rough. If you are very certain that you will work hard and kickass and you definitely want an academic placement, then NWU might be worth it. If you just want a PhD and some mid-ranked Canadian university or your home-country central bank is ok, then maybe Rotman or UBC is safer. Depends how risk averse you are, and how easily you can get the funding for the first year.

Yes, actually, at least 3 in the last 3 years, though it's still unusual at any program. Typically people that finish early have some kind of outside job offer or some other special circumstance. For example, some people are sponsored by their central bank on the condition that they return to work for the bank afterwards. However, there's nothing stopping you from finishing early. If you get started with your research early and are particularly productive, then more power to you.

This might have been true 20 years ago when Prescott ruled UMN, but those days are long gone. UMN isn't exactly strong in econometrics, but there are a lot of really good applied metrics guys working there in both macro and micro (lots of macro-estimation guys at the Fed as well). The grad metrics sequence teaches VARs and time series estimation, and they are looking to hire more econometricians - they made offers to two juniors this year.

For Macro, UMN is better, no question. There are just so many more top people in the field working at UMN and the Fed than at UW. If you were doing anything else, it would be a tougher choice (or the clear choice might be UWM). "I think they focus on a very specific type of Macro (DSGE models with no frictions" This is a myth. Go look at any recent work by UMN people to see this isn't true in the slightest. Also, for macro policy stuff, as you say the Fed offers a lot of great opportunities, and UMN places people at the IMF and similar places every year.

What precisely do you mean by "microeconomic theory"? Hardcore micro theory (axioms of choice etc) is perhaps the toughest field in terms of getting a reasonable job, and so unless you are going to someplace like Chicago, Stanford or MIT, I would seriously reconsider (or be open to reconsidering) this field. If you mean it more loosely, then Penn State or UMN might both be good choices. UMN takes theory much more seriously than most other places, and so you will learn all the tools you need in order to do theory in pretty much any area. The downside is that the number of profs in each field is limited, and most of the "micro theorists" at UMN are not very active anymore (the exception being the game theory guys).

It's because "Please note that rankings can depend on the number of registered authors in the respective institutions." UMN only has 30 registered affiliated authors, and only 15 of those are actual faculty or ex-faculty. The other half are current/former students.

Sounds like you'd be a good fit. Yeah, the researchers at both the Fed and Dept put heavy emphasis on policy-relevant research. Being able to do counterfactuals and policy experiments is the primary justification for structural work, which is what most people at the UMN and Fed do. Even if you are preoccupied with "inequality" etc, there are people at Minnesota doing serious research (Guvenen, etc).

I'm currently a student at Minnesota, so perhaps I can help answer a few questions. 1) Well if you are interested in a structural approach to Macro then UMN is one of the best places to go in the world. There's a strong focus on policy relevance and lots of people who do really good work on the empirical macro front, both at the Fed and Department. Lots of students go from UMN to the Fed, IMF, WB etc, so that's certainly an option if you prefer. 2) UMN maintains an excellent stream of seminars, both from US and international economists. UMN is actually an incredibly international department, and with access to both Fed and Department seminars, you have many opportunities to see great speakers and make connections. Generally 70-80% of the incoming cohorts are not american, and there are frequent opportunities (and funding) for students to attend seminars in Europe and elsewhere. 3) The first year at Minnesota is no joke. You work hard, and yes the offices have no windows. However you don't have to study in your office - I rarely did. However, after that the offices are very nice, and working hard in the first year pays off in spades. As with any program, a PhD is as difficult and time-consuming as you want it to be. You are your own boss. There are plenty of opportunities for fun at Minnesota though. It's a nice city (though a bit cold in the winter), and the people are very friendly. Good luck!

I actually recommend Minnesota, for two reasons. First, along with some of the other places mentioned, it's one of the best programs to learn *how* to construct such a model and how to work with it. The second reason is Aldo Rustichini: https://sites.google.com/site/aldorustichini/

The thing is that there is a big difference between the PhD Stream MA and the Regular MA at the U of T. Many students from the former go to highly ranked PhDs (Northwestern, Penn, Chicago, Minnesota, etc). I don't know of any regular MA students who have gotten into highly ranked PhD programs. This is both due to differences in perception, training and selection. So if you are choosing between a regular U of T MA and a UWO MA, the latter might dominate the former, at least since you will be taking PhD-level courses (regular stream MA students at the U of T take watered down courses which are not at the PhD level), and you still have a good chance of going to a decent PhD program (including, for example, Toronto's PhD program).

As beelzeb said, it depends heavily on your research interests. However, there are a few other things to consider. First, your research interests will likely shift over the course of your phd. I was sure I wanted to work in one field when I entered my program, and now am sure I want to work in something totally different, haha. So don't necessarily weigh your current research interests TOO heavily. Other very important considerations are the department environment and atmosphere. How do profs treat students? How collegial are the students to each other? How well will you enjoy living in that city? These things may seem small in the grand scheme, but may make the difference in whether you have the best 5 years of your life, or 5 years of hell. They also influence your productivity, networks, and ultimately job market outcomes. Both UCLA and Minnesota are great schools. I think that Minnesota is actually very strong in a few other fields besides Macro. Their applied micro and IO guys are really good, and place quite well. There are also excellent faculty working in game theory/mechanism design. If you want to do reduced form applied micro, then don't go to Minnesota, but it's a great place for structural/computational work. Minneapolis is also a fantastic city. I would prefer there to Los Angeles, unless you cannot abide snow. Minneapolis has the one of the performance arts scene outside of NYC, and is really beautiful, with lakes everywhere. I believe It's also somewhat cheaper, so your stipend will go further. However, it's obviously much colder than LA (not that you will be spending much time outside). From everything I hear, the department at minnesota is also much friendlier and collegial than at UCLA, and the opportunity to RA at the Fed is really nice. There's no departmental pressure to pass prelims in the first year at Minnesota. Not sure about UCLA. Anyways, you can't really go wrong at either school. They both produce excellent results. Congrats on your offers!

Minnesota seems an obvious choice, as well as Penn perhaps.

A good book which takes you through all of the fundamentals math (and quite a bit of intuition/econ results) is Chiang's "Fundamental Methods for Mathematical Economics". No real analysis though.

This isn't necessarily true. I didn't even begin my undergrad degree until my late 20s, but managed to get offers from several top programs (though not quite Harvard or MIT). If you work hard and are good enough, you can get in almost anywhere, regardless of age (within reason).

You have to take it, but that doesn't mean it will be useful in your graduate coursework.

None of them. Honestly, none of my undergrad econ courses were helpful with respect to my graduate coursework/research. I took 3 years of the core sequence (honors), plus a billion field courses. They were all quite interesting, but absolutely not useful for grad school, other than fostering an interest in going to grad school. But, you can get that same sort of interest and knowledge by casual reading of pop econ books. I would have been much much better served by doing a Math degree and reading some econ on the side, than actually doing any of those econ courses.

Probably not. I would focus on getting some basic background in real analysis as well as boning up on integration, linear algebra (eigenvalues etc) and basic differentiation (you'll be taking a lot of first order conditions). But of all of these, real analysis is key. The rest can be picked up quickly. Understanding/writing proofs takes time and practice. Start now.

Word on the street is that Bajari is returning. Also, Minneapolis is a great city. Lots of theatres, parks, lakes, bike paths, microbreweries, great restaurants etc. If you can't handle a real winter though, it may not be ideal. But you don't spend much time outside during your first couple years in a PhD anyways :P