The Making of an Economist, Redux

by David Colander

Economists seem to be everywhere in the media these days. But what exactly do today's economists do? What and how are they taught? Updating David Colander and Arjo Klamer's classic The Making of an Economist , this book shows what is happening in elite U.S. economics Ph.D. programs. By examining these programs, Colander gives a view of cutting-edge economics--and a glimpse at its likely future. And by comparing economics education today to the findings of the original book, the new book shows how much--and in what ways--the field has changed over the past two decades. The original book led to a reexamination of graduate education by the profession, and has been essential reading for prospective graduate students. Like its predecessor, The Making of an Economist, Redux is likely to provoke discussion within economics and beyond.


The book includes new interviews with students at Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Chicago, and Columbia. In these conversations, the students--the next generation of elite economists--colorfully and frankly describe what they think of their field and what graduate economics education is really like. The book concludes with reflections by Colander, Klamer, and Robert Solow.


This inside look at the making of economists will interest anyone who wants to better understand the economics profession. An indispensible tool for anyone thinking about graduate education in economics, this edition is complete with colorful interviews and predictions about the future of cutting-edge economics.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction

280 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2007

About the author

David C. Colander is the Christian A. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Economics at Middlebury College.

Detailed resume available at:

http://community.middlebury.edu/~cola...

Reviews

[Jacky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I began this book with a lot more optimism about the economics profession and my own role in it than I had by the end. Some background on me, I'm a rising junior who studies economics at Swarthmore College. That's a liberal arts school for those of you who are wondering: what's that? The past year of college has been an exercise in answering: "What do you want to do after college?", and for me, the idea of being a professor didn't seem too bad. Economics is interesting. Teaching is fun. Thus, economics grad school seemed like the reasonable thing to look into.

Know why you're coming to grad school.

So goes the refrain of many of the students interviewed. The problem is, unless the reason you're coming is to become a research oriented academic, the training you'll get won't do you much good. Colander concludes that economic graduate training has been slow to meet the needs of students who are increasingly more interested in applied, rather than theoretical, work and does a poor job of training students to be anything other than research oriented academics. Mathematical elegance and theoretical brilliance are favored over real world applicability. To be fair, the majority of students do seem to want to pursue careers in academia. But even then, there's a mismatch between the skills they learn and the ones they use on the job.

Further, those who are looking to teach or work in policy are out of luck. In graduate school, these students are steered away from those intentions or worse, dismissed and receive less attention from faculty.

All in all, I'm more skeptical about whether grad school is for me, but I'm not disheartened. Small sample size notwithstanding, Colander's book gave me the reality that I wanted to witness, and if in a few years, you happen to notice a 6' Chinese male wandering the campus of a research university, it just might mean that I decided to do it anyway.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a follow-up to Colander and Klamer's first book of the (almost) same name. I read them back-to-back, which I think was a good idea.

Again, this was just a hugely useful read for anyone considering graduate school in economics. As a follow-up, it was also interesting because of its decision to re-survey economists from the original study to see whether or not their views had changed. It also was able to compare the survey results of graduate students in the 1980s to those in the early 2000s. From what I read, it seems as though students are a happier bunch now, but, according to Colander, that this is due to self-selection and not as a result of a major change in the graduate economics curriculum.

Like in the previous book, I enjoyed the interviews immensely. They give the findings a flavor and a perspective that a simple survey could not do alone. They put a humanizing stamp on the study.

I do wish, however, that the chapters at the end of the book by Colander, Solow, and Klamer were a little longer and more fleshed out. They were the only part of the book that attempted to draw any sort of conclusion on the surveys and interviews. Solow and Klamer's chapters in particular were quite short. I felt they had interesting viewpoints and I would have enjoyed hearing more from them.

Finally, I think I've exhausted my current attention span on reading about graduate economics programs. I'm really okay with the fact there isn't a trilogy!

[Vadim Gubaidulin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very specific and, unless you are considering a PhD in economics or you are strongly interested in it, do not read this book. The first part of the book is about the questionnaire and a bunch of tables on the state of graduate education in economics in the US. I would say that there should be a much better way of presenting statistical data from the survey than a bunch of tables and written text with some reflections(plots, diagrams, illustration). The second part of the book is a collection of interviews of graduate students from the top US schools. This is the best and most interesting part of the book, you will get to know the people who are doing PhD and their views on their respective schools and state of economic science in general. I wish there would be such a book and a study for my PhD studies (Physics). The book overall gives a good overview of what the state of graduate education in economics was in the early 2000s, probably, it is outdated now. The state of economics, in general, is a more tricky question, but I am surprised that so many people do not want to do any policy work or anything empirical and practical, many just want to make some theory and 'it's not their job to prove that it works'. Going to policy making or anything non-academic is frowned upon, so I wonder how much practical work is actually done. I got excited by economics only because it seemed like you can do practical work that will affect the real world economics, and policies are something that helps with it. At least that is my impression.

[Mike Sanders · Rating 4 out of 5]

The followup to Colander's earlier study, this book gives an interesting view into the state of economics education, through the lends of his own interview and sample based approach. Very much written for the economics profession, the writing is easy to read despite the technicalities, though questions about the choice of examples are visible. Most important is the inclusion of 2 chapters from counters to his case across 2 directions, an excellent stylistic choice that I feel should undoubtedly be replicated across the field. 

The content itself is not too different from the past - economics is more and more a model-building science, the "softer" parts of economics have continued to take a backseat, and the academization of the profession leads to a siloed and walled off clique. The interviews themselves are very entertaining as well. 

The fact that Colander includes chapters from Arjo Klamer and Robert Solow is far more important than the rest of the book, given how well it provides added context, added arguments, and makes for far more interesting reading. 

Would I read it again? Probably not, since it just serves as a snapshot. I'm hoping that Colander does a review later, especially in the post GFC and now, post Covid environment.

[Zachary Rudolph · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Currently, the goal of graduate economics training seems to be success in the academic research game. In that game, success is measured by journal articles (weighted by journal quality), and advancement is in large part determined by the quality-weighted sum of one’s peer reviewed publications. Students’ graduate training is devoted to creating efficient journal article writers. ... When the goal is publishing journal articles, not advancing knowledge, you get all kinds of perverse incentives."

[Cold · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it but wouldn't recommend it to anyone else. If you studied econ, you'd know it. If you didn't study econ, you wouldn't care. I am in a strange niche of people who didn't study econ but in some sense wished I had. I now have a sense that formal econ training was a bullet (thankfully) dodged.

[Juan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book shortly after having read the original Making of an Economist (1990) by Klamer and Colander, which I liked a lot. In fact, it was precisely because I liked the original book so much that I read this one shortly after. I was excited and curious as to what had changed.

The original book was written more than 25 years ago so when I read it I approached it from a somewhat sociological and historical perspective. I could relate to many of the feelings the students referred to, but I also knew that a lot of time had passed. On the contrary, when I approached the Redux book everything felt much closer. I wanted to know what had changed, in part because I am concerned with the way the profession is going but also because I wanted to know what I might be getting into when I go to graduate school in a couple of years.

Just like with the original book, I read the Redux version in a couple of days. I liked it a lot. The survey results and the interviews were very interesting and informative. Also, as was the case in the original, the comments at the end of the book by Klamer, Solow and Colander were excellent (though short). That said, I do feel kind of bad, disconsolate. I am not happy with the current state of the economics profession. I had some hope that my opinion about the profession was somewhat baseless but this book completely crushed that feeling.

If you are interested in the sociology of economics and also in the history of economic thought you should definitely read both the original and the Redux books. If you just want to get an idea of what postgraduate economics school is like I guess you could just read the Redux, however, you would be missing a lot. Read both, it won’t take that much time.

PD: I love the cover of the book, it’s great.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provided me with a lot of insight into what graduate school in economics is like. Though much of it is above my head because of my limited background in economics, it still answered a lot of questions I had and gave me a sense that graduate studies in economics may not be the path I seek. Though economics has much to offer, and may well be the most technical and math-oriented of the social sciences, I'm concerned about how theoretical PhD programs are nowadays. PhD programs are geared towards those who intend to go on to academic positions, and hence are highly theoretical. The author even used the word hazing to describe the process that students are put through and the mathemetical modeling to which they are subjected. Whatever the objective of this process is, it seems that it does not aim to produce economists who are relevant to today's world, fully understand the economy, and are well equipped to do empirical research, all of which are goals of mine if I were to join an economics program. To the extent that it helped me understand that, the book was quite successful. The most insightful sections of the book to me were the interviews with current PhD students, who spoke candidly about the nature of being a graduate student in economics.

[Nick Klagge · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a second read. The first time I read this book was either when I was in undergrad or shortly after I graduated, and at that time it put me off of applying to PhD programs. Having decided to apply, I figured I should read it again. It didn't put me off this time. I think on the previous read-through, I didn't feel like I could say I was sure I wanted to go to a doctoral program, which many of the interviewees in this book say is an important thing to be sure of (for good reason). I also felt unsure of my ability to find my own academic path, and worried that I would end up just being shaped by my advisers. Now, I feel less worried about both of those things, and ready to apply!

[Brad Vakulcyzk · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a prospective graduate Economics student, I found the Making of an Economist, redux to be a good teaser into what I could expect from Economics graduate schools in the US, and would recommend it to anyone considering the same path. I read it a while ago, but what I found particularly interesting about the book was the current state of the Economics profession, and how it's progressed since the original 1990 book. They sample phd interviewee's from the top schools, which allows the reader to get a feel for the strengths and differences between schools.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Part of my dissatisfaction with this book may stem from the fact that the one I got from the library is the one published around 1989 and not the "Redux". I read several websites that recommended it as helpful to anyone considereing graduate study in economics. There was some information that was useful about this, and the culture and environment of economics Ph. D. students and the economics departments of major universities. I personally just didn't get what I was looking for out of it.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Colander’s survey of top graduate econ programs is mandatory for anyone considering an econ PhD, and holds interest for those who want insight into the evolution of economics in the 20 years since Colander’s original book. Colander’s conversational interviews with grad students are particularly fascinating, as they wrestle honestly with their thoughts on what economics can-and cannot-accomplish.

[Aspen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thought provoking survey of economics graduate students around 2004. A good read for those considering graduate school or thinking about how graduate curriculum in economics should be structured.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: I didn't add the same book twice. They wrote "The Making of an Economist" in 1990, then did another book in 2004 with the same methodology. They're both enlightening.

[Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://pro-libertate.net/20090531/79-...