하바드 경제학 교수 (법 경제학 전공) 블로그 그대로 에서 카피해 왔습니다.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Advice for Grad Students
Because there appeared to be much interest in the advice I offered undergrads in a previous post, let me provide the same service for graduate students in economics.
But rather than doing the work myself, I will outsource the task to some of my colleagues in the profession:
But rather than doing the work myself, I will outsource the task to some of my colleagues in the profession:
- Don Davis gives some guidance about finding research topics.
- John Cochrane tells grad students how to write a paper.
- Michael Kremer provides a checklist to make sure your paper is as good as it can be.
- David Romer gives you the rules to follow to finish your PhD.
- David Laibson offers some advice about how the navigate the job market for new PhD economists.
- John Cawley covers the same ground as Laibson but in more detail.
- Kwan Choi office advice about how to publish in top journals.
- Dan Hamermesh offers advice on, well, just about everything.
- Assar Lindbeck tells you how, after getting that first academic post, to win the Nobel prize.
Update: Matthew Pearson explains how to survive the first year of grad school. Hal Varian explains how to build an economic model in your spare time.
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20 Comments:
Thank you for the links. It turns out, most of the advices can also be useful for the few of us who don't do economics...
Thanks a lot for these references! I would add a really good paper by Hal Varian "How to build an economic model in your spare time", available on his webpage at www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal/Papers/how.pdf
Great list of resources (or is that, "list lf lists of resources?)
I'd add Dierdre McCloskey's gem "Economical Writing". It has some of the best advice I've read on many phases of writing good papers.
Walter Block also has some tips:
http://www.mises.org/story/1888
Some reasons for eminent econ professors NOT to publish in top-tier journals:
Your papers are good enough by themselves; no need further glorification.
Your names are shining enough; no need further advertisement.
Your ideas are too important; get them out quickly
Your time is too previous; don’t waste it to entertain demanding referees for top-tier journals.
You care about the profession; give some help to new, developing journals.
You care about your students; leave some room in the "leading" journals.
Wow, it seems I had a pretty nice question. Again - thank you Prof. Mankiw. Now, I have some stuff to read...
I was going to suggest Hal Varian's piece too, but it seems someone else got to it first. A very pleasant read, as much as it is practical.
Thanks for the very useful list!
The following comment is based on an email I sent to Dr. Mankiw privately. In his response, he invited me to post a comment on this blog.
I offer a different kind of advice to graduate students in a particular situation.
I am writing anonymously for what you will find are obvious reasons. I entered a graduate economics program at a mid-tier university in the early 1990s. I chose the school because I was married at the time and my wife had obtained a teaching position at a liberal arts college in the area. In the first semester of my first year in the program, my wife informed me that she wanted a divorce. Needless to say her timing was particularly bad. To make a long story short, I made it through the program with my doctorate, but with a GPA barely above the minimum of 3.0.
Graduate school was a continuous struggle because the foundation of my economics knowledge (learned---and I use that word loosely---in the first year core theory courses) is shaky. It's tantamount to building a house on quicksand. And my struggles continue in my work as a professional economist. Even though I have a doctorate, I view myself as having the equivalent skills of one with a master's degree. I wish I could do things over, but there just aren't enough hours in the day to review the material I should have learned more than a decade ago. As any graduate student knows, being one is a full-time job in and of itself.
My advice to anyone who encounters a similar experience is to withdraw from the program, get your personal life in order, and reapply after a year. I did not follow that advice and regret it every day.
I'm telling you my story because I wish to spare any graduate student in a similar situation the anguish I experienced and continue to deal with in my professional life.
RadioEconomics (Radioeconomics.com) happens to have a podcast with John Cawley about the academic market.
http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?xml=1&podcast=967|2
Remember, most great ideas were initially rejected. Akerlofs lemons paper was rejected by the AEA (who thought twas a lemon.) Milton Friedman was laughed at for years. Apparently in a footnote Robert Halls thesis, he talks about Ricardian Equivalence, but his advisor, Peter Diamond, told him the idea was laughable and he never pursued it. Ah well.
And always KISS; keep it simple stupid. A famous economist told me that the only work of his anyone took ever note of was the most basic, simple stuff. Very true.
Oh, when you're writing your thesis:
1) Never use a long run when a diminutive one will do.
2) And never start a sentence with "and". Or, "or".
anonymous - very kind of you to share your personal story. with all due respect for your situation and what you've been through, it sounds like you need to move on.
maybe you're not cut out to be a theorist but one doesn't need to remember everything from the first two years of grad school to be a successful (and happy) economist.
Yes Roxana, I got it first!
About the sad personal experience and the importance of grad school courses:
I felt that the point of having a whole bunch of grad school courses in econ, was that, in two years, we basically knew nothing about "everything" (or at least A LOT of subjects). There was so much material that of course, we mostly remember the parts that we use in our work. For the rest, all these things we read at the time but don't seem to remember at all. But you know what? I realized the value of "knowing nothing about everything" when I had to branch out for my own work, and reading things that were really different was not that painful, they even seemed strangely familiar... and for a good reason, among those million papers on the grad school courses' reading lists, I probably had to study something pretty close for an exam.
The most striking example may be econometrics. I have just written my first empirical paper, although when I started, I could hardly remember what Ordinary Least Squares meant...
I keep thinking that I could have worked more efficiently on my grad school courses, and that I missed out on a lot of great things. But I am gradually getting over it, it's never too late to open a textbook or a course reading list, a little at a time, it's not necessary to do the whole grad school programme! Just pick the things that sound the most fun! Teaching is also a great way to review the basics and keep in mind (or even finally realize) those "foundations" that anonymous was talking about.
I have a whole "teach yourself" plan for the months to come, I'm a slow-and-not-smart learner so it may be a struggle sometimes.
But don't you think that on-the-job self-training" is a big part of research and life in general? (and believe me, if i have been able to write a paper with panel data estimations, ANYBODY can!)
Advices given to grad students/young economists here are noble. I have some less noble but perhaps more practical to share.
Like a representative agent in many econ models, solve a constrained maximization problem.
If you have the luxury to treat economics research as a consumption good, follow all the advices to write a good paper that may be recognized after many years, or not.
If economics research is a livelihood, utilize as little as possible time to write as many as possible PUBLISHABLE paper. Don't be ashamed of writing a paper with no meat; don't feel guilty splitting a paper into minimum publishable entities. To get a doctorate degree, what you need is to entertain 5 committee members to get their signitures. To get your papers published, what you need is to please the editor and a couple reviewers. Eventually you may reach a point where you can treat research as consumption. Don't worry about you may be too old to entertain yourself at that time; those newcomers who follow your path will entertain you.
Despite all the cynicism, I would say economics is very much worth pursuing. If you treat it as a way of thinking, it will give you a philosiphy perhaps more useful than your religion.
Some positive to offer:
Michael Szenberg (ed.), Passion and Craft: Economists at Work. University of Michigan Press.
mvpy said, "Apparently in a footnote Robert Halls thesis, he talks about Ricardian Equivalence, but his advisor, Peter Diamond, told him the idea was laughable and he never pursued it. Ah well."
Ricardian equivalence is indeed a laughable idea. It indeed became a popular topic help generat many papers and a potential Nobel winner.
Who's a good economist? As Hayek had once said, ‘an economist who is only an economist cannot be a good economist.’
http://truckandbarter.com/mt/archives/2006/03/darwins_nightma.html
How about some advice for junior faculty?..
What should I wear as a grad student???
What about posting some advice for writing a thesis?
How do I get admitted at a top grad school? I remember I saw a link somewhere not long ago, but I can't find it again. Can anybody please post that link? THANK YOU.
Job Market Rumor Forum: http://econrumors.blogspot.com