A Journey for your Beautiful Mind: Economics Graduate Study and Research

You must be very excited, ready to start your Ph.D. program here in Bergen. To many of you this will be an important milestone. It should be. Undertaking a Ph.D. study is not a trivial matter, and I hope that you do take this seriously. I have been asked to address you on matters concerning modern economics and your upcoming study and research. This is a daunting task. First, modern economics is a huge subject. Second, graduate study and research in economics is also a huge subject. Early on I have come to the conclusion that your professors here have given me a mission impossible, but I’ll try my best in the next hour or so. Let me first say that my own research is mainly on applied microeconomic theory. My experience with empirical research is very limited. I probably don’t have many useful things to say about handling data, selecting statistical software, etc. In other words, you are going to listen to some biased views, so beware.