tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post2757627995106810560..comments2024-03-27T03:00:27.024-04:00Comments on Facts & other stubborn things: A question for extreme signalling theoristsEvanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12259004160963531720noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-37364828356737497222012-11-11T20:11:09.575-05:002012-11-11T20:11:09.575-05:00Going to an excellent school allows you to affilia...Going to an excellent school allows you to affiliate with very impressive people, and the value of those affiliations come mostly through signaling.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-77201540643753946482012-11-11T11:45:48.617-05:002012-11-11T11:45:48.617-05:00There isn't enough research money to go around...There isn't enough research money to go around. The bread and butter for academia is undergraduate teaching, the work side of the research fun side. It probably isn't even productive for people to spend full time in research since new ideas are not that common. Even teaching with the opportunity to do some research is more attractive to many than non academic work. Since there will always be more produced by high quality institutions than they can use, they must provide the rest with some opportunities to provide some value to that signal. So it seems the question is why higher quality institutions don't get out of undergraduate education entirely, and it is because that is where the money is, not solely in education but also in alumni. An institution that produced only academics would not be highly successful financially. Lordnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-21640911116812339132012-11-11T09:31:37.355-05:002012-11-11T09:31:37.355-05:00Blegh. Several typos in the above comment.
*that ...Blegh. Several typos in the above comment.<br /><br />*that <i>it's</i><br />*<i>have</i> a tremendous<br />etcGrant McDermotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11868318397832070394noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-79183776697755324362012-11-11T09:28:56.273-05:002012-11-11T09:28:56.273-05:00Not entirely sure how this fits into the discussio...Not entirely sure how this fits into the discussion, but a friend of mine recently did his postgrad at Harvard. As part of his research stipend, he was assigned as TA to Mankiw's introductory economics course.<br /><br />He told me that "almost impossible to fail" at Harvard during the undergrad, because everything is so neatly laid out for the students. They are, according to him, almost spoon-fed the content and TAs in particular a tremendous work load i.t.o. preparing summary notes, etc. Of course, I'd imagine that the student body is comprised of extremely talented and hard-working individuals at the same time... but his impression is that most people could do reasonably well there.<br /><br />OTOH, this friend also took various classes at MIT... and his impressions there were almost completely the opposite. Students were left much to their own devices and had to spent much more time solving problems and sourcing material themselves.Grant McDermotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11868318397832070394noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-16866071517594561912012-11-11T07:45:07.527-05:002012-11-11T07:45:07.527-05:00Right, and there are lots of ways that professors ...Right, and there are lots of ways that professors signal in the academic job market. But generally even extreme signalling theorists hold that PhDs are for actual human capital development and impart actual productivity as an academic. Certainly these academics signal, but why the correlation with undergraduate quality. Presumably an institution teeming with undergraduates is going to distract from research if all those undergraduates have to be assigned signals five times every semester.<br /><br />If signalling were the real issue I'd think you'd see low-quality PhDs teaching undergraduates at all institutions, and high-quality PhDs getting jobs at pure research institutes where they only do research and train other PhDs. But that's not the case. You have top-tier PhDs spending a lot of their time teaching and assigning signals to undergraduates.<br /><br />If they aren't doing a lot of human capital development it seems to me it's a massive waste of human resources.<br /><br />If they are, it makes a lot more sense.Daniel Kuehnhttp://www.factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-91917811179299994952012-11-10T23:39:51.819-05:002012-11-10T23:39:51.819-05:00Yep.Yep.gcallahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10065877215969589482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-82330172071496958832012-11-10T23:35:25.006-05:002012-11-10T23:35:25.006-05:00You have to ask what is the signalling for. It is...You have to ask what is the signalling for. It is to obtain the best possible position. If universities were perfect signal discriminators, but then ignored those signals in awarding their positions, the signal would be useless to the would be signalers. Signaling must be useful to both the employer and the employee or it is of no use at all. <br />Lordnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-92135914251470160842012-11-10T21:19:05.118-05:002012-11-10T21:19:05.118-05:00In my experience at my college, they only required...In my experience at my college, they only required an introductory statistics course for econometrics, though they're now changing that to a 200-level statistics course. I think it should be a requirement for students to have at least mastered Calculus I and Calculus II if they wish to have a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, and to go up to Differential Equations (and a 200 level course in statistics, preferably involving exploratory data analysis) if they wish to have a Bachelor of Science in Economics. But that's just my view.Blue Auroranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-60512477870468137072012-11-10T19:10:33.854-05:002012-11-10T19:10:33.854-05:00"A lot of economics departments don't eve..."A lot of economics departments don't even require that undergrad economics be taught with calculus."<br /><br />??? ReallyUnlearningeconhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13687413107325575532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-29891969204880248952012-11-10T18:34:12.829-05:002012-11-10T18:34:12.829-05:00One explanation, of course, is that top tier profs...One explanation, of course, is that top tier profs are required to teach top tier PhD students, and the undergrads are an afterthought.<br /><br />But that just kicks the can down the road. Why are tough undergrad programs so tightly correlated with tough PhD programs? Why put that extra challenge-and-rank-the-undergrads responsibility on top of the train-the-PhDs responsibility if not for the primacy of human capital?Daniel Kuehnhttp://www.factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.com