good Sample statement of purpose (SOP) Economics

There are some events in our lives which, though small, prove to be very significant. I was in the seventh standard in school, when I went on a camping excursion to a village in the heart of the Chhotanagpur Plateau, a part of eastern India known as much for its dismal human poverty as its plenitude of natural beauty. One day, as we were running short of salt, we walked into the only shop there to buy some of it. But there was no salt to be had. Not because the shop had run out of salt; but because it did not sell salt, to start with. Why, someone may ask. Well, that's because the villagers could not afford salt. To them, salt was a luxury. When I look back now, I see that event as a shocking discovery of the facts of life in his country by an urban teenager, who till then had little idea of how the majority in his country lived and died. It comes back to me now often as the time that I grew conscious of my surroundings and started taking an interest in serious real world issues, which culminated in me deciding to major in economics when it was time for college. Over the next three years, I was introduced to microeconomics, development economics, public finance, international trade and mathematical economics. I found each of them interesting in its own way. But none of them were as fascinating as macroeconomics. Its attempts to identify and address problems afflicting entire economies, like unemployment, inflation, poverty and inequality, among others, really appealed to me. I was also lucky to have an early start to my mathematical training and in my first and second years took courses in linear algebra, multivariate calculus, linear programming and set theory. After completing my under-graduation from Presidency College, Calcutta, in 2002, I decided to pursue a master’s degree in Economics. Accordingly, I joined the Master of Science in Quantitative Economics (MSQE) program at the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi. This is because of the overt emphasis on mathematics and statistics that is placed here, and which differentiates this program from other graduate programs in the country. Being fully aware of the importance of quantitative techniques in Economics, MSQE was a natural choice for me. One and a half years down the line, I don’t have any regrets. A rigorous grounding in math and econometrics, along with generous doses of economic theory has significantly improved my analytical skills, to say the least. My professors in I.S.I have completely changed my perspective; they have taught me how to approach a problem scientifically, instead of getting bogged down by ideology. During the course of graduate study, I got a taste of Neo-classical macroeconomics and thoroughly enjoyed it. Growth theory, in particular, fascinated me. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the seminal papers by Solow, Lucas, Barro and Mankiw-Romer-Weil, to name just a few. The enormity of the main issue in Growth theory, why different countries grow at different rates, struck me. And I made up my mind that if given the chance I will explore this area, with the objective of solving some of the mysteries that have baffled economists for decades. We were also exposed to real business cycle theory, and did a computer project for which we used GAUSS to simulate an artificial economy. Starting from the steady state, we observed the impulse response functions of the different components of GDP and factor prices as the economy was subjected to repeated random shocks. The proximity of the results of our model to actual observations from the U.S. Economy impressed us (not to mention our macro instructor) and made us aware of the usefulness of computer simulations in verifying a hypothesis. In our econometrics and time series analysis courses, we also made extensive use of packages like STATA and E-VIEWS. I am quite confident that the econometric tools that I have acquired over the last three semesters will go a long way in honing my empirical skills. In I.S.I., I was also introduced to game theory. I took an instant liking to this branch of economics. And the person responsible for this was our brilliant game theory instructor Prof. Arunava Sen. It will not be an understatement if I say that he ignited a passion for game theory in me. The sheer power of game theory and its broad range of applications made me realize its indispensability in modern economic analysis. In a country where private initiative in health and education is very much lacking, especially in rural areas, the role of the Government becomes ever so important. The role of Government in the provision of human capital is one area I would like to explore, because this can have serious repercussions on our overall growth performance. In fact, one of the most intriguing findings pertaining to inter-regional growth experience of India has been the steady divergence in growth rates over the years. This suggests that there are inherent dissimilarities in the economic structures of the disparate states. By running cross-section regression, many factors have been identified – some of which being particular to the Indian context like the incidence of casteism. But even after controlling for these variables, conditional convergence seems to be eluding us. I wish to examine this problem, with the hope of coming up with some plausible answers. One of the most attractive features of the Economics Department at Princeton University is the sheer diversity and richness of the research interests of the members of the faculty. This is one of the key reasons behind my decision to apply to Princeton. Being interested in growth theory, I would really like to work under Prof. Roland Benabou, whose work in growth, inequality and redistribution interests me. I am confident that, if given the opportunity to study in Princeton University, I shall be able to leave up to the standards that befit a student of such a hallowed institution. I had once heard someone say that researchers invent new problems, because they keep running out of the same. Coming from a country like India, I feel that this is unwarranted. That’s because we already have a multitude of economic problems at hand. If I can solve even a fraction of them, I’ll consider it to be a tremendous achievement.


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