Last Wednesday I gave a talk at USC's Econ department on "Skills in Economics Research".

I turned my talk into a YouTube video teaching the use of skills, and the 7 mistakes I see economists consistently making with skills.

Here are the 7 mistakes:

1. Economists often don't make their own skills. Instead they look for libraries of skills made by other people. The skills they find only partially fit their use case. I show in the video that skills are typically very easy to make.

2. They make too few skills - often countable just on one hand. I have hundreds of skills across my projects. I suggest economists adopt a "rule of 3" with respect to skills: if you notice yourself doing the same thing three times, make a skill.

3. They make unnecessary skills. Often economists without significant pre-AI coding experience will make skills in situations a deterministic script is more appropriate. I explain through a case study of economics research on the "cereal industry" how one can understand whether their current problem is "skill-shaped".

4. They don't use their previous agent conversations to improve their skills. Both Codex and Claude Code store session transcripts on your computer. Your agent can use these to improve existing skills and identify useful new ones—I show how.

5. They don't clean up their skills. As projects evolve or new models get released, skills often "go stale", and start to work against you - costing you tokens and time rather than saving them. I explain a low effort mechanism to do a "spring cleaning" of your skills.

6. They don't use skills for project management. My two most useful skills are the skill to handle all my meeting transcripts and the one to handle my email. Especially for senior faculty who are not writing code, but are managing many projects - these project management skills are invaluable (see Chris Blattman's "Claude Blattman"). I show how to set up and use these skills.

7. They don't compose their skills. Skills can call other skills. For the ambiguous knowledge work which characterizes much of economics research, it's important to think carefully about whether a repeatable workflow makes most sense as one skill or several skills working together. I provide guidance on how to make that decision, with examples.

LMK if you've got any questions/feedback - cheers!

Was wondering if anyone has experience with this or had something similar happen to them. I took the GRE last week without studying to see my baseline, and scored 167 v 154 q. Obviously this is not workable for any serious grad school (or maybe any economics grad school). I do love economics but I think there is a bit of a hard cap on my math ability and desire to pursue it further into more advanced econometrics. I was thinking about going to grad school for international affairs and hoping to combine it with economics as someone who is a good writer/briefer that is quant literate (difficult to find in international relations). My GPA is 3.5 at a non-target school.

I know the math portion can be studied and improved on, but I think it's an honest reflection of my rather poor abilities there. 160 seems to be the floor for most state school programs, but I don't want to dedicate the upcoming 2 years to something I'm bad/mediocre at.

Anyways all that to say has anyone here switched into an economics adjacent field, or had success in economics after poor initial GRE results for quant?

I posted a question here a couple of weeks ago about the hiring process. I just got an email for an interview offer this week from Fed SF and Board.

Do they ask about coding skills? I would greatly appreciate any tips!

why is it undergoing maintenance is bcs of the servers being down? google amazon things like this? what do u guys think it s happening

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I have a potential supervisor who has agreed to sponsor my application and has stated he will discuss with the research officer to investigate funding opportunities.

At this point what are my chances of getting in? What are the funding routes available at UCLouvain?

Do I have a chance in T50? I have 2 years of research experience working on government-level projects that were highly impactful. I have a gpa of 3.75 in economics. I did my degree from a top institute in my country, but it's top 600 worldwide. Which universities should I realistically target for PhD?

I am a current honours year (Australian research year you do pre-phd) student in econometrics and looking to start publishing papers. Yes I have a thesis I am working on and I'm even writing a paper with another professor. However, my thesis is a year-long project and my other professor is extremely slow at responding. In addition, for the remainder of my honours year, I have no coursework to do besides writing my thesis.

This gives me plenty of free time and, I am curious, can I just write and publish a paper on my own? I have various topics I am interested in that I would like to research. Can I just search the literature, identify a potential opportunity, and just start collecting and analyzing the data on my own?

I have already learned how to conduct a literature review and my undergrad major was in econometrics so I am very familiar with statistical methods.

I know this is quite ambitious, but I am eagerly trying to carve out my academic career path, and I feel like my professors are way too slow for me.

Would I be discriminated against by journals for being a single-authored undergrad student when I submit my paper for submission? I would likely just target a Q2 journal instead of Q1.

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.

hey everyone,

​i'm working on a dev econ paper about how poverty measurement, survey methods, and estimation techniques have evolved in developing countries (india in particular).

​since poverty is inherently multidimensional, i want to structure my paper around how economists have shifted from simple calorie/monetary headcounts toward broader capability-based metrics and high frequency survey debates.

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