1. Duke is a more regarded school in the job market but not only for PhD preparation, the price charge you also for that.
2. Go Europe if you think the US one don't worth it / not enough $$.
3. I guess the ad com won't care what research you had done / paper you had published, but just if you know what research is about.
4. 1.5 year is enough indeed.......and indeed 1.5 year = 2 year at the end. Some good master are only 1 year even (e.g. LSE EME), and then it will be a concern as grades and letter are hard to be ready
5. self studying something is always useful as you will learn something.......but don't expect this claim will help much on application......unless they are going to test you in a test / interview.
6. Agree to #18. You don't need to have real analysis for sure, just switch to some other maths course that are useful and not crash with your timetable........(e.g. optimization, measure theortical prob, .......)
我看台灣這邊的分檔,economic journal算是A,Journal of Econometrics算作A+(五大也算A+)
那個大牛也就在economic journal這個檔次發發paper(Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control、Journal of Money, Credit and Banking)
我們老師發paper的期刊比這個再低一級