Serious question: What is applied theory?
Is it just like, mechanism design where you actually want to implement the mechanisms (e.g. auctions)? Is it applied micro without data?
Applied micro appears to be the set of all s**tty models that use basic calculus and probability. Motivated high schoolers could do applied micro.
Expand more on this point, please.
Do yourself a favor and look at the papers written by top theorists who graduated from Stanford in the past five years (Dworczak, Li, Akbarpour) and those who graduated from MIT or fudenberg students (Pei, Mu, He, Ijima) and see what type of economist you prefer to be.
It’s not about Stanford vs. MIT, it’s about Milgrom vs. Fudenberg or Jackson vs. Morris style of economics.
Stanford and MIT have two very different tastes in theory and going to one makes you a totally different type of theorist. You should choose which type you prefer to be. Email Milgrom or Jackson or Roth or Skrypacz and ask them “what are the top 3 theory papers written by Stanford students recently” and ask the same question from Fudenberg or Morris or Yildiz. See which papers you like more. That place is yours. (Both places are able to place theory students very well.)
Expand more on this point, please.
Do yourself a favor and look at the papers written by top theorists who graduated from Stanford in the past five years (Dworczak, Li, Akbarpour) and those who graduated from MIT or fudenberg students (Pei, Mu, He, Ijima) and see what type of economist you prefer to be.
It’s not about Stanford vs. MIT, it’s about Milgrom vs. Fudenberg or Jackson vs. Morris style of economics.
Op here: will choose mit. General risk aversion and particularly the non-trivial chance I swap to more empirical work are persuasive. Thanks for everyone’s input.
About applied theory: I still mean theory, but akbarpour type of theory (motivated the an actual economic problem) and not folk theorems about repeated games, or similar.
I know that is, per the very useful logic of posters above, a reason to pick Stanford over mit, but the other reasons have dominated.
Op here: will choose mit. General risk aversion and particularly the non-trivial chance I swap to more empirical work are persuasive. Thanks for everyone’s input.
About applied theory: I still mean theory, but akbarpour type of theory (motivated the an actual economic problem) and not folk theorems about repeated games, or similar.
I know that is, per the very useful logic of posters above, a reason to pick Stanford over mit, but the other reasons have dominated.
I think it was the wrong decision OP. Stanford is literally the best university on earth for applied theory (of all types, mech design, behavioral, pol econ etc.), and it seemed like you had a perfect match with Akbarpour, Niederle, Bernheim etc. Match with advisors who think like you do and work in the same niches as you is a massive advantage.
I agree that you should hedge against the risk of not doing theory, but the gap between Stanford and MIT empirics is not that large to justify going to the weaker program in your main field. Besides, Stanford has the better applied theory group than MIT (if you're going to do empirics at least do some theoretically motivated empirics -- makes no sense to give up your advantage in theory completely to do regmonkey work). Better to bank on your primary field; being too strategic and doing boring or derivative work even in a "hot" and high demand field will get you nowhere.
Op here: will choose mit. General risk aversion and particularly the non-trivial chance I swap to more empirical work are persuasive. Thanks for everyone’s input.
About applied theory: I still mean theory, but akbarpour type of theory (motivated the an actual economic problem) and not folk theorems about repeated games, or similar.
I know that is, per the very useful logic of posters above, a reason to pick Stanford over mit, but the other reasons have dominated.I think it was the wrong decision OP. Stanford is literally the best university on earth for applied theory (of all types, mech design, behavioral, pol econ etc.), and it seemed like you had a perfect match with Akbarpour, Niederle, Bernheim etc. Match with advisors who think like you do and work in the same niches as you is a massive advantage.
I agree that you should hedge against the risk of not doing theory, but the gap between Stanford and MIT empirics is not that large to justify going to the weaker program in your main field. Besides, Stanford has the better applied theory group than MIT (if you're going to do empirics at least do some theoretically motivated empirics -- makes no sense to give up your advantage in theory completely to do regmonkey work). Better to bank on your primary field; being too strategic and doing boring or derivative work even in a "hot" and high demand field will get you nowhere.
Fully agreed.
Op here: will choose mit. General risk aversion and particularly the non-trivial chance I swap to more empirical work are persuasive. Thanks for everyone’s input.
About applied theory: I still mean theory, but akbarpour type of theory (motivated the an actual economic problem) and not folk theorems about repeated games, or similar.
I know that is, per the very useful logic of posters above, a reason to pick Stanford over mit, but the other reasons have dominated.I think it was the wrong decision OP. Stanford is literally the best university on earth for applied theory (of all types, mech design, behavioral, pol econ etc.), and it seemed like you had a perfect match with Akbarpour, Niederle, Bernheim etc. Match with advisors who think like you do and work in the same niches as you is a massive advantage.
I agree that you should hedge against the risk of not doing theory, but the gap between Stanford and MIT empirics is not that large to justify going to the weaker program in your main field. Besides, Stanford has the better applied theory group than MIT (if you're going to do empirics at least do some theoretically motivated empirics -- makes no sense to give up your advantage in theory completely to do regmonkey work). Better to bank on your primary field; being too strategic and doing boring or derivative work even in a "hot" and high demand field will get you nowhere.
I strongly agree. I think candidates are too strategic and trying to be too clever these days. The only chance of succeeding in the market is to go into the field you're passionate about and do interesting work. Stanford or MIT will both guarantee you a good non-academia job anyway.