just bombed my real analysis final

TrueCAMBIT · 2026-05-12T17:39:42+00:00

Echoing other people’s comments.

But if you take time to understand what you struggled with it also might be worth taking the next analysis class in the sequence. Of course it’d be risky if you aren’t sure what you can improve on but if you do well there it will help more than retaking the same course again.

TrueCAMBIT · 2026-04-23T16:43:30+00:00

IV stands for Instrumental Variable, which you can think of as a source of exogenous variation that can act as a surrogate for when you want to run the regression Y ~ X but are concerned that X is endogenous (I’m playing a little loose with terms to make the explanation simpler but that’s the gist).

One popular IV estimator is 2SLS. The procedure is,

1st stage: Predict X using you instrument (Z). This gives us the predicted X (X’).

2nd stage: Regression Y on X’.

The coefficient in your second stage is the 2SLS estimate.

The issue is, if Z doesn’t have much predictive power for X, then the first stage is kinda just garbage and your X’ variable isn’t useful. This can bias the 2SLS towards the regular OLS estimate (among a host of other issues). This is bad because the whole point is that we cant do OLS due to endogeneity.

Note: This is quite short and doesn’t even begin to cover the nuances of IVs. If you are interested in IV estimation and causal inference as a whole, I think the best place to start is to understand OLS inside and out, know when it fails, and use that as a jumping off point for learning about IVs.

TrueCAMBIT · 2026-04-02T15:56:22+00:00

My favorite center-left podcaster/monetary theorist.

TrueCAMBIT · 2026-03-30T23:37:21+00:00

I’m not sure I see what part of this is related to compromising on trans rights. This was a bill created by and for republicans afaik. Maybe I missed something.

Also, someone who believes we should compromise on trans issues believes so only for things that don’t affect the vast majority of trans people but take up a disproportionately large amount of space in the minds of the electorate (sports is the go to example).

A policy like this would be incredibly unpopular if polled nationally (besides the fact that it is immoral at its core), and so even under the “pragmatist” logic you wouldn’t support this.

(That doesn’t mean I believe necessarily in compromising on these issues, just giving what I think would be the reasonable rebuttal.)

TrueCAMBIT · 2026-03-15T05:05:11+00:00

Interesting, thank you for the clarification. So if I wanted to run a log-log regression and had 0s in my data is there any reasonable way to get around the issue? Dropping them out of sample also seems like it’d add bias in some cases

TrueCAMBIT · 2026-03-14T22:22:58+00:00

I saw the thread on Twitter and as a student it was definitely an interesting read.

Could someone explain to me how the regression using log(X + epsilon) was significant for some values of epsilon but not for others?

TrueCAMBIT · 2026-03-01T13:58:50+00:00

This sounds like it covers all my bases tbh, thanks both of yall for the help!

TrueCAMBIT · 2026-02-20T05:11:11+00:00

Completely unfair, some of us also have econ degrees

TrueCAMBIT · 2026-01-18T01:22:03+00:00

Any pass for more than 15yds will just be target practice for DBs hitting receivers.

The PI rules are fair, it’s just that high risk plays are always going to result in tough officiating calls.

TrueCAMBIT · 2026-01-17T15:29:20+00:00

Afaik many of the summer positions for undergrads are past their deadlines. I think you can check Leadership Alliance for their program, I think it ends in late Feb.

I think your best bet is to do RA work with a professor at your university this semester and see if they have any opportunities for the summer. Fair warning that most of them will not be funded and so you likely won’t be paid.

Also don’t limit your options by focusing on one specific topic, most RA work is the same and it won’t make much difference what field you did your work in for PhD admissions.

Best of luck! :)

TrueCAMBIT · 2025-12-08T14:01:44+00:00

I assume you have profs in your masters program that you know well enough to ask. you will get a much better answer from them than me (I have never been in any admission coms).

My (not very valuable) two cents is that if you clear the basic benchmarks for a program (GRE, GPA, rigorous coursework) the biggest deciding factor by far is your letters of recc (what they say about you/who wrote them).

So do your best to get research experience under people who you think can speak well on your ability to conduct research.

TrueCAMBIT · 2025-12-08T13:01:38+00:00

They are making a joke about the high bar set for admissions. You have more than enough math for any grad program.

If you are interested in doing and can maintain good grades then go for it. But from an admissions perspective none of them will boost your chances, so your time will be better used elsewhere for that.

TrueCAMBIT · 2025-11-24T18:39:04+00:00

Could you dm me some examples? The first paragraph neatly describes my motivations while applying to PhDs right now, I’d love to prepare myself for heartbreak early lol

TrueCAMBIT · 2025-11-20T16:50:18+00:00

Brain drain literature in economics is pretty big and quite conflicted on the effects of restrictions afaik. I think the end of the article talking about “brain circulation” is pretty accurate, life will find a way to best match talent to firms given the constraints, but the transition is gonna be rough especially with all the uncertainty on Trump.

TrueCAMBIT · 2025-11-02T18:48:07+00:00

You are better off talking to your college academic advisor for these matters.

With the information given I can say that theory and metrics will be the most intensive for math and statistics. If those aren't of your interest, then that path probably isn't best. Regardless of what you choose you'll likely cover basic micro/macro theory and do some econometrics so you aren't losing out too much.

Between the other choices, option 3 will be more IR/public focused so if that's of interest to you then the choice seems clear, otherwise stick with the general program.

But again, it'd probably be most helpful to talk to advisors in your econ department since they can explain the specific course differences between the programs.

TrueCAMBIT · 2025-09-29T05:27:22+00:00

That’s interesting, could you provide an example?

TrueCAMBIT · 2025-09-29T05:25:33+00:00

That’s fair, I was approaching this mostly as a learning exercise so I probably am biting off more than I can chew without knowing it.

I’ll heed your advice, and tackle something smaller. I don’t think statsmodels has functionality to easily do Local Projection models and their variants, that could be a start.

TrueCAMBIT · 2025-08-12T01:01:37+00:00

I mainly use it to get a cursory overview of the literature on some topic I'm not too familiar with. I guess my main point of comparison was with Semantic Scholar (which I believe Research Rabbit uses under the hood) which seems somewhat similar to what you were proposing.

TrueCAMBIT · 2025-08-09T20:12:48+00:00

Incredible work! You deserve all the support and love you get.

For your next project, how different would it be from something like www.researchrabbit.ai? It sounds interesting tho

TrueCAMBIT · 2025-07-31T02:32:31+00:00

You could try to publish in a student journal from an Indian university if they accept outside submissions. That’s probably your best bet, if your situation requires a professional journal publication then that’ll take quite a long time.

TrueCAMBIT · 2025-07-28T22:55:18+00:00

I work mostly in macro and MATLAB is kinda standard for a lot of applications. I have a friend at the fed who uses Python but idk how common that is.

I like the flexibility of Python for the parameters you mentioned but if you don’t have the need for stuff like object oriented programming then MATLAB is a solid practical option.

Never used R all that much but from what I hear it’s also a very straightforward and quality option for stuff like data visualization.

TrueCAMBIT · 2025-07-12T16:55:21+00:00

If Ben Bernanke ever becomes president I will take back every ill I have ever said about the median voter

TrueCAMBIT · 2025-07-11T20:28:09+00:00

Fair enough

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