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A Masters Degree in “Big Data Analysis” = Masters in Economics?
The Chronicle of Higher Education has identified a growing industry. The market wants more “big data” analysts. As more serious research universities (including soon UCLA) launch Masters in Economics programs, I would hope that these initiatives focus on training our students in “big data” techniques. Ignoring boring stuff such as data base maintenance, the key to the curriculum should be basic micro economic logic, hypothesis testing and applied econometrics at the level of “Mostly Harmless Economics”. Topics such as general equilibrium, dynamic programming, and advanced topics in game theory and asymmetric information should not be touched in such a terminal masters sequence.
So, my point is that Economics Departments (not “information systems schools” or statistics departments) should be the leading trainers of “Big Data” analysts. The Econ Departments should figure out how to augment their offerings by teaming up with GIS experts and data base maintenance and data base security guys to offer auxiliary courses that provide students with necessary “real world” skills.
It will interest me which Deans of Social Sciences at which Universities are smart enough to empower their Economics Departments to grow to meet this rising demand.
Source: http://greeneconomics.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-masters-degree-in-big-data-analysis.html
