Some people might not realize this, but with the influx of AI-produced papers, top journals are now just desk rejecting anything that reads like AI slop. It doesn't even matter if your underlying idea and method is Nobel-worthy, because no one wants to read AI slop. We already deal with it daily with Claude Code.

Don't even try to get away with this because AI slop is very, very obvious to a human.

Source: was talking to editors at top journals.

I am a PhD student who's working on a draft. Every word in this post is typed with my own hands.

Ever since Opus 5.5 launched, I am becoming more and more skeptical of my own abilities. I used to think I code better than most students in Economics, but recently when I needed to make edits to my code, that I coded from scratch back then, Claude is doing a better job than me, it "understands" my past work and their dependencies, then proposes changes that work in the first try, while my edits break things down the line and need iterations.

Then I started using Claude to implement entirely new codes and run new analyses using data that I collected. Then Claude starts to pull new data from the web when needed. Then Claude wrote the draft, the critique, and the rewritten draft. I still stand to fact check everything that Claude writes, I polish writings, I read my entire paper but I don't read every line of code.

I feel like I only came up with the idea and Claude did most of the work that a grad student is supposed to do. What should I say when people ask me "Did you write this paper?" or "How did you fit this structural equation model?" (I didn't, Claude did all the coding from scratch; when the first pass was not good, I just gave it more data and ask it to fit again and so on). This doesn't seem right as a grad student, but I can hardly take "then you should use less AI and hand code your project" as the answer; I am caught in this revolution that's bigger than me or my thesis chapter and I just can't say no.

I am currently an Economics and Mathematics undergraduate at the US, and I have been considering applying to the Graduate Institute Geneva (IHEID) for its Master's in International Economics track. My school has a joint BA-MA partnership with IHEID that would allow me to receive financial aid for the first year towards the degree which is a big factor in why I am considering it. I would, frankly, also really love the opportunity to study and live in Switzerland! I am also considering pursuing an Economics PhD eventually, most likely in econometrics.

I am a junior and have taken math courses (A's) including real and complex analysis, probability theory, smooth manifolds and geometry, fields/galois theory, as well as upper-level economics and econometrics courses. I am also currently taking PhD microeconomics and have been doing well so far, although it's still early in the semester... I have been involved in research since early in undergrad, including some development economics projects, and I am hoping to write an undergraduate thesis...

One of my professors was actually somewhat hesitant about recommending IHEID when I initially brought it up although we were discussing the Master's in International and Development Studies (MINT) at the time. She was not as familiar with the International Economics program and mentioned that she would look into it further, but nothing back yet. So I am also hoping to get some additional perspectives from people who might be more familiar with the economics program specifically.

I'd really appreciate thoughts insights, especially from anyone familiar with the program and its PhD placements. Thank you so much!

Hello everyone! I wanted to ask if anyone knows of, is currently in, or has graduated from UND’s M.S. in Applied Economics and Predictive Analytics? I am about to finish my undergrad with my economics B.A. and Statistics B.S. and feel that UND’s online program seems appealing, as I am going to be working full-time after graduation. Any help is greatly appreciated!

I’m currently completing my master's in economics and would like to apply for an integrated(US-style) PhD program in Sweden and Germany. I'm currently interested in Bonn, LMU, Stockholm, Stockholm School of Economics, Uppsala and Lund. I would greatly appreciate any advice or insights you might have about the application process.

Do they have an interview in the process? Are they flexible in choosing a research direction after finishing the first year of coursework? Or do I need to stick to the research proposal submitted in the application?

My master's supervisor would only submit 15 references for my application, so I must carefully decide which programme to apply for.

If you’ve already pursued (or are pursuing) an economics PhD in Sweden or Germany, I’d love to hear about your experiences.

I just found out that Paul Novosad, one of the most prolific dev economists right now, did his undergrad in English. Then a masters in policy at Harvard and then the PhD in Political Economy from Harvard and is now an associate professor at Dartmouth. There's also someone who did their PhD in sustainable development in Columbia and is now an assistant professor in econ at UC Berkeley.

I think people who did engineering, mathematics or related fields in undergrad/masters and then moved on to economics (usually theoretical) for PhDs is not uncommon. But I'm curious about more unconventional ones, especially people who became professors.

Sorry for the random tag! I didn't know what to tag it as.

I recently made a video that explores economic forecasting. It's rather long, the econometric portion starts at the 10 minute mark. I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks.

https://youtu.be/QXLkuZ1m3k8

I’m interested in applying to PhD programmes at Warwick, and there are two programmes, one offered by the Department of Economics and another from WBS. It seems WBS's programme requires a dissertation in Finance, but I haven't done anything related to Finance so far. I'd like to know if it is still possible to be admitted with all application materials in another area of economics.

Also, I'd like to know some information about interviews at Warwick. What will they ask, and how should I prepare for it

I'm sharing an blog post about how to use Dyno into JupyterLite/NoteBook.link: https://notebook.link/blog/dyno-in-the-browser/
the demo is here: https://notebook.link/github/EconForge/dyno-short-demo/?path=01_getting_started.ipynb

I’m from India, have an undergraduate degree in B.Com. (Hons.), am a CFA charterholder, and have 3 years of experience in buy side equity research.
I’ve always been interested in macroeconomics and want to move into global macro investing, macro hedge funds or investment teams that allocate capital across global markets based on macroeconomic research. Opportunities in this area are limited in India, where most investment teams focus on domestic markets, so I’m considering a master’s abroad.
My first choice was LSE MSc Economics. I am planning to apply, but I’m not very optimistic about my chances given my undergrad wasnt in Economics, my quant profile is not that strong and GMAT Focus score of just 645. I’m now considering UBC’s MA Economics.

Can anyone help me understand if
my profile is competitive for UBC, and would the programme be a good route into macro research or investing? How realistic is it to find these roles in Canada after graduation, or eventually move into the broader North American or global market?
Would appreciate insights from anyone familiar with the programme or these career paths. Thanks!

So currently I have a Dell window pc. Been having it for 3 years and it always makes a sound. And it is really glitchy. I thought ab buying a MacBook Neo, that I only can use for school 80-90%. Do u think it is ok to buy it. And will it run like ok and do the work. A bachelor here where I live is 3 years and a master is 5. so I am just really curious, because the Dell I have rn really runs bad

Edit: just ordered it, I also asked the IT guy at the school and he said it has already what you need downloaded so no need to worry. It will just work fine for 5-6 years prob. And I am most likely only going to use it for school😁 so I think it will be great. Need to see ofc

like for real if you understand math and stats, you can see that econ is just an applied version of these subjects, all micro is basically mathematical programming, then for econometrics you have stats and probability theory, for macro just linear algebra plus stochastic optimization. Like a mathematician or a statistician should be allowed to talk about econ because they actually understand the models in depth, they know the language, often you see these political science guys or other social sciences trying to talk about economics when its none of their business to talk about econ because they dont understand our language.

Hey guys. So I am a senior in my undergrad program right now. I graduate in a couple of months. I am having an issue with what I want to do moving forward. As an undergrad, I have made very special relationships with my professors. I do research with one of them, and we have published two papers together and are working on another for a conference. This particular professor recommended that I look into a PhD. They think I would be a great fit and could see me doing it. I was very excited. I am a first-gen student, and anything I know about academia is really from my own trial and error and listening to the experiences of my professors. Once I learned about PhD programs I was very excited. I have always wanted to be a professor, and I really do like research.

I guess this is the problem: I know my chances of getting into a program are already low. I'm not even aiming for a crazy top school, but my GPA is good but not great, and my schooling doesn't have any crazy math courses, as I've read from other students on here. I have hit a bout of depression during this semester, which I am prioritizing at the moment. The depression, though, has made me rethink so many things. I was so excited to try for a PhD program, but now I don't know what I am doing anymore. Is it even worth trying? Is it even what I want? I don't fully know what all goes into a PhD. Does that make me dumb? lol. I feel like I am having a mid-life crisis as a 25yo undergrad.

Would a master's better my chances and understanding of PhD programs and life?
I should also add that I have about 6 years of experience in my current career and believe I could land a great job after graduation. I just don't want to miss my chance of becoming a professor or what could be.

Also, my areas of interest are public economics, gender economics, and the economics of education.

So my question here is, what has been your experience? Was the PhD worth it? What is life like? What is academia like? Is the master's first a good plan?

I typically just doomscroll this sub and get depressed but I'm hoping for some genuine pathway forward because I really do want to do an econ PhD. Have tagged this as PhD admissions but this is NOT solely a PhD app post (sorry!)

Undergrad in econ with some additional math courses I took on the side. T5 department in South Asia. Undergrad GPA is around 3.4/4. Have As in core micro theory courses and econometrics, Bs in core macro theory courses. Electives are kind of all over the place. Have As in Calc and Multivar Cal and Bs in Advanced Stats, Linear Algebra and Real Analysis. Have As in all thesis components. Have spent the last two years working as a research fellow for the department (which also included teaching duties akin to a TA but responsible for taking tutorials as well). Graduated around a year ago.

Research: Extensively with one senior professor. Started out in their course where I performed well and was then their RA in my third year and worked my way up to them asking me to co-author another paper with them. This paper has been fairly well received and both of us have separately presented it at several well known conferences both here and outside. Aiming for an R&R in at least a top field journal by summer of next year. In genera,l have done very extensive work with them and they'll be a great letter for me. Primary letter writer and fairly confident to be very personal.

Other than this, second letter writer is a very well known senior economist (RePec ranked and all), did a course under them, performed well, did a research component under them, also did well. Got As in both. Strong letter in terms of name recognition but probably fairly generic.

Also have some other RA stints with CS profs that were an incredible learning experience in terms of learning strong coding skills. Top was probably building a BERT encoder for semantic modelling for political speeches.

Lowkey struggling for a third letter but if I do need a third letter will probably use an assistant professor who knows me very well and will write a strong personal letter but will likely not carry much weight in terms of getting me anywhere on the margin.

Personal caveat: Over the past year on the side, I've scraped and cleaned a particular set of really unique propertiary data that I would ideally like to eventually use in a PhD. I know it won't matter in any applications but at the very least it does give me something interesting to spend a paragraph of my personal statement on. I can genuinely see myself using this data for my JMP or something some day.

Interests: Fairly broad and very open but political and public economics. I'm particularly interested in seeing how regulators and institutions enforce regulations and how agents differentially react to them.

Aim is to eventually (hopefully) get into a T40-50 PhD but I know it won't cut it now. I'm asking for genuine advice on how to get past my obstacles so I can apply in a year or two. If I do a masters I need to ideally get into one that can give me at least one additional letter writer and better academic transcripts. But I'm also looking for at least partial funding so :(

I've looked at PSE APE and CEMFI but still looking for more options! Or just general advice. Please be nice😭

ETA: Have not taken GRE yet but aiming for a 167Q.

I'm in my final year of undergrad, hoping to apply to several research scholarships as I apply to Master's programs! I'm interested in industrial organization, applied microeconomics, and the theory of regulation.

I'm finding it difficult to narrow these interests into a relevant, answerable question. It's difficult to know where to start.

Any advice is welcome!

https://www.reuters.com/world/hall-woodford-win-2026-nobel-economics-prize-2026-10-12/

Richard B. Freeman, Danxia Xie, Hanzhe Zhang, and Hanzhang Zhou, "High and Rising Institutional Concentration of Award-Winning Economists," NBER Working Paper 35875 (2026), https://doi.org/10.3386/w35875.

Hey! I am a Economics student in the University of Bologna. I realized after looking online, this is an extremely prestige dependent field, and was wondering if it is better for me to switch to maybe mechanical or electrical engineering at the polytechnic university of milan. I talked to some seniors pursuing Econ masters at Bocconi and LSE and they advised me to take stem subjects like maths or stats. My only objective is to land a high paying job, preferabbly something to do with economics, and I see that major banks prefer hiring engineering graduates from polimi compared to econ grads from bologna as well! I am good at maths and physics, so I can handle engineering course work, it's just that economics interested me more and why I decided to pursue it in the first place. Any advice on this is highly appreciated!

Thanks!

I am considering applying to Master in Economics at the University of Mannheim, and need some advice. Their admission is like this:

Final grade (max 15 points)
Letter of motivation (7, 4 or 1 point)
Academic essay (13, 7 or 1 point)!!
Very good/Good/Satisfactory.

*Essay information: «The essay should deal with topics in economics, econometrics or statistics and/or apply quantitative methods, such as regression analysis or other data driven methods. (…) No longer than 25 pages (…)
A good research paper implies a clear initial presentation of the ressearch question. Relevant concepts and theoretical apptoches need to be adequatly discussed. If applicable, the methodological choices need to be justified. The analysis needs to focus on the research question. The paper should end with a well-argued synthesis that supports the conclusions. (…) fluently written and is consistent in its firm»*

I don’t have a bachelor thesis or similar. Any advice on this, if im planning on writing this from scratch, if I want it to be ‘very good’? Anyone who has done something like this aswell successfully? The full score is pretty important, as the essay is heavily weighted. Also welcome any advice on the motivation letter in general.