The Chicago School of Economics, most associated with Milton Friedman and George Stigler, saw itself as different from all the other top graduate programs in economics. At Chicago, the priority was solving applied problems, and only as much mathematics and theory should be used as was necessary to solve them. The other schools prioritized mathematical puzzle-solving and mathematical rigor and sophistication.
For those who might suspect Chicago was full of itself, the non-Chicago economists Arjo Klamar and David Colander dispelled the suspicion in their The Making of an Economist. After thorough interviewing and surveying of graduate students at the five or six top graduate programs, they concluded that graduate students at all but Chicago were cynically discouraged to realize that they were being trained to solve mathematical puzzles, while only those at Chicago still felt that they were being trained to matter in the real world.
I noticed that a recent obituary for the economist Stanley Fischer quotes Fischer as stating some diplomatic confirmation of the Klamar and Colander conclusion:
After earning his Ph.D. at M.I.T. in 1969, Mr. Fischer moved to the University of Chicago as a postdoctoral researcher and assistant professor. “At M.I.T. you did the mathematical work,” he told The New York Times in 1998, “and at Chicago you asked the question of how this applies to the real world” (Hagerty 2025, p. A17).
Alas, I fear that what was once true, is true no longer. I fear that if Klamar and Colander were to repeat their study today, they would find that Chicago has joined the other top programs in prioritizing mathematical puzzle-solving and mathematical rigor and sophistication.
The obituary of Stanley Fischer, quoted above, is:
(Note: the online version of the Steve Lohr article was updated June 10, 2025, and has the title “Stanley Fischer, Who Helped Defuse Financial Crises, Dies at 81.”)
The Klamar and Colander book mentioned above is:
Klamer, Arjo, and David Colander. The Making of an Economist. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990.