Thread by @jhaushofer, Here's a 2007 email from my neuro PhD advisor Nancy Kanwisher, in [...]

Here's a 2007 email from my neuro PhD advisor Nancy Kanwisher, in which she lays out my life trajectory: econ PhD with Ernst Fehr, economics job in Sweden. Now it's happening: I'll move to @SU_Economics! And: we're hiring TWO Assistant Profs! Here's why you should come here: 1/n https://twitter.com/SU_Economics/status/1316670860854538251

https://twitter.com/SU_Economics/status/1316670860854538251

I spent a sabbatical year here a few years ago, and it was one of my happiest and most productive years. Here are some things that made me fall in love with the place:

1. The department is full of great people, and is especially strong in applied micro. It's also extremely collegial: people go to lunch together, read each other's papers, collaborate. They sing for your birthday.

2. The admin staff are wonderful colleagues and humans and amazing at their jobs. On Wednesday mornings they organize a joint workout session. A few times a year they take you horseback riding or make you play lawn games.

3. The students are excellent; very good background (most come with Master's degrees), very motivated, fully funded. PhD student offices (yes, they have offices) are interspersed with faculty offices, with lots of interaction.

4. The economics environment in Stockholm is amazing: between @SU_Economics, @IIES_Sthlm, @SOFI_AME, @IFN_Stockholm, @handels_sse, @SHouseofFinance, and @SITEStockholm, the density of great people and projects is incredible. Lots of joint talks, workshops, dinners.

5. Teaching load: Two quarter courses per year. A quarter is 10 weeks, you teach once a week for 3h. Many courses are co-taught, lightening the load further. Lots of freedom to decide what you teach.

6. Salary: Lower than (most places) in the US, higher than many places in Europe. Also, Stockholm rewards you richly with quality of life. During my sabbatical, I tested living on the local salary. Here's the view of city hall and the old town from the 2BR I rented:

7. Funding: Sweden has an abundance of grant opportunities. Many of them go into the millions of $, so you can fund even large field projects. Unconditional success probabilities are much higher than NSF, NIH etc.

8. Swedish register data. It's nuts the things you can get. And chances are your senior colleagues have already worked with the specific dataset you need and are ready to help you.

9. Sweden has lots of small, lovely things. A basket of free fruit shows up in the department kitchen every morning. Dinner parties, lots of them. On October 4 they celebrate the existence of the cinnamon bun. On Dec 13, St. Lucia visits the university, which entails another bun.

10. If you're into this kind of thing, every December you get to have dinner with the Nobel laureates.

11. Here's a faculty office