Masters in Applied Economics??

rs288
Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:29:14 +0000

Although not always true in reality an MA in Econ is basically a signal that you failed out of a PhD program and received a Masters as a consolation prize. This is why you don’t see many Econ departments offer a terminal MA in Econ (I think NYU and Duke are the only two notable exceptions).

From the Duke MA in Applied Econ website:

"The Duke Economics MA is designed to be one of the most quantitative of all North American masters’ programs. It aims for a narrow segment of the market:


Students preparing for PhD programs, either by taking advanced mathematics, statistics, and theory, or gaining intuition and exposure to economic issues;
Students preparing for careers in technical financial analysis;
Mid-career research economists seeking to brush up on econometric and modeling skills, and to undertake a research sabbatical;
Aspiring lawyers who want to gain a solid grounding in game theory, microeconomics, econometrics, and cost-benefit analysis; and
Aspiring policy analysts seeking to gain modeling and econometric skills prior to embarking on a career in government, think-tanks, or consulting.
"


If you don’t fit perfectly in one of those, you would be much better off with an MBA with an economics concentration (like from UChicago, Wharton, etc.), which are very applied in nature (often called Business Economics for Managers or something like that)