If I were smarter

難難難，雖然以前多少都有學過，但程度差太多了

還好我應該不是唯一的受害者，所以同學間常聽到：
I'll be home by Chritsmas...and never coming back.
I give up, I am going back to Brasil.

當然還是有很多聰明人，相較之下，我只要能混口飯吃就夠了

How to get a PhD (Part 1)

為什麼還沒開始唸,就可以寫"How to get a PhD"呢?

如何申請學校

1.成績單
修課內容可能比成績還重要
例如:(70分的高等微積分)>>(99分的投資學or財管or諸如此類的營養學分)
2.英文考試成績
如果你的母語不是英文, 就要考TOEFL或IELTS
考高分=>應該的, 考低分=>被踢掉
3.讀書計劃
Why PhD? How good and how motivated you are? Research interests? Can you survive? Career plan?
4.研究成果
通常用碩士論文來充場面
5.推薦信
有學界大頭的話最好
6.GRE or GMAT
考你的語文能力和數學能力, 只不過是用英文考

以上的東西寄去學校, 有緣的話就可以去唸啦!
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下集預告:
Part 2: 修課階段
Part 3: 寫論文階段

Personal pre-session starts

As my new life is approaching, I need to adjust my life style from "work:leisure=2:8" to the other way around.

And I'll have to get myself ready, to some extent, for stuff like:

1. Economics (Micro, Macro)
2. Finance (Asset Pricing, Corp. Finance)
3. Tools (Math, Econometrics, Software, Language)

But it's not exactly compatible with my motto, "having fun"....
So where is my next travel destination~~~~???

HERO and 英雄

有許多不同的Hero：久利生檢察官，無名長空殘劍飛雪，比呂與英雄

What makes them special?

To get things up and running, we seek to have the right people in the right place, with the right incentive structure. Difficile, isn't it?

In the corporate structure of XXX, being a nice guy doesn't seem to be a good option. Pour quoi? Parce que bad guys are not punished, and get the same salary. Does this justify a re-think of the incentive strucuture? Shall we move from the left to the right, and become more like a compete-with-your-colleague corporate scene? If so, will our relationship be the same?

My belief is that being a nice guy earns you some tiny self-respect and friendship. Tiny things like this may make the differences in your life.
正義は勝つ，そう思うけど...

BTW, accompanied by Matsu Takato is an incentive as well. This is one of the reasons I'm still thinking of the parallel world, which I've taken a left-turn and could only imagine it.

1勝6敗,1勝就能進奧運

Admission:
Tinbergen Institute w/ full scholarship (2 Years M.Phil + 3 Years PhD program )
Rejection:
ESSEC,UMannheim,ULausanne,UZurich,VGSF,SSE

Background:
BA Econ from NTU, GPA:3.6
MSEF from Warwick, distinction
3 years experience in industry
1 year experience as RA in CIER
GRE:660,800
TOEFL:waived
Publication: 1 paper in an unknown journal; participated in some NSC research projects
Reference letter: one each from supervisor in Warwick and CIER
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大學時代是成績中上的普通人
後來經歷當兵,工作,唸碩士
剛到英國也覺得:"靠,比我想像的難十倍"
不過經過一段適應期,要吃飽睡足的畢業倒也不難
畢竟人生中比唸書困難的事情的多得是

回國後面臨學界or業界的抉擇
要放棄曾發過10個月年終的穩定工作是個蠻難的決定
從自己和別人的經驗,我也知道phd不是件好差事
而且同齡的人都已經在結婚生子買房子照顧車子
所以除了phd之外,也認真考慮過別的可能性
但最後還是跳下去了,考量的原因有二:
因為我相信"錢多犠性多"的道理,所以不想往高競爭的業種發展
而留在低競爭的前工作,又會覺得"難道人生就這樣了?"
第二個原因是我以為學術界的生活,可能未來會比較自由吧 (誤??)

申請結果如上,申請前我也不知道歐洲學校到底難不難申請
拒絕的原因多未明講,就是發好學生卡給你
研究成果應該還是很重要吧

最後感謝幫助過我的人
還有我的父母,讓我能夠自由找尋我的方向
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posted on PTT

The new World Bank chief economist

From the WSJ
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林毅夫將成為下任World Bank Chief Economist, WSJ作了以下說明:
He was born in Taiwan and earned a master's in business administration from National Chengchi University in Taipei in 1978, the year that mainland China began its market-opening overhauls.
The next year, Mr. Lin, then serving as an officer in the Taiwan army, left for rival China. Numerous published accounts over the years have said Mr. Lin defected by swimming to China from the Taiwan-controlled island of Quemoy, also called Kinmen. Mr. Lin went on to study at Peking University, China's top university. He earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago in 1986, becoming one of the first students from China to complete such a degree in the U.S. during the reform era.
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如果他選擇留在台灣, 不知會有什麼樣的發展?

Some observations

-Every choice has its trade-off
-No free lunch
-Adverse selection exists everywhere
-Neither as bad as insiders describe, nor as good as outsiders expect.
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Choice 1:
直達車，搭上本班車後可以保證你從25歲一路直達60歲終點，但你可能無法控制列車的行駛速度，不保證身旁乘客的品質，列車顛簸時也只能跟著上下搖擺，看到美景無法下車品味
Choice 2:
慢行普通車，可以自由上下車或停留，但是一旦下車之後，需冒迷路或無法搭上下一班車的風險，如果在小站下了車，也許再也沒有搭上直達快車的機會

Economists' Blogs

The layout of the new version of MSN spaces is simply too horrible.

Let's try this new space out. I found here when reading an article about some economists' blogs.

Some famous ones:
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/

The article discussed why they spend time on blogging rather than working on their research. One obvious reason, having a famous blog site certainly is a good publicity. Another interesting point is that the flow of information made available by the Internet has opened up possibilities for anyone in everywhere to have access to the best mind.

Well, the kind of Harvard has its value beyond that.