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How do these departments rank in the following areas:

Micro
Macro
Public Finance
.....

By Alexandre (Alexandre) on Friday, August 06, 2004 - 04:29 pm: Edit

UCB is better in Economics.

OVERAL ECONOMICS:
UCB #6
UCLA #11

International Economics:
UCB #4
UCLA #7

Macroeconomics:
UCB #7
UCLA not in the top 10

Microeconomics:
UCB #8
UCLA not in the top 10

Public Finance:
UCB #6
UCLA not in the top 10

By Shyboy13 (Shyboy13) on Friday, August 06, 2004 - 04:54 pm: Edit

Yeah, UCB is better but both are good. UCB has had the Nobel Prize winner somehow associated with it 3 out of the last 4 years. Some economists believe that the "new frontier" of economic research is with Berkeley.

By Mikemac (Mikemac) on Friday, August 06, 2004 - 07:31 pm: Edit

undergrad you're going to take the same classes at either school. *Especially* these 2 schools since they're siblings in the UC system and the courses are even numbered the same!

Pick the college you like best. For grad school the rep of the dept (and specific area) matter a lot, for an undergrad liberal-arts degree hardly at all.

By Shyboy13 (Shyboy13) on Friday, August 06, 2004 - 08:15 pm: Edit

Mikemac, I don’t really agree with you. First of all I’m a UCLA alum and love that school to death. The OP just asked about the rankings which imply overall prestige of departments. I’m not sure but I think you attended UCLA too so I don’t want to turn on my tag team partner. Anyway, one could say that UCLA and Cal are very close since #6 is not that much different than #11. Well, when Cal professors won the Nobel Prize in economics two years in a row, they hardly moved up the rankings at all. One reason (bias could be another) is because of how hard it is to knock those schools down that are ahead of it. Those schools are truly great. I mean, University of Chicago is world known for Milton Friedman (e.t. al.) and the tremendous advances in Monetary Economic theory. That is just one example. Many economists believe that there is more cutting edge, i.e. modern, research done at Cal than at any other school in the US. So, granted they are relatively close, UCLA still has a lot of work to do if it wants to close that gap. Now if undergraduate study doesn’t matter, I will give two examples of why I don’t believe this to be true. When I attended grad school at USC, every single one of my classmates attended a top ranked university. Now, why do you think that’s true? Do you think that only students from top universities applied? Another example is where I used to work. My boss told me that he didn’t want to hire from any other school than UCLA (he said that USC students were inferior) because UCLA has smart students. My boss went to Cal himself. Although he later changed his mind about USC, the point is that where you get your undergrad degree from does matter. Grad schools and employers both take that into consideration.

Am I saying that a person with a degree from Stanford learned more or actually received a better education than a person with a degree from San Francisco State? No! Am I saying that I love Cal more than UCLA? Hell No! So I’m not exactly saying that you are wrong. I’m just saying that where you get your degree from makes a difference.

By Jab93 (Jab93) on Friday, August 06, 2004 - 09:14 pm: Edit

For UNDERGRAD, there is virtually no difference
between UCLA and Berkeley... go to the school that is the better fit... Grad school is another matter...