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I am an undergrad student in top10 planning to take a first semester course in PhD Micro. In my school, the first semester Micro covers decision theory and general equilibrium in each of the half semesters. I am worried that the majority of incoming students in my school’s PhD program already has an exposure to PhD level micro from masters degree and etc so that it might be difficult to pull an A. Furthermore, it is known that A/A- are given to roughly 25~30% of the class, which may be risky for an undergrad student taking a PhD level course in my current institution. I am also considering Grad Optimization course and more research experience instead. Given that I already have taken Analysis, Analysis on Manifold Measure and Integration, Measure Theoretic Probability, PDE, Numerical , Linear algebra, will it be worth it to take first year micro for additional signaling? Or would spending more time doing research be a better option? Is it common for students aiming top10 or 5 to have graduate courses in economics?

Hi, I'm currently studying in top 3 mater's program in my country.(QS ranking 51-100) Math and econ courses I took until now are as follows: Business Statistics(B+), Calculus I, II(B+, A+), Linear Algebra I, II(A, A), Analysis I, II(Rudin's PMA)(A, A+), Ordinary Differential Equations(A+), Intro to probability(A+), Mathematical Statistics(A), Graduate Probability from stat department(measure theory-based)(A+) Intermediate micro/macro(B+, A+), Econometrics I, II(A+, A), Grad micro(Mas-Collel)(A), Grad macro(A+), Grad econometrics(A) I'm interested in development, economic history, labor, and political economy and have about ten months left until I apply for PhD programs. For next semester, I was thinking of taking measure theory or undergrad topology from math department. However, every professor in my department I talked to discouraged me to take more maths and recommended me to start to make a good writing sample that is publishable in academic journals, if possible. My concern is that not taking measure theory might have any negative influence on my profile. I also think that my strength does not lie in performance coursework, but in research ideas. Some professors with whom I discussed my term papers spoke highly of my potentials. But the problem is that they do not seem to be not well known in their fields or have strong connections to US economists. To be clear, they received PhD degrees from top 10-20 schools in the US and published some articles in top field journals. Furthermore, I doubt if I would be able to write a good paper within few months although I have a vague research agenda and plan to construct a novel dataset from archives(I am not sure if I could find any statistical significance!*** or how much time will it take to digitize them in my spreadsheet). I also wonder how much importance does adcom place on taking measure theory? So given the time constraint, which option will be better for me in terms of increasing the marginal probability of getting admission or becoming an independent researcher? A: Take measure theory or topology, minimize the amount of time invested in studying maths and try to make a good writing sample at the same time. B: Stop taking more maths, and just try to advance your research agenda. Thanks.

Hi :) I am currently stuck on a question about slopes and angles. Line M: y = 3x + 10 Line N : 2y = 5x - 6 And Line P has a slope of -1/3 The question asks which is greater: The measure of the largest angle created by the intersection of Line M and Line N is greater (A) Or the measure of the largest angel created by the intersection of Line M and Line P (B) Since Line M and N are perpendicular (neg reciprocal; slope), the greatest angle that they create is 90. Since Line M and P are neither perpendicular nor parallel - they can create only two angles below 90 and two angles above 90. The answer in the book is (A), but I don't quite understand this, as surely Line M and P have 2 angles that are greater than 90.