How to Nail its PhD in Economics ?

Here's a brief wannabe one-pager answering key crucial elements:

How to Succeed?
How to Fail?
Choosing Your Committee
What People Don't Tell You

How to Succeed?

Firs thing first the meaning of success vary. I do not call having an academic the sole metrics of success -- many end up choosing other paths for personal or familiar reason, other than their ability to land one. By success, I refer to as: you have create an original piece of research that help to understand societal problem a bit better. If you make methodological contribution, its a plus.

But how can we reach that? What must be understood is than here is thousands are fantastic PhDs all around the world trying to do the same thing. There aren't that many low hanging fruit -- unless you pioneer a field, at thing PhD allows you to do if you believe in yourself enough.

That is: Data. Data is truly the solve

Which story should you tell?

First and foremost, do not try to be liked by everyone. You only want to be LOVED by a handful of faculty members who will put your name into the hat, envisioning strong research potential in you. If you are passionate about environmental economics, don't hide it—in fact, demonstrate it. Make it your whole narrative, your story. You want to show that you have grit on a policy-relevant topic. That you will come to their university with research ideas—the most valuable resource in academia—combined with the ability to find data.

Examples of such topics are climate change, inequality, financial risks/climate risks, homelessness, crime, etc. You want to show that:

You have done research on the topic (and be technical to demonstrate your capability and experience, yet, be concise);
That you found data on the topics and how - in a concise manner;
You've taken particular courses or jobs/RAs to deepen your understanding.

There are no dominant strategies (though there are strictly dominated ones, such as being fuzzy and not demonstrating the required technical capabilities). You want to demonstrate that your whole higher education made you converge toward performing a PhD to answer specific questions. Name-drop professors you would like to work with and why (do your research). They might be on the selection committee. Again, a clear and strong signal, not shy and fuzzy; it's a threshold system and you want to be above it for certain universities, not all. The application process is heterogeneous, and so are professors' preferences—make this play to your advantage. In that sense, apply to 20 universities.

The intro should show why you are considering a PhD. Then the next paragraph should explain your research interests, and another how this particular university can help you (which prof and which resources); then make distinct paragraphs on how you delved into this issue in previous research and professional experience. Again, be technical, yet concise, regarding your past research experience. Finally, you should specify that you applied for grants such as FRQSC and SSHRC and why you might get them—perhaps by underlining your previous grants and social involvement. This might help you at the margin, and will also show that you understand the academic market.

Please understand that this is the optimal scenario. You might not fulfill all of these criteria, hence do backward induction and start working on it.

Research Experience

The most important thing to work on before applying to grad school is to have great research experience—ideally in your field of interest, or at the very least on skills you consider using. This is very important, as you will likely become path-dependent on these few research experiences: you'll have a comparative advantage in these subjects and tools.

If you don't have any research experience yet, quit this page and look at the faculty in your university, or even your province. Choose a handful and send an email, one a week, until one offers you an RA position. Don't write to five in the same week, as they might all say yes... It's OK to do research unpaid, yet there are often undergrad research grants if you start your process early enough.

Now the strategic side. Research experience matters—A LOT—but the admissions committee puts a hefty weight on letters of reference as a signal of your capabilities.

Which course to take ?

Again, the goal is to craft your own narrative. Don't simply mimic others. If you believe that sociology and political science will significantly benefit your research agenda, pursue them and let the committee know why you did so! Most people drift in life and have no focus; show that this is not your case, and that you have a clear and organized research agenda. That is an outstanding predictor of performance in grad school, as you essentially have a five-year blank check.

However, it's important to note that math courses adhere to Inada conditions: their marginal value is very high near zero and diminishes as x approaches infinity. Given this, here are the courses I recommend:

Multivariate calculus
Linear algebra
Discrete math (optional)
Real analysis
Probability (optional)

Believe it or not, I had a blast doing real analysis. I recommend tackling the topics in the order listed. Yes, constructing proofs is challenging, but that's precisely what you'll be doing in your first year of a PhD program.