"Economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life." Alfred Marshall
Born in a deprived family in Iran, compelled me to choose accounting and continue it so that I could simultaneously study at university and work to support my family (this factor resulted in low GPA in my B.A), while I was accepted in mathematics as my interested major in Sharif University as the best university of Iran. While thinking about a solution to save many of poor students who would have the same fate like me, the 2009-10 Iranian election protests (Tazahorat-e-Entekhabat-e-Hezar-o-Seesad Hashdad-o-hasht‎) causing the death of many Iranian who were afflicted by economic problems during recent years brought me a very strong reasons to think about a broader question: how can I save my country and my people? Fortunately, through studying accounting theories which are based on economic theories and working and publishing on one papers, namely as Criticizing positive accounting, during my M.A I became familiar with various economic schools and Economists. I was astonished by the Keynes whose genius saved the USA from The Great Depression, also I was captivated by the profound and comprehensive knowledge and critical thinking of Samuel and Friedman, and wished that one day I could become like of them to save my country. So, discerning that this is the ultimate mission and goal of Economics to improve the everyday living conditions of human beings through optimal allocation of resources for fair distribution of wealth, 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.
I am well prepared on how to become a qualified candidate to attain a PhD. My preparation includes three aspects: providing a strong background in mathematics; finding research interests; and learning various tools used in economic analysis. Mathematics has always been my favorite subject, and I always performed very well in the Mathematics class. Because of my inherent capability to solve mathematics problems, I could pass all the mathematics-related courses in high school with the best scores. This strong background has helped me in many different circumstances: ranking among 1% of admitted individuals nationwide university entrance exam of Iran (the Concours), taking highest score in every mathematics course I have taken during bachelor and ranking 124 out of 24000 individuals participated in M.A. test in accounting discipline. Since mathematics is widely applied in Economics, I studied many different textbooks in Linear Algebra, Calculus and Multivariate Calculus. I am also very comfortable with rigorous mathematical proofs, like material cover in courses such as Real Analysis. Moreover, I studied Topology, the usage of mathematics in economics and static and dynamic optimization. My talent in Mathematics gives me an absolute advantage in studying and doing research in economics. I am confident this will help me do very well in pursuing an Economics PhD at ***.
Developing countries always are facing big economical problems like, high rate of unemployment, inflation, poverty and other challenges, my research interests are based on finding a persuasive respond to these discrepancy problems. Fortunately, through studying the Macroeconomics written by Professor Mankiw, I got familiar with macroeconomic goals: the achievement of good living standards, stability and full employment. Since economic growth and development are used as index of achieving to good living standards and these two indexes are very important to every country especially developing countries, I found one of my favorite interest areas for doing research, namely, Growth and Development Economics. Moreover, my enthusiasm hardly exaggerated when I first read about the success stories of MFIs around the world, how much they have contributed to poverty reduction among their clients and how they have changed so many lives. After the first wave of excitement passed, I realized that there are still difficulties on the way, and we are far from having found the ultimate tool of poverty reduction. So, during my graduate studies I aim to be master in macroeconomic theories specially to be an expertness in growth and development. In this area I studied classical growth theory, the neoclassical model and endogenous growth theory and I got enthralled by amazing model of Solow and Swan and my eagerness reached its apex reading about the model of Romer and Lucas.
Since, Importance and necessity of growth and development makes the optimal allocation of resources for fair distribution a vital issue and because of important role of capital market in this allocation, Stock Exchange of such importance in today's complex economic system is that it is a measure of economic health and disease. So, I believe that Stock Exchange is excellent tool to boost the economic growth and development in any country and this point makes financial economies as another field which I interested in doing research. Having had passed financial management course in B.A. period, I got familiar with financial Economics. I spent the advanced financial management course and I got familiar with the works of William Sharpe, Stephen Ross, Black and Shorts. Having read Fama's articles and noticed that these articles have led to the development of the financial Economics and won the Nobel Prize, I got astounded.
Computational Economics and Econometrics is my other field of interest area for future research. Immensity as well as the ambiguity that lies in predicting the future events led me to choose predicting different fields of accounting including cash flow and earnings as my M.A. research field. During my master's program I familiar with Data sets which econometric analyses are applied such as Cross-sectional data and Panel Date, and I exploited them in my papers. After graduation, being curious and eager to find the best prediction methods for stock prices and economic trends, I became familiar with such methods as artificial intelligence methods. Artificial intelligence allows economic models to be of arbitrary complexity and also to be able to evolve as the economic environment also changes and it has been applied to simulate the stock market, to model options and derivatives as well as model and control interest rates. Also, I got familiar with linear time series models such as (AR), the integrated (I), (MA), (ARMA), (ARIMA) and (ARFIMA) and non-linear time series models such as ARCH, GARCH, TARCH, EGARCH, FIGARCH, and CGARCH. So, 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.
Although the area of Economics and accounting are different, but their research methodologies are the same. During my Master's program and after graduation, I equipped myself as best I could. I obtained rigorous training in statistics and econometrics via studying many books such as Gujarati and learning and applying cross-sectional and panel data methods with various tools used in economic analysis such as Eviews. Also, to guarantee my successful in PhD period, I qualified myself during two late years under the supervision of professors of Economics through learning how to use software as Matlab and Stata and studying economics and providing solid math background. I am certain that my published papers and done projects in the area of predicting the accounting data such as Earnings, Cash Flows and Accruals will help me to do research in my research interests i.e. predicting economic trends because I learned who to create interesting hypotheses, use creative models and apply appropriate methods to write an excellent paper and now I am working on two papers namely, predicting future stock prices and economic growth via time series and artificial models to verify my enthusiasm. Regarding my unutterable passion to research, my future life was redirected towards a road that guided me to become an academic economist.
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.
Thanks a lot. I have got my master's degree in accounting. I published 9 papers, did four projects in accounting area(predicting future cash flows,earnings and earnings quality) and I was lecture three years. Now, I want to continue my education in Economics. I want to apply for PhD in Economics. I want to change my major because an Economist can help more to save a developing country than an accountant. Also, Economics has advanced theories which can quell my thirsty. Moreover, I have intrinsic ability to solve Mathematical questions which is widely applied in Economics. My research interests are Macroeconomics( especially growth and development), Financial Economics and Econometric. I received the below comments from the Chair of Economics department of MIT.
"You want to write a compelling statement that summarizes why you want to study economics, what you hope to accomplish, and how you reached this point."
So, I write the first paragraph to show why I want to study economics [the first part of above comment]. I write the second paragraph to show what subjects I studied in mathematics which I couldn't explain them in my C.V( My quantitative score of GRE is 165 out of 170). I write the other paragraphs to show my research interests which I want to do research and how I reached that these areas are my research interests [the second an third parts of mentioned comment]. Now, I need your help to edit my SOP. Also, I need your comments about the content of it. Where should I summarize, omit and modify or expand. Please help me.
Best Regards,
Reza
