Looking @: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/programs/phd/fields/economic-analysis-policy. Econ Analysis and Policy PhD, in the Graduate School of Business.

Not a doctrinaire econ phd one would typically find in a doctoral program of economics (see even Stanford's econ department). Allows for quite a bit more discretion and creativity by the candidate in choosing courses/crafting a curriculum. More of a right-brain/strategic focus, bringing in public policy, but also allows for electives in more specialized, applied areas.

However, it's quite competitive. I'm wondering if there are any comparable programs @ schools that are less competitive in the admissions process (pretty much any other school, that was still objectively competitive, would be more attainable than Stanford is here). I've been looking (relatively fruitlessly) so far at:
1) "soft", wide-open (for candidate selection of elective courses) PhD programs @ the graduate schools of business in other universities. This hasn't been fruitful - the closest thing I've found is "Entrepreneurship PhD" or the like - less quantitative rigor than the Stanford program I linked, less public policy tie-in, and less of a wide variety of coursework. Typically an intersection of a repurposed Org Mgmt./Leadership program and VC-prep.
2) Traditional Econ PhD in graduate schools of economics. Maybe there is one someone can recommend that is closer to the Stanford program I linked?
3) Caltech's Social Sciences program (I imagine a good deal of financial engineering/machine learning could still be "Social Sciences" @ Caltech?) is actually a little closer. But we wanted LESS competitive...

Thanks so much for any help.