My B.A and M.A degrees are accounting; SOP for PhD in Economics: Macro(Growth) and Econometrics
Hi, Please help me with editing my SOP and sending your comments about its content.For example I want to know:1)my reason in the first paragraph is convincing2)It is better that I put the first bold section in the footnote or in the context3) it isn't better to omit other bold section.
Best
Democracy does flourish best in societies with high socio-economic development. Aristotle
My serious concern about the field of economics came early in 2010 (after taking my master's degree), after the death of many Iranian who participated in the 2009-10 Iranian election protests. Shocked by this the melancholy fate for my people and country, I began to probe into it by following up on news, TV debates, workshops and events to find the causes of this unexpected event. What I discovered was that these protests were rooted in economic problems which afflicted demonstrator for long time because people of my country like other developing countries always has been facing big economic problems like, high rate of unemployment, inflation, poverty and other challenges. So, these problems brought me this question: why the Iranian's standards of living is low despite of this fact that Iran's manifest resource riches both in human and natural forms? Collaborating with professors in economics in research projects gives me this chance to find that Economics would be the ideal subject that would equip me with appropriate knowledge and exposure to find a persuasive respond and solution to these discrepancy problems. This was the point that I set out for the journey of my academic life the aim of which is to contribute to the cause of making the world a better place to live, especially for the poor, living mostly in developing countries.
To achieve this goal, during my Master's program and after graduation until now, I equipped myself as best I could. In spite of taking some Economic courses in the Principles of Economics during B.A, however, my serious familiarity occurred when I earned an opportunity to study under supervision Professors of economics namely, Ghobadi and Piri during three last years. Beginning with Macroeconomics (Mankiw) and Intermediate Microeconomics (Hal), later I studied Economic Growth (Barro & Salahi_Martin), Introduction to Modern Economic Growth (Acemoglu) and violence and social orders (North et. al). Besides, I read various papers in the economic growth area such as Acemoglu (2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013 and 2014), Barro (1996, 1999, 2000 and 2014), Nelson (2008) and North (2006 and 2009). Also, I provide solid math background through studying many different textbooks in Linear Algebra, Calculus and Multivariate Calculus and Real Analysis. Moreover, I studied Topology, the usage of mathematics in economics and static and dynamic optimization. I obtained rigorous training in statistics, econometrics, learning cross-sectional and panel data methods and mastering in various tools used in economic analysis such as SPSS, Eviews, Stata and Matlab. I published many papers and done some projects in the accounting area. Also, I was colleague of professor xxx on the individual research project, namely the relationship between earnings with Stock Returns. Also, I helped Professor yyy on one research project, namely comparative advantage of some special agricultural product in Iran's economy.
Being curious to find an answer for my mentioned question in the first paragraph, soon I found myself in the realm of macroeconomics especially Economics Growth. I choose the economics growth as my first research interests because as Barro and Sala-i-Martin state since the growth is likely the single paramount indicator influencing individual levels of income, so comprehending the economic growth is the key to fathom out how to improve the living standards of individuals in the world and, thereby, to lessen world's poverty. Moreover, as Acemoglu expresses, doing research in the economic growth not only is important for growth theory but also is essential for modern macroeconomic analysis and social sciences. Therefore, I strongly believe that doing research in the economic growth not only will help me to be a more useful person to reduce the world's poverty rates, but also will quell my thirsty to knowledge and doing more profound, effective and comprehensive researches.
Being familiar with this area opened up broader question than my first question, one of the most important challenges facing social science: how some countries can be so rich while some others are so poor? I found this conflict might be attribute to other factors which the neoclassical growth model ignores i.e. differences in economic policies and institutions across nations. Since, the study of policies and institutions may help us to understand the process of modern economic growth better as Acemoglu and other economists document this effects, I am interested to examine the influences of policies and institutions on the economic growth. Acemoglu reasons the policies and institutions determine profitable investment, show existing the infrastructure and contracting arrangements, influence and regulate the market structure and finally may block the adoption and use of new technologies, thus they directly influence whether a society can embark on modern economic. In the area of examine the effects of institutions on Economics Growth, I am interested to examine to investigate that institutions are key factors of economic outcomes or secondary arrangements that respond to other, such as geographic or cultural interaction, also I incline to examine which institutions are inherently stable over time and which institutions are reformable, for instance when the preferences of the people change, and if the countries reform their institutions, can move onto more successful paths of economic growth.
I believe that institutions may not be the only effective factor affecting economic growth because if institutions matter so much, why do societies choose non-growth-enhancing institutions? I think a proper understanding of how institutions affect economic outcomes and why institutions differ across countries (and why they sometimes change and pave the way for growth miracles) requires models of political economy. So, political economy may enables us to develop models to comprehend why economic policies and institutions differ across countries and must therefore be an integral part of the study of economic growth. Also, I want to examine the effects of political regimes such as democracies, nondemocratic regimes and military dictatorships on economic growth to understand that the political structure of countries do necessarily guide us to understand their effect on economic growth. However, the Lipset/Aristotle hypothesis claims this is the economy that affects and improves the policy (democracy), so I want to provide more convincing empirical evidence for/ again Lipset/Aristotle hypothesis and develop convincing theoretical models and a framework of the relation.
Moreover, I want to examine the effects of technology (innovation) on economic growth because as Acemoglu claims technology will influence both the preferences of different individuals and groups towards policies (or specific institutions) and also their political powers, and Nelson (2008) argues that long-run economic change involves the co-evolution of the technologies known and in use, and the institutions supporting and regulating these. So, I believe to understand the economics growth better we should investigate the effects of technology on it. Briefly, I want to examine the effects of institutions, innovation and political economy on growth separately, also for future research I intend to investigate how various combinations of the these factors lead to different economic allocations and effect on the economic growth to provide a framework for understanding about the causes of why some countries are growing and some others are not, and why some countries are affluent and others are not. I aim to continue the works of Acemoglu, North, Barro and Nelson, and improve their models.
Computational Economics and Econometrics is my other field of interest area for future research. During my graduate studies, also I aim to equip myself with some advanced tools and improve my analytical and research abilities. I desire to get an excellent command over econometrics to be able to confront economic theories with empirical verification. For example I like to make use of artificial intelligence and time series methods in order to conduct my investigations on predicting and optimizing the economic trends and compare their results. Econometrics per se, also interests me as a subject of economics and I might like to research in econometric methodology. Although my GPA for bachelor's degree is low (because of cancer of my father I had to simultaneously study at university and work to support my family), I could verify my capabilities by ranking among 1% of admitted individuals nationwide university entrance exam of Iran (the Concours), and ranking 124 out of 24000 individuals participated in M.A. test in accounting discipline. I believe my education suits economy very good, I have Master of accounting with strong background of applied mathematics. I already have extensive research experience. All this maybe makes me an academic economist, but my aim is to become a high-quality one.
Finally, I believe that ... University possesses a set of prominent professors many of whom are experts in my favorite fields of interest including financial economics represented by Professor ...., macroeconomics represented by Professor ...., Computational Economics and Econometrics represented by Professor ... . Accordingly, this university is the best place to pursue the academic goals as well as doing research on my favorite subjects and where I can develop and apply my potential talents. I am confident that my knowledge of mathematics and economics will succeed me at the PhD level in my favorite fields of interest.
