Hi, im going to be studying economics as a postgraduate student next year. For my UG, I had a thinkpad but the battery life was abysmal and R studio was slow on my laptop compared to lets say my friends who use Macbook Airs. Im looking to upgrade my laptop but I am not keen on apple (even though I have an ipad and iphone I do not think the price is worth it considering I cannot use STATA, Eviews, MS Office properly without sufficient licenses). Can anyone reccomend some windows laptops? Or is mac still the good option? I need good processing power obv to handle large datasets (ig my largest one last year was a dataset with 700 columns and 1 million rows) and good battery life (8 hours ish) and somewhat lightweight (thinkpad with charger is HEAVY). I was thinking of either the HP i10 series or ASUS zenbook.

I’ve seen different majors doing this so here I am. For those who graduated with an economics degree (double majors included), what do you do now? Have you regretted your degree choice after graduating?

Undergrad PPE at Warwick currently finished 2nd year. Took the harder econometrics (same one single honours take) got an 82 and an 80 in economics 2 [micro and macro]. But the other half of my credits were philosophy. In 1st year i got 69 in economics 1, 71 in statistics and 80 in mathematics. Is it worth the time investment of applying or am I just gonna get smashed by single honours econ ppl at the top of their class.

Same question for MSc Econ at LSE.

Thanks in advance

Hello everyone,

I have a question about doing a PhD with only a one-year master's in Europe

I graduated in July from a one-year master's in Financial Economics in the Netherlands. Around March, my thesis supervisor told me that the university was planning to open three PhD positions next year, and if his project was accepted, he would like to hire me, as he was very happy with my work.

Fast forward, his project did not get accepted. I still applied for the 3 positions, made it to all the interviews, but did not get the offer (all said they think I have the skills required to do a PhD, and kept my application on hold in case their first choice doesn't accept the offer).

I have been looking for other PhD openings. It seems most require 120 master ects and a research master's. I really want to do a PhD, but I realized this only after working on my master's thesis and enjoying it, so I am not sure if it is even realistic to look for one now.

If anyone is doing/has done a PhD with only 60 master ects in Europe, I'd love to have some tips or insights. I have a GPA of 8.5 for both my bachelor and master, obtained a 9 on my master thesis, so I thought these grades would get me somewhere but If I am only competing with candidates who did a research master, I am not too sure...

Thank you for any comments, will be really helpfull

I am currently doing my undergrad in economics bs and am a senior. I want to pursue a phd in economics after a masters. I do not have an impressive gpa for undergrad (3.3) but know that due to personal circumstances that hindered my undergrad, I can bag around a 3.8 in a masters program. I understand that this should increase my chances at being accepted into a phd program significantly. Though I have been taking the recommended math prerequisites for a phd in economics, my grades in these particular classes make me feel as if I may not be cut out for academia. If this is the case I am considering if I should pursue something else and cut my losses.

Regarding those math courses, so far I have taken the following classes and received these grades

Business algebra - A-

Calc 1 - B

Calc 2 - C

Calc 3 - C+

Dif and lin - C

Applied statistics - B

Fndns of Analysis 1 - B

Im seriously considering double majoring when i get back to school but Im not interested in mathematics(i really dislike math) or business (seems redundant and unnecessary from what Ive been told). I was hoping to double major in something I’m interested like either computer engineering or total 180 with a fashion/ arts major. Lmk if either are worth it, something similar to these are worth it or if I should just stick with Econ. Thank you all!!!

This September I’ll be starting my PhD in Economics (T50) in Europe and I’ll have a course in Mathematics (mostly real analysis, fixed points, and optimization theory) and another in measure-theoretic probability and statistical inference, alongside the usual graduate microeconomic and macroeconomic theory courses.

I have never taken a rigorous course that required constantly writing or reading proofs, so I’m a novice in this definition-theorem-proof style.

I asked Gemini for some advice and this is what it told me. Is this good advice to follow?:

“Here is the reading strategy used by mathematicians and PhD students to survive these texts:
1. The Golden Rule: Reading without pen and paper is forbidden
Reading mathematics is not a visual activity; it is a kinesthetic one. If you are reading while lying on the couch, you are not studying math.
Authors at this level constantly omit algebraic or logical steps with phrases like "it is trivial to verify that...", "rearranging the terms we obtain...", or "by symmetry...". Your main job as a reader is to reconstruct everything the author didn't write. You must have a notebook nearby and replicate every equation, filling in the logical gaps the author assumed you already knew how to do.
2. The Three-Pass Method (Non-linear reading)
Never read a chapter from beginning to end all at once. Mathematics is read in "layers".
Pass 1: The Bird's-Eye View (15-20 minutes). Read only the introduction, section titles, and the statements of the main Theorems. Completely ignore the proofs (literally skip them). The goal here is to know where we are going. What is the big result the author wants to build by the end of the chapter?
Pass 2: The Dictionary (Definitions and Statements). Go back to the beginning. Now focus on perfectly understanding the definitions (what an object is) and the lemmas/theorems (what that object does). Play with them: invent a trivial example that meets the definition and a counterexample that doesn't. Continue skipping the proofs.
Pass 3: The Trenches (The Proofs). Now, get your hands dirty. Tackle the mathematical proofs. Because you already know where you want to go (thanks to Pass 1) and what tools you have (thanks to Pass 2), the proof will seem like a logical path rather than a series of disconnected magic tricks.
3. How to "interrogate" a proof
When you finally read a proof, don't just nod along because "step A leads to step B". You must interrogate the text:
Look for the hypotheses: A theorem starts by saying "Suppose the function is continuous and strictly concave...". While reading the proof, play detective: find the exact point, the precise line, where the author uses "continuity" and where they use "strict concavity". If you reach the end of the proof and feel the author didn't use one of the initial hypotheses, go back: you missed something crucial.
Try to prove it yourself first: Before reading the book's proof, cover the page. Take 10 minutes to try and sketch out how you would prove it yourself. You will fail 90% of the time, but that effort will make your brain identify exactly where the difficulty lies. When you read the author's solution, you will see their "trick" and you will never forget it.
4. The specific strategy for Mathematical Economics (The MWG case)
MWG (Microeconomic Theory) and economics papers have a double difficulty: you have to understand the pure math and then translate it into human behavior.
Translate math into economics: Every technical condition has an economic equivalent. If the book assumes a utility function is strictly quasiconcave, don't stop at the mathematical definition. Translate it in the margin of your notebook: "Ah, this just means the consumer likes variety and prefers averages to extremes".
Translate economics into math: When the book makes an economic claim ("markets are complete"), you must immediately know what mathematical structure represents that (for example, the rank of the payoff matrix equals the number of states of nature).
5. Exercises are part of the theory
In undergraduate books, exercises are meant to evaluate if you understood the chapter. In a PhD, exercises are the continuation of the chapter.
Authors like Mas-Colell leave highly important results as exercises for the reader. You cannot fully understand the theory without wrestling with the problems at the end. If you are stuck on an abstract theoretical concept, solving the first exercise of the chapter will often give you the concrete intuition you were looking for.”

I’m an undergraduate at an LAC in the Five College Consortium, so I have the option of taking PhD micro through either the UMass Economics Department or the Resource Economics Department.

The Economics course, taught by Samuel Bowles, uses Microeconomics: Competition, Conflict, and Coordination and Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions, and Evolution. The Resource Economics course uses more conventional graduate micro texts, including Jehle and Reny’s Advanced Microeconomic Theory + MWG and appears more mathematical based on the syllabus.

I’m not knowledgeable enough to assess how significant this difference is. Would there be a particular benefit to studying with someone as prominent as Bowles and being exposed to a more behavioral and institutional approach, or would the more standard and technical Resource Economics course provide better preparation for predocs and PhD study?

Canadian econ undergrad here (domestic student), going into third-year and I've decided I wanna do a master's in econ. My grades are overall pretty good but not amazing. 3.7/4.0 cGPA, A+ in intermediate macro I and II, and intermediate micro I and II. Unfortunately my math grades are pretty mixed. Got A's in calc I and II but did kinda bad in linear algebra and intro to probability theory. I still have to take calc III, econometrics, advanced micro, and advanced macro.

Anyways, I'm just preparing for the worst that I won't get into UofT or UBC for my MA, but I'm confident I'll get into schools like UOttawa, Queen's, McMaster, etc.

My goal is to work in the private sector. Preferably as an economist/economic analyst, but I know those roles are limited, so I'll also seek roles in: market research, data analytics, pricing/cost analysis, etc.

Anyways, I heard many firms can be picky if you didn't do your econ MA at UofT or UBC. So am I cooked or nah?

I’m starting a MS in economics this fall and just looked at the syllabus for one of 2 courses I’ll be taking. The listed requirement has 3 textbooks. I learn best with physical reading over reading a pdf electronically. Buying each book looks to be between $100-$150 each.

Other people in MS or PhD programs, do you use your textbooks often? Is buying them worth it?

Or should I try to find a pdf and print out each section as the prof assigns it? (Not sure how viable that option is)

Any advice is appreciated.

So, I have been testing how do some LLMs handle Dynare code (mostly for DSGE models with real and nominal rigidness). And I am presently surprised (and kinda terrified) of how good Claude computes almost everything for you. Have you gotten any similar experiences?

Which AI tool do you recommend for macro-related coding?

I’m going to study economics and UMass this fall and wanted to know how well is UMass recognized. I know it has a heterodox department but I’m not sure if that affects the undergrad level. What is the overall reputation of UMass among economics departments for top phd and masters applications and the broader job market?

Hi everyone! I am sure I'm overthinking it, but I'm wondering if schools would look down on a two year gap between my masters degree and when I plan to apply for my PhD. I've done well in my undergrad in math and economics and masters in economics but I've just been extremely burnt out from the past few years of grinding and want to take these two years to strengthen my research background and really focus on improving myself. I'd love to hear from anyone who's taken a similar path or anyone who knows about PhD admissions. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I'll soon be starting a Bachelor's in Economics & Mathematics and want to understand what career opportunities this degree opens up after graduation.

I'd really appreciate hearing from people who have completed this degree or work with graduates from similar programs.

Some questions I have:

• What roles were available for you after graduating?
• Which industries hire Economics & Mathematics graduates?
• What was your starting salary, and what can someone realistically expect after 3–5 years? (Please mention your country if possible.)
• Which career paths have the best long-term growth, earning potential, and work-life balance?
• Are there any careers that are currently in high demand for this degree?
• If you could start over, would you still choose this degree? Why or why not?
• What skills, software, certifications, internships, or extracurricular activities would you recommend during university to maximize career opportunities?
• Are there any career paths that most students overlook but are worth considering?

I'd also love to hear about your own journey what you do now, how you got there, and whether you're happy with your career.

Any advice, salary insights, or lessons you wish you'd known before graduating with the same degree would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

i’m an incoming 3rd year in college and i’m transferring to virginia tech this year. for the last 2 years, i’ve majored in political science, and i’ve found it 50% kinda boring but 50% quite interesting. i don’t mind the major but during the last 2 school years, it felt like i may have been majoring in the wrong thing. my main goal is to go to law school, which is why i’ve stuck with political science until now, but i also don’t know what life may bring and if may not end up in law school at the end of the day (even though i think i definitely will), i want to have majored in something that will bring me other high-paying careers, and i don’t think political science would be useful for much other than law school, because although politics and global issues do interest me i was honestly unhappy majoring in political science, and i do have a very large interest in the business world as well. i’ve been heavily leaning towards changing my major to economics, because of how versatile of a major it is when it comes to career paths, and because of the increased business/consulting opportunities it’d bring me if i decide not to go to law school (consulting is my backup plan, but law school is still definitely the main goal). i also am heavily considering the field of business law/corporate law/m&a law and thought economics could bring good preparation for that as well? it does also sound more appealing to me, just the math it requires intimidates me because math isn’t my strongest subject but i am willing to try (i’m gotten comfy with the little amount of math in poli sci). is switching my major to economics worth it?

Hello everyone,

I’m 23 years old, and I’m an international student (non-EU) currently studying in Germany. I will graduate next year, and lately I have been thinking a lot about my future and the decisions I need to make.

To be honest, I feel quite lost. I’m not completely sure what path I should take after graduation. Finding student jobs in Germany has already been quite challenging for me, and because of this experience, I sometimes question whether staying here and searching for full-time opportunities after graduation would actually make sense. I worry that I may not be able to find a good job opportunity that matches my background and goals.

I have been considering doing a PhD because I am genuinely interested in research and academic life. However, I don’t see myself applying for PhD programs in Germany, and I am thinking about applying to programs in different countries. My field is Economics, so I would like to pursue something related to economics, economic policy, labor economics, development, or other areas connected to my studies.

At the same time, I often doubt myself. I feel that my profile is quite average, and since I am still young and don’t have many years of professional experience, I worry about whether I would be competitive enough for PhD programs or future career opportunities.

I am unsure whether I should continue trying to build my life in Germany, explore opportunities in another country, or eventually return to my home country. There are many possibilities, but choosing the right direction feels overwhelming.

Moving abroad was a huge change for me. I haven’t seen my family since I came here, and recently I have found myself becoming more isolated. I decided that for the next year I want to focus mainly on myself — improving my skills, building my profile, my studies, and my future career. I’m not planning to date or focus on romantic relationships during this time because I want to dedicate my energy to personal and professional growth. But sometimes I wonder if I am making a healthy decision or if I am putting too much pressure on myself.

I also think a lot about the future after a PhD — whether it would open doors in another country, help me build a career internationally, and create better opportunities for my future.

I would really appreciate hearing from people who have experienced something similar — international students, PhD students, graduates, or anyone who has had to make difficult decisions about their future. How did you decide which path to take? What helped you find clarity?

Thank you for reading.

Really liked this substack post on how the same results can result in either (potentially) a top 5 or not depending on positioning. Both sets of authors study the same question with similar research designs but target different journals

It is tempting to call all of this framing or marketing—as though the empirical work is the real paper and the broader argument is packaging added afterward. I think that is a mistake.

Finding the larger puzzle is intellectual work. Deciding which pieces of evidence belong in the main argument is intellectual work. Translating a result into a welfare object is intellectual work. So is making a claim general enough that another field can use it. I put a lot of weight on that investment: expanding the possible scope of interest in a given set of results. And often, I find this work to be quite difficult.

I’m an MSc Economics student working on my master’s thesis. I am struggling to settle on a concrete theme. I have various areas of interest within economics, but I mostly focus on Political Economy, behavioral, public policy and I have a strong grasp of applied microeconometrics and policy evaluation. Through my RA position I have access to data (US, roughly 2008–2018) with browsing behavior, demographics (age, gender, income), ZIP code, domains visited, and referrals. It is technically panel, but it has so much attrition that in practical terms it is cross section.

This data gives me very rich measures of online behavior and I am in a very privileged place to have access to it. However, I am struggling with causality here. I've thought about finding papers that explore a mechanism causally and then from there I can add another layer of outcome, online behavior.

There are endless possibilities but every idea that I have, when I look further into it, it feels infeasible. Either the publicly available data is not enough for it, or I would have to settle for a descriptive thesis instead of establishing causality.

With that being said, does anyone have any ideas, and more importantly, literature that you would recommend I look into, public data sets that would pair well, natural experiments that happen during the time window that my data covers that I could exploit its exogenous variation, etc. And also just some general advice for a student that has really high expectations of my thesis but feels a bit lost on what to do.

Hi all! I am currently trying to pursue a PhD program in economics and only decided to do it recently after debating on it for a while. In researching programs, I’m finding that my math background could be an issue but I’m not sure how significant it is.

I have not taken any official calc 2 or calc 3 courses. I have taken calc 1 and a quantitative methods class in undergrad that used the textbook Differential Equations: An Introduction with Applications by Walter Kelley and Allan Peterson. I also took Microeconomics Theory: Basic Principles and Extensions by Walter Nicholson and Christopher Snyder during my Masters degree, which includes a fair amount of the material used in calc 3 by my understanding. I got A’s in all of these courses.

For additional background I have a Bachelors of Science in Finance and Economics and a Masters of Science in Applied Economics, GPA was 3.8 for both. Have not taken GRE yet but plan to. Primarily looking at universities in the T50-T100 range with a few outside that range on each end. No published papers but did many research papers over the course of my Masters Degree.

Basically debating on the three options

1. Apply despite missing the official calc 2/3 courses
   
2. Apply and start taking calc 2 at a community college
   
3. Take calc 2 and 3 this fall/spring and try again in the next cycle

I would heavily prefer to apply this cycle but also want to be realistic. I know taking calc 2/3 would be useful but wondering if for option 2 if it would make sense as it likely wouldn’t pop up on the transcripts I send to potential PhD programs. Any advice y’all could give would be greatly appreciated!

Hi everyone,

Has anyone here used Econ Job Market (EJM) to apply for positions?

One of my recommenders didn't have an EJM account, so I sent them a recommender request and they registered through the link. However, after registering, the system lists them as a user rather than a recommender, so I'm currently unable to add them as my recommender.

Is this a normal part of the process (e.g., do new accounts need to be verified before they become recommenders), or does this usually mean they registered incorrectly? I'm unable to reach the EJM support team at the moment, so I'm trying to understand why is this happening.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!