So I'm considering whether to go to grad school for econ. Could you offer any suggestions for, like, (classic) papers to read for an advanced undergraduate, the reading of which might help discern whether one has the aptitude/interest sufficient to go to grad school? esp. like, The Papers You Should've Read in Undergrad type papers
Starter warning: I did a masters of economics, not a full PhD. But I did strongly consider the PhD for a while and did research, and know people who did one (@powermonger please chime in), classmates who are doing one now, or dropped out of one.
I'd actually say you are looking at it the wrong way. Econ grad school is first a boot camp of Math/Microeconomics/Macroeconomics/Econometrics. My MA had this for one semester, in a PhD it's a year. This is not fun, and was where I decided I didn't want to go onto the PhD. I could handle the cycle of 10-12 hour workdays and then getting wasted on Fridays, but I didn't have any singular topic that I loved enough to commit myself to 2 more years of this plus research, and then the grind for tenure over.
The number one filter here is math. In undergraduate you'd need multivariable calculus, linear algebra, several courses of statistics (some of these should be part of any bachelors in econ). Econ grad school actually prefers math/engineering majors to generalist econ.
After the death grind, you move on to field-related coursework, which is more related to your specific area of study. This corresponds more towards reading papers and writing your own, delving into the datasets and doing your own causal research. This is more fun. After this comes writing your thesis proper - summer semester for me, or the later years of a PhD.
If you want to see what modern economics research looks like, check out the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and see the papers that go up. You can also try the Journal of Economic Perspectives (JEP) for more general-public readable introductions to research.
Noah Smith is a guy who got an economics PhD to be better at arguing online and has some pages:
Back in May, Noah wrote about the amazingly good deal that is the PhD in economics. Why? Because:
Yes, but for different reasons than a decade ago.
Also check out /r/badeconomics and /r/askeconomics:
