Math Camp for Economics Graduate Students
Thursday August 7, 2008
Eclectecon is not a fan of math camp for Ph.D. students and believes a camp in the 'economic way of thinking' would be more valuable:
The problem is that in graduate economics programmes, we have learned that the surest way to have students churn out dissertations that might lead to some piddly publications is to admit math and science majors who know little or no economics. These students excel at math and do not need a "math camp". But they don't know any economics.I cannot disagree more. Find out why in: Math Camp for Economics Graduate Students.
If we are going to require incoming graduate students to take "math camp", then it is even more important that we require them to take "Alchian and Allen" camp; more than math camp, we should give them a two-week course "the economic way of thinking."
Comments
What is the “economic way of thinking?” I see this explained in textbooks all the time as thinking “rationally” where “rationality” is typically defined as behavior that maximizes some strategic function (utility) subject to some constraint. So my question is, aren’t the “economic way of thinking” (at least the way many mainstream economic texts read) and the “math” way of thinking really one and the same?
It seems the Federal Reserve Bank would agree with my assessment:http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/03-09/econ.cfm
It further seems that what we need is a little less math, a little less thinking like closed-box economists, and a little more thinking like the holistic scientists we are suppose to be.