raghu wrote: > I thought Berkeley was one of the better schools - where economic > history has not been completely banished etc..
It's been a long time since I went to grad school at Berkeley (when I was there, dinosaurs still roamed the earth or at least Telegraph Avenue). Mathematics had the highest prestige at the time, though I was able to take history of ideas and US economic history. I don't really know what's happened since, but we once hired one of their graduates. He insisted on learning set theory even though he didn't need it. I'd say that despite the mathematical orientation, UC-Berkeley is still a very good department. For example, a lot of departments will teach the Arrow-Debreu general equilibrium model, but at UC-B we were told: "with all of the assumptions that are required for general equilibrium to exist, it's unlikely to occur." It's not a Chicago/dogma type of place. Excessive math focus is a different illness than a _laissez-faire_ orientation. To get some idea of what's going on, here's something from their web-site: Year 1 Course Requirements * Mathematics Requirement: Fulfilled by ... a one semester course on mathematical tools in economics. [this wasn't required when I was there, though econ. theory included a lot of this.] * Economic History Requirement:... a one semester survey course on central themes in Economic History. * Economic Theory Requirement ... a year of microeconomic and macroeconomic theory. * Econometrics Requirement: ... a year of econometric theory, methods, and applications. [I don't think it was a year when I took it.] Year 2 Field Qualifying Examinations Every graduate student must take written qualifying examinations in two fields of specialization. Students prepare for these examinations in the second year by completing graduate courses offered in their chosen fields. It is Department policy that students be prepared in at least one applied field to avoid narrow specialization at this stage of their careers. Fields available in the Economics Department: * Advanced Economic Theory * Comparative Economics * Development Economics * Econometrics * Economic Demography * Economic History * Economics of Institutions [an addition] * Finance [an addition] * Financial Economics [also an addition] * Industrial Organization * International Economics * Labor Economics * Law and Economics * Macroeconomics * Mathematical Economics * Political Economics [I'm sure that this means something different from what it meant in 1980] * Psychology and Economics [new!] * Public Finance -- Jim Devine / If you're going to support the lesser of two evils, you should at least know the nature of that evil. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
