Attitudes of Economics Graduate Students

Economic Logic Blog  (a consistently good source) points to a new paper by David Colander and colleagues on how students from median graduate schools think compared to those from the top ones.

How Do Median Graduate Economic Programs Differ from Top-ranked Programs? Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
David Colander (colander@middlebury.edu)
Tiziana Dominguez
Gail Hoyt
KimMarie McGoldrick

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a survey of median economics graduate programs and compares it with the results of a survey of top economics graduate programs done by Colander. Overall it finds that while there are some differences in the programs, there are large areas of similarity. Some of the particular finding are that there are more US respondents in median programs than in top programs, median students have more interest in econometrics, history of thought and economic literature than do students at top programs, although after the fifth year, their interest in any field drops significantly. It also finds that students at top schools are much more likely to be involved in writing scholarly papers, and that students at top schools give far less emphasis to excellence in mathematics as a path to the fast track than do students at median schools.