This is a collection of resources that might be useful if you are considering applying to a graduate program in Economics. Many of these are external links, so please do let us know if there is a link that is broken, or if there is something that should be added.
Compilation of resources: https://sites.google.com/view/econgradadvice/
Resources from the AEA on preparing for graduate school and suggested timeline
Advice from Susan Athey: https://athey.people.stanford.edu/professional-advice
Advice from Dick Startz: https://startz.weebly.com/getting-an-econ-phd.html
Advice from Alvin Christian: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QozD6_4_bvMd2o-q-yh9Doc5aQ6i3nPV/view
Advice from Chris Blattman: https://chrisblattman.com/about/contact/gradschool/
Advice from Jesse Shapiro: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/shapiro/files/phdnotes.pdf
Guide on applying to economics PhD programs by Ben Davies: https://bldavies.com/blog/applying-economics-phd-programs/
Survey results of economics PhD program admission members (Jones et al. 2020): https://doi.org/10.1080/00220485.2020.1731385
Guide for business school PhD applications by Megan Gorges and Stephen Turban: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15R5iPHy4qcnY3KKH559eODYqwqv7FIuL/view
General advice for international students
Guide for international students by Chakravorty et al.: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cTb8enoUZxFKscidXYwojK3bXSjb7dxr
Guide by Rachel Meager: https://economics.com.au/2012/03/27/for-the-ambitious-prospective-phd-student-a-guide/
Section by Chris Blattman for international students: https://chrisblattman.com/about/contact/gradschool/
Resources for applicants from across Africa: https://gain-network.net/resources
Resources from applicants from South America by EconThaki: https://econthaki.github.io/recursos/2021/01/05/recursos.html
Blog post by Chris Blattman: https://chrisblattman.com/letters/
AEA forum answer by Dick Startz: https://www.aeaweb.org/forum/562/should-letter-recommendation-admission-economics-program
There are a lot of different ways to write a successful statement of purpose. Many of the general guides above have a section dedicated to this.
Below you can find some concrete examples of SoPs. Please keep in mind:
These application materials are not necessarily “good”
The structure of these SoPs is not necessarily the correct structure
Everyone’s application profile is unique
Academic CVs often look different to those when applying for non-academic jobs.
Many academics have examples of their CVs on the websites which can be useful inspiration.
Many schools offer fee waivers for the application fees for students facing financial hardship and/or diverse students. These can be difficult to find. One reason for this is that they are usually done centrally (e.g., by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences) rather than by the economics department. Below are two examples of fee waivers:
MIT -- http://gradadmissions.mit.edu/about/diversity-initiatives/fee-waiver
Berkeley -- https://grad.berkeley.edu/admissions/apply/fee-waiver/
If you cannot figure out whether a school they are applying to has a fee waiver, we recommend reaching out to central graduate school admissions and ask about it.
There is not much public information on how funding varies at different PhD programs. Levels of funding varies across programs. For example, some programs do not provide first-year funding for all students, other programs will not guarantee funding for students in their fifth and later years, and other programs give full funding to all admitted students. Funding differences are also not necessarily correlated with program ranks (e.g., some highly-ranked public schools might have worse funding packages than lower-ranked private schools). A few schools that we talked to said that they would be more than happy to share details about their funding packages with potential students. So if you are interested in how funding varies across different programs, you could out to graduate admissions at the different programs.
Specific fellowships and scholarships
NSF fellowships (see also advice from Alex Lang)
Aga Khan scholarship programme (also lists additional scholarships)
Further resources and databases
Africademics scholarship search and mentoring for students from Africa
Opportunities for students from the Global South listed by GAIN
Program that matches mentees with a PhD mentor to work together on a short 6-month long independent research project. Targeted towards “applicants from historically underrepresented groups” and “open to undergraduate students, master’s students, research assistants and anyone who is planning to complete (or has completed) their bachelor’s degree.”
Application Available: early September
The PhD Excellence Initiative is an intensive, individualized, post-baccalaureate training program with a high degree of one-on-one mentoring. Each fellow works and studies full time as a Research Scholar for two years with Peter Blair Henry at NYU.
Application season reopens in November.
A two-day program for undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds interested in learning about business research at the doctoral level.
The program occurs during the fall.
https://www.chicagobooth.edu/phd/admissions/events/iddeas-booth-kellogg
Predoc Summer Course in Social Science Analytics is an 8 week course designed to prepare rising undergraduate seniors with the coding, research methodology, and professional skills for social science research.
The program occurs in the summer
AEASP is a prestigious program that enables students to develop and solidify technical skills in preparation for the rigors of graduate studies. All students receive 2 months of intensive training in microeconomics, math, econometrics and research methods with leading faculty at Howard University. The program is designed for students who, by their background, life experience, and scholarship can show they will bring greater diversity to the economics profession.
The program occurs during the summer.
Students will engage in daily lectures and skill-building coursework as well as other activities to promote networking over three weeks at the University of Chicago.
The program occurs during the summer.
The Graduate Applications International Network (GAIN) supports prospective graduate students from all countries across Africa applying for excellent programs (both Master and PhD) in economics and related fields (public policy, political science, etc.).
The application period is in the beginning of the calendar year. Interested participants can sign up for a remind-me list here: https://gain-network.net/participants
GAIN has also compiled a document on their website with tons of opportunities for African and global south graduate students/scholars: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E7tLbAve7G4BEg4Qeg065H_nbrsHYRvR/edit
GAIN has helped developed this resource list for African scholars: CIDR Opportunity Hub for African Scholar
Economics Applicant Mentoring Programme (AMP) at Cambridge, LSE, Oxford, UCL and Warwick
For students who might be missing one part of their application (e.g., a letter of recommendation or math class), predocs and research assistanceships can be a great way to make up for this.
Advice:
A super comprehensive recent guide to what predocs are and how to apply for them that includes results from a recent survey of 200 predocs: https://raguide.github.io/
Alvin Christian has guides about what PreDocs are (https://drive.google.com/file/d/16eUvtahziPyBTpX_ZeyXjPck2OyinfHH/view) and how to apply (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I9JNsSxgB-SylucSULGs-5biOwxyGhAu/view)
JPAL advice on finding RA jobs: https://www.povertyactionlab.org/sites/default/files/Advice-for-Landing-an-RA-ship.pdf
Advice on predoc interviews: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13aAK4-hvYO1u5Z-k246Yr-LipKHznKfF-4lvafzffpA/edit?usp=sharing
Where to find RA/predoc jobs:
Econ RA Listings on Twitter https://twitter.com/econ_ra?lang=en
NBER http://www.nber.org/jobs/nonnberjobs.html
Econ Job Market’s page on RA and predoc positions https://econjobmarket.org/market
Pathways to Research and Doctoral Careers (PREDOC) https://predoc.org/opportunities
JPAL https://www.povertyactionlab.org/careers (for development, e.g Field Research Associate)
Faculty’s personal website/twitter
Various university centers offering predocs such as: Chicago BFI, Stanford SIEPR, Stanford King Center (for students from low/middle-income countries)
Asking your professors! Let them know you are interested in doing research (over the summer, term, or post-graduation). Summer/Term RAship are a great way to get to know one of your professors better and beyond the classroom. You can attach your CV and ask if they themselves have any openings or if they know of other faculty who may. Even if they do not have any openings at that time, they may eventually have one and think of you or they may have heard of openings and could refer you.
What does academic economics look like?
CSWEP Newsletter: this newsletter contains a number of useful essays about economics PhDs and the application process https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=631
They also have a number of articles about careers in economics https://www.aeaweb.org/about-aea/committees/cswep/newsletters/topics
Resources from the AEA about Economics
Guide to academic economics: https://abhishekn.com/files/phdguide.pdf - also has application advice for business PhD programs, which is a little dated
The Financial/Job Market Returns to Economics PhDs:
Wendy Stock has some of the best research on this if you or the students want more information. See here for a summary: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220485.2014.942410?journalCode=vece20
At a broad level, the employment outcomes for economics PhD graduates are very good. Unemployment is very low.
It is important to emphasize, however, that academic jobs are by no means guaranteed. The above research summarizes this somewhat but the best way for a student to figure out their rough probabilities of ending up at academic institutions is to look at the placement records of the places they are applying to.
However it is worth caveating that attrition at PhD programs is very high, though school-specific attrition rates is difficult to come by https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/000282806777212044