what can you do with a phd in economics reddit

Is an economics PhD still a great deal?

Yes, but for different reasons than a decade ago..

My most popular post at my old blog, back in 2013, was called “ If you get a PhD, get an economics PhD ”. People still ask me about it to this day. In that post, I categorized PhD’s into three types:

Lifestyle PhDs , in which you get to think about fun stuff and exist in a stimulating intellectual community, but probably will struggle to find a job in your field,

Lab science PhDs , in which you will get a job after years of busting your butt working for a P.I. at a lab bench or in a cleanroom, and

PhDs that work , i.e. programs that get you both good job opportunities, intellectual fulfillment, and the lifestyle of an independent scholar.

Econ, I argued, was the paradigmatic example of the third type. As it’s mostly not a grant-funded lab science, PhD students get relative autonomy — a chance to think their own thoughts and set their own schedules. But because there are so many good job opportunities in econ — professorships, business school professorships, private sector econ jobs galore — you can largely do your own thing and be assured of a glide path to the upper middle class. And because economists occupy (or at least, occupied) a rather unique place in society, you can do all of this while still being afforded the respect given to the sages of the ivory tower. Thus, I argued, econ was the PhD that offered the best of all possible worlds.

To a large extent, that is still true. Econ still offers a good amount of personal and intellectual autonomy, despite a modest rise in grant funding and postdocs and the other trappings of lab science. There are still more academic jobs than for many other fields, thanks to the continued growth of business schools . And though economists are perhaps not viewed as the all-purpose sages they used to be, they are still afforded quite a bit of respect. Furthermore, the culture of econ is changing in ways that greatly mitigate the traditional downsides. In fact, overall I’d say that the economics PhD is an even better deal than it used to be.

Here are a few ways I see the landscape as having shifted in the decade since I got my degree.

The rise of data science

One of the most important trends over the past decade has been the emergence of data science as a highly lucrative and accessible field for people with PhDs. This field is red-hot — data scientists are some of the best-paid workers in industry, and demand for them continues to grow . This is being driven by a number of trends, but basically there are two stories here. First, the internet has generated a huge amount of data, and companies need people to wrangle that data and extract value from it. Second, deep learning turned out to basically be magic for many applications.

For economists, the first of these is more relevant. Yes, after a while in data science you might get into deep learning, but it’s not something that economists necessarily start out as specialists in; if that’s your goal you’re probably better off just going through computer science. Economists’ core strength is in statistical modeling; thanks in part to the empirical turn in the profession since the 1990s, people with econ PhDs are some of the better applied statisticians out there. So they’re a perfect fit for plenty of data science jobs that even Masters-level people can’t really do.

In fact, it’s extremely easy to transition from econ into the world of data science. You can just apply for jobs directly, or you can go through a boot camp like Insight that will quickly teach you the extra stuff you need to know. A good friend of mine from grad school decided to do this after she left her professor job; she now makes three times what her peak salary as a prof would have been. Not bad. And while figuring out how to optimize Spotify recommendations or whatever might not be quite as intellectually stimulating as searching for the true causes of unemployment, it does present you with a bunch of interesting mathy problems to solve. And if you’re into that sort of thing, it’s an alternative gateway to a lucrative career in tech company management for people who didn’t go the software engineer route.

Data science may not be the first job of choice for economists who want to do real econ work, but it provides a very safe and lucrative outside option that barely existed a decade ago. (This has more than compensated for the winnowing of quant finance, and it’s also far less soul-crushing.)

The boom in private-sector econ jobs

Data science uses the stuff you learned in econometrics, but it isn’t really an econ job per se. Fortunately, a lot more companies are hiring economists to do actual economics. For a primer, read this 2018 paper by Susan Athey and Michael Luca (Athey is probably the second-most-famous private sector economist after Hal Varian, and is one of the profession’s true geniuses, so heed her advice).

Essentially their are two stories here. First, tech companies have created a whole lot of online marketplaces — Google Ads auctions, Amazon Marketplace, two-sided search markets for Uber and Lyft, and a whole lot of others. They need economists to figure out how these markets work, and — perhaps more importantly — how they should work. In a way, creating an idealized market from scratch could be more intellectually fulfilling than studying more “natural” markets; with the magic of software, an economist can create the kind of economic interactions that previously were just theoretical approximations!

The second trend is, as before, the empirical turn in econ. The credibility revolution has produced a generation of economists who are able to think very subtly and intelligently about how to isolate causality from natural experiments and policy experiments. That’s something that’s proving increasingly valuable to businesses, who have all too often led astray by correlations that turn out not to be structural. Whether it’s A/B testing, or causal inference for marketing, or just figuring out the determinants of demand, companies want economists who can help them empirically understand how their corner of the world really works.

The softening of econ culture

One other way that an econ PhD has become an even better deal is that the culture of the profession has become much less dominated by jerks. I can’t actually prove this to you, but young people can feel it . I can, however, describe roughly what has changed.

First, there has been a big backlash against sexism (and, to some degree, racism) in the profession. A series of academic papers exposed the field’s gender bias from a variety of angles — toxic online forums , discrimination in the credit for co-authorships, discrimination in the peer review process , and so on. A few high-profile sexual harassment scandals chastened the behavior of some top male economists. The people who run the profession — which, if you don’t know, is a very hierarchical profession — have made concrete moves to signal that sexism and racism aren’t allowed. One example is banning interviews in hotel rooms .

These are small in substantive terms, but they send a strong signal about what type of behavior and attitudes will result in economists getting shut out from plum jobs. There are still a few universities that specialize in hiring disgraced professors, but overall the “old boys’ club” of economics is on the way out.

The erosion of sexism dovetails with another big change in econ culture, which is the decline of bullying. There has been a concerted effort to push back on professors who try to destroy speakers in the seminar room; the era of “Well, this is really more of a comment than a question” is rapidly fading. I conjecture that this also has something to do with the empirical turn in economics — when theory isn’t disciplined by evidence, a loud-shouting bully might advance his ideas to the forefront of the profession by force of personality alone, but when you have to bring data, that kind of crap just doesn’t work.

Finally, economics has become more politically progressive . Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing obviously depends on your personal politics. But since most of the Americans who are considering a PhD are going to be progressive, the fact that econ isn’t an outlier in this regard probably makes the field more attractive.

Add up all these changes, and the result is that doing an econ PhD no longer means having to worry (or at least, not having to worry nearly as much) about navigating an entrenched old boys’ club of right-wing bullies. That’s a big plus!

The changing role of economists in American society

Better culture, more private-sector jobs, and lucrative outside options in data science — those are three major ways that an econ PhD is an even better deal than it was in 2012. But there’s at least one major way in which econ is less like a $20 that someone left lying on the ground. Economists’ intellectual prestige has dwindled a bit.

Back in the 2000s, at the height of the finance-driven Bush years, economists were viewed as sort of all-purpose sages. Americans were thrilled to read economists’ insights on everything from abortion to how to name your kids. Economists held pride of place among presidential advisors, determining the fate of nations — or just telling you where to get a bite to eat .

The financial crisis and the Great Recession brought that world crashing down, and that definitely diminished economists’ prestige a bit. Donald Trump was another factor — he famously had little use for economists, preferring instead to rely on his own clumsy bellowing and aggressive tariffs rather than the nostrums of some academic scribblers. The utter disregard for the free-trade consensus — perhaps the only thing economists agreed on at the time — was a major symbolic defeat for the profession, and one that Biden shows no intention of reversing . In fact, astute observers have noticed a diminished role for economists in the current administration as well.

One more factor, I think, was the shifting of America’s fault lines to non-economic issues — matters of history, of race and gender, of culture and nation. Those deep questions about the nature of our society make the quotidian matters of real estate portfolios and GDP numbers less central to our lives, and I think that made Americans less likely to ask economists for their advice about anything and everything.

So if you do get an econ PhD, don’t expect to walk around and have people view you as a sage. It’s a bit more like being a biologist now — you have your area of expertise, and most (but not all) people will acknowledge it, but if you go outside your field you’ll be considered an amateur.

Personally, I like that better, but your mileage may vary.

General warning about getting a PhD

So the econ PhD is still one of the best PhDs you can get. I’d put it up there with computer science and applied math, which share many of these advantages. But remember that doing any PhD is going to have some major drawbacks and challenges. As I wrote in my 2013 post:

[A]n econ PhD program is still a PhD program. That means, first of all, that you will be in poverty in your late 20s. That is not fun for most people (some "lifestyle PhD" students and bohemian artists excepted). Also, econ PhD programs force you to manage your own time, while giving you very little feedback about how well or badly you're actually doing. That can be stressful and depressing.

PhD programs famously put an enormous strain on the mental health of many students. Even those who come out of it just fine often remember it as a very difficult time in their lives. That’s obviously not true for everyone — some people remember their PhD programs as the best days of their lives. But it’s a risk you should be aware of.

But if you decide that a PhD program is right for you, then I think you could easily do worse than economics. The role of economists in society has changed in the last decade, but in most ways I’d say it’s even better than before.

Ready for more?

• The Inventory

A PhD in economics is the only one worth getting

People often ask me: “Noah, what career path can I take where I’m virtually guaranteed to get a well-paying job in my field of interest, which doesn’t force me to work 80 hours a week, and which gives me both autonomy and intellectual excitement?” Well, actually, I lied, no one asks me that. But they  should  ask me that, because I do know of such a career path, and it’s called the economics PhD.

“What?!!” you sputter. “What about all those articles telling me  never ,  ever , ever , ever  to get a PhD?! Didn’t you read those?! Don’t you know that PhDs are  proliferating like mushrooms  even as  tenure-track jobs disappear ? Do you want us to be stuck in eternal postdoc hell, or turn into adjunct-faculty wage-slaves?!”

To which I respond: There are PhDs, and there are PhDs, and then there are econ PhDs.

Basically, I think of PhDs as mostly falling into one of three categories:

1. Lifestyle PhDs . These include math, literature and the humanities, theoretical physics, history, many social sciences, and the arts. These are PhDs you do because you really, really, really love just sitting and thinking about stuff. You work on your own interests, at your own pace. If you want to be a poor bohemian scholar who lives a pure “life of the mind,” these PhDs are for you. I totally respect people who intentionally choose this lifestyle; I’d be pretty happy doing it myself, I think. Don’t expect to get a job in your field when you graduate, though.

2. Lab science PhDs.  These include biology, chemistry, neuroscience, electrical engineering, etc. These are PhDs you do because you’re either a suicidal fool or an incomprehensible sociopath. They mainly involve utterly brutal hours slaving away in a laboratory on someone else’s project for your entire late 20s, followed by years of postdoc hell for your early 30s, with a low percentage chance of a tenure-track faculty position. To find out what these PhD programs are like,  read this blog post . If you are considering getting a lab science PhD, please immediately hit yourself in the face with a brick. Now you know what it’s like.

(Note: People have been pointing out that electrical engineering isn’t as bad as the other lab sciences, with somewhat more autonomy and better job prospects. That’s consistent with my observations. But econ still beats it by a mile…)

3. PhDs that work.  I’m not exactly sure which PhDs fall into this category, but my guess is that it includes marketing, applied math and statistics, finance, computer science, accounting, and management. It  definitely , however, includes economics. Economics is the best PhD you can possibly get.

Why get a PhD in economics? Here’s why:

Reason 1: You get a job

Can I say it any more clearly? An econ PhD at even a middle-ranked school leads, with near-absolute certainty, to a well-paying job in an economics-related field. I believe the University of Michigan, for example, has gone many, many years without having a PhD student graduate without a job in hand.

You will not always get a tenure-track job, though there are a lot more of those available right now than in other fields (thanks, I am guessing, to the nationwide explosion in business schools, which hire a lot of econ PhDs, including yours truly). But if you don’t get a tenure-track job, you will get a well-paid job as a consultant, or a well-paid job in finance, or a decently-well-paid job in one of the many, many government agencies that hire armies of economists. All of these are what are commonly referred to as “good jobs,” with good pay, decent job security, non-brutal working conditions, and close relation to the economics field.

Now, this may be less true at lower-ranked schools; I don’t have the data. I imagine it’s not as certain, but still far, far better than for lab science PhDs at similarly ranked schools.

Why do so very few newly minted econ PhDs face the prospect of unemployment? Part of it is due to the econ field’s extremely well-managed (and centrally planned!)  job market . Part of it is due to the large demand from the lucrative consulting and finance industries. And part is due to the aforementioned proliferation of b-schools. There may be other reasons I don’t know. But in an America where nearly every career path is looking more and more like a gamble, the econ PhD remains a rock of stability—the closest thing you’ll find to a direct escalator to the upper middle class.

Reason 2: You get autonomy

Unlike the hellish lab science PhD programs, an econ grad student is not tied to an adviser. Since profs don’t usually fund econ students out of grants (few even have big grants), economics students mostly pay their way by teaching. This means you usually have to teach, but that is not nearly as grueling as working in a lab. Even when a professor does support you with a grant, he or she generally employs you as a research assistant, and gives you ample time to work on your own research.

Compare this to a lab science PhD, in which you basically do the project your adviser tells you to do, and you succeed or fail in part based on whether your adviser chooses a project that works out. Your destiny is out of your hands, your creativity is squelched, and your life is utterly at the mercy of a single taskmaster. In economics, on the other hand, you can start doing your own original, independent research the minute you show up (or even before). Professors generally encourage you to start your own projects. Unlike in lab science PhD programs (but as in “lifestyle” PhD programs), your time is mostly your own to manage.

This means that as an econ grad student, you’ll have a life. Or a chance at having a life, anyway.

Reason 3: You get intellectual fulfillment

Econ is not as intellectually deep as some fields, like physics, math, or literature. But it’s deep enough to keep you intellectually engaged. Econ allows you to think about human interactions, and social phenomena, in a number of different intellectually rigorous ways (e.g. game theory, incentives, decision theory, quantification of norms and values, bounded rationality, etc.). That’s cool stuff.

And economists, even if their research is highly specialized, are encouraged to think about all different kinds of topics in the field, and encouraged to think freely and originally. That’s something few people appreciate. In a lab science, in contrast, you are encouraged to burrow down in your area of hyper-specialization.

In econ, furthermore, you get exposed to a bunch of different disciplines; you get to learn some statistics, a little math, some sociology, a bit of psychology, and maybe even some history.

Also, as an economist, your status as an intellectual will not disappear when you get a job. Even if you go to work as a consultant or a financier, your thoughts will be welcomed and considered by economists in the blogosphere. And you can even publish econ papers as a non-academic.

In fact, it’s also worth pointing out that econ is a field in which outsiders and mavericks are able to challenge the status quo. This is in spite of the economics profession’s well-known deference to intellectual authority figures. The simple fact is that in econ, you don’t need money to advance new ideas, as you do in biology or chemistry. And you don’t need math wizardry either, as you would if you wanted to introduce new ideas in physics.

Reason 4: The risk of failure is low

In economics PhD programs, the main risk of failure is not passing your preliminary exams. This happens to a substantial fraction of people who get admitted to econ programs (maybe 25% or fewer at Michigan). But if you flunk out,  you get a complimentary Master’s degree , which is probably worth the 2 years that you’ll have spent in the program. And after you pass the prelims, there is little risk of not finishing a dissertation; unlike in most fields, you do not have to publish to graduate.

Caveats about the econ PhD

Of course, I don’t want to make it seem like the econ PhD is an utterly dominant strategy for life fulfillment. There are some caveats that you should definitely take into account.

First, there is the fact that an econ PhD program is still a PhD program. That means, first of all, that you will be in poverty in your late 20s. That is not fun for most people (some “lifestyle PhD” students and bohemian artists excepted). Also, econ PhD programs force you to manage your own time, while giving you very little feedback about how well or badly you’re actually doing. That can be stressful and depressing.

Second, be aware that the culture of economics is still fairly conservative, and not in the good way. Econ is one of the few places in our society where overtly racist and sexist ideas are not totally taboo ( Steve Landsburg is an extreme example, but that gives you the general flavor). Discrimination against women, in particular, probably still exists, though I’d say (or I’d hope, anyway) that it’s on the wane.

Finally, there is the fact that if enough people read and believe this blog post, it will cease to be true. There’s a piece of economics for you: as soon as people become aware that a thing is overvalued, they will start bidding up its price. But information diffuses slowly. Expect the econ PhD to lose its luster in five to 10 years, but that still gives you a window of time.

Anyway, despite these caveats, the econ PhD still seems like quite a sweet deal to me. And compared to a hellish, soul-crushing, and economically dubious lab science PhD, econ seems like a slam dunk. There are very few such bargains left in the American labor market. Grab this one while it’s still on the shelves.

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The vice president supports the tax increases proposed by the Biden White House, according to her campaign.

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By Andrew Duehren

Reporting from Washington

In a campaign otherwise light on policy specifics, Vice President Kamala Harris this week quietly rolled out her most detailed, far-ranging proposal yet: nearly $5 trillion in tax increases over a decade.

That’s how much more revenue the federal government would raise if it adopted a number of tax increases that President Biden proposed in the spring . Ms. Harris’s campaign said this week that she supported those tax hikes, which were thoroughly laid out in the most recent federal budget plan prepared by the Biden administration.

No one making less than $400,000 a year would see their taxes go up under the plan. Instead, Ms. Harris is seeking to significantly raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and large corporations. Congress has previously rejected many of these tax ideas, even when Democrats controlled both chambers.

While tax policy is right now a subplot in a turbulent presidential campaign, it will be a primary policy issue in Washington next year. The next president will have to work with Congress to address the tax cuts Donald J. Trump signed into law in 2017. Many of those tax cuts expire after 2025, meaning millions of Americans will see their taxes go up if lawmakers don’t reach a deal next year.

Here’s an overview of what we now know — and still don’t know — about the Democratic nominee’s views on taxes.

Higher taxes on corporations

The most recent White House budget includes several proposals that would raise taxes on large corporations . Chief among them is raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 21 percent, a step that the Treasury Department estimated could bring in $1.3 trillion in revenue over the next 10 years.

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Phd in economics: requirements, salary, jobs, & career growth, what is phd in economics.

A PhD in Economics is a doctorate-level degree that focuses on advanced training and research in the field of economics. It is a research-oriented degree that prepares students to contribute to the field through original, in-depth research and analysis.

The program typically involves taking advanced coursework in economics, completing a research project, and writing a dissertation that presents original findings. The coursework and research topics covered in a PhD in Economics program can include microeconomics, macroeconomics, econometrics, game theory, economic history, and various specialized areas within the field.

The PhD in Economics is ideal for individuals who are interested in pursuing careers in academia, government, international organizations, or research-focused organizations. Graduates of the program are equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to conduct independent research, analyze data, and develop innovative solutions to complex economic problems.

How much money do people make with a PhD in Economics?

The earning potential of individuals with a PhD in Economics can vary widely based on a number of factors such as their experience, location, and type of employer. On average, economists with a PhD can expect to earn a higher salary than those with a master’s degree or a bachelor’s degree in the field.

According to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median annual salary for economists was $105,020 in May 2020. However, salaries can range from less than $60,000 for entry-level positions to over $150,000 for experienced economists in leadership positions.

In academia, assistant professors with a PhD in Economics can expect to earn a starting salary in the range of $70,000 to $90,000, while full professors can earn well over $100,000. In the government sector, economists with a PhD can earn salaries that range from $70,000 to $120,000 or more, depending on their level of experience and the type of agency they work for.

In the private sector, salaries for economists with a PhD can be even higher, particularly for those working in consulting, finance, or other high-paying industries. However, the earning potential in the private sector is highly dependent on the specific job and the location, with salaries in certain cities, such as New York or San Francisco, being significantly higher than those in other parts of the country.

It’s important to note that salaries can vary greatly based on factors such as the individual’s level of experience, the type of employer, and the location.

What is expected job growth with PhD in Economics?

The job growth for individuals with a PhD in Economics is expected to be relatively strong in the coming years. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), employment of economists is projected to grow 6% from 2019 to 2029, which is about as fast as the average for all occupations.

Demand for economists is expected to remain strong, particularly in the government and private sectors, as organizations continue to seek individuals with expertise in analyzing data, developing economic models, and creating solutions to complex economic problems.

In the government sector, there is expected to be continued demand for economists who can analyze economic data and provide research and policy analysis to inform government decision-making.

In the private sector, economists with PhDs are expected to be in high demand in consulting firms, financial institutions, and other organizations that require advanced economic analysis and problem-solving skills.

In academia, opportunities for economists with PhDs are expected to remain strong, as universities continue to seek highly trained individuals to conduct research and teach the next generation of economists.

Overall, the job outlook for individuals with a PhD in Economics is positive, and they can expect to have a range of opportunities across various sectors and industries. However, as with any job market, there may be fluctuations in demand based on economic conditions and other factors.

What can you do with a PhD in Economics?

A PhD in Economics provides individuals with advanced training and research skills in the field of economics, preparing them for a variety of careers in academia, government, international organizations, the private sector, and non-profit organizations. Some of the most common career paths for individuals with a PhD in Economics include:

1. Academia: Many individuals with a PhD in Economics pursue careers in academia as university professors, where they conduct research, teach courses, and mentor students.

2. Government: Economists with a PhD can find careers in the government sector, working in agencies such as the Federal Reserve, the Department of Labor, or the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

3. International organizations: PhD economists can also find careers in international organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, or the United Nations.

4. Private sector: Economists with PhDs can also find careers in the private sector, working for consulting firms, financial institutions, or other businesses that require advanced economic analysis.

5. Non-profit organizations: Economists with a PhD can also find careers in non-profit organizations, where they can use their expertise to address social and economic issues.

6. Research organizations: Economists with a PhD can also find careers in research organizations, where they can conduct independent research and publish their findings. 

What are the requirements for a PhD in Economics?

The requirements for a PhD in Economics can vary slightly depending on the specific program and university, but in general, most PhD programs in Economics require the following:

1. A bachelor’s or master’s degree in economics or a related field: Most PhD programs in Economics require applicants to have a bachelor’s or master’s degree in economics or a related field, such as mathematics, statistics, or finance.

2. Coursework: PhD programs in Economics typically require students to complete advanced coursework in economics, including microeconomics, macroeconomics, econometrics, game theory, and other specialized areas of the field.

3. Examinations: Many PhD programs in Economics require students to pass written and oral comprehensive exams to demonstrate their mastery of the field.

4. Research project: PhD students in Economics are typically required to complete a research project, either independently or as part of a team, and present their findings in a written thesis or dissertation.

5. Teaching experience: Many PhD programs in Economics also require students to complete teaching experience, either as a teaching assistant in an undergraduate course or as the instructor of their own course.

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How long does it take to get a phd in economics.

The time it takes to complete a PhD in Economics can vary, but most programs take between 4 to 7 years on average. The exact duration of the program depends on a number of factors, including the specific program requirements, the student’s course load, and the amount of time they can dedicate to their studies.

Typically, the first 2 to 3 years of a PhD in Economics program are spent completing coursework and exams, while the remaining years are dedicated to research and writing a thesis or dissertation. During this time, PhD students are also typically required to complete teaching or research assistantships to gain practical experience in their field.

In some programs, students may be able to complete their PhD more quickly by taking a heavier course load, while in others, students may need to take more time to complete their research and writing.

It’s important to keep in mind that the length of a PhD program can vary significantly depending on the specific program and the student’s individual circumstances.

Some students may complete their PhD in as little as 4 years, while others may take 7 years or more. Additionally, some programs may allow students to take a leave of absence or pause their studies for personal or professional reasons, which can also impact the overall duration of the program.

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Do you need a masters in economics to get a phd in economics.

Not all PhD programs in Economics require a master’s degree, but many do. A master’s degree in economics can provide students with a strong foundation in the field and help them prepare for the more advanced coursework and research required in a PhD program.

However, some PhD programs in Economics accept applicants with only a bachelor’s degree, particularly if they have strong academic performance and relevant work experience.

In some cases, PhD programs in Economics may offer a combined master’s and PhD program, allowing students to complete both degrees in a shorter amount of time. This can be a good option for students who are interested in pursuing a career in academia or research and want to obtain both degrees as quickly as possible.

What are the Best PhD in Economics Degree programs?

Harvard university, massachusetts institute of technology (mit), stanford university, university of chicago, princeton university, columbia university, new york university (nyu), university of california, berkeley (uc berkeley), university of pennsylvania, yale university, leave a comment cancel reply.

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• Jun 13, 2019

10 Careers You Can Pursue with an Economics Degree

Valerie David

Lifestyle and Career Expert

Economics is a complicated area of study, and its mix of intricate subjects like statistics and political analysis can sometimes make daunted pupils classify it as 'boring'.

The jobs you can get with an economics degree are anything but snooze-worthy, however. People who can tackle complex theories, calculations and projections are eligible for all kinds of careers, including valuable posts in government.

While some positions require further study or certification, many job options exist at an entry level with paths to promotion and some lucrative salaries. We've included a few straightforward suggestions for making the most of your schooling, but you may be surprised at some of the other careers open to you.

Read on to discover 10 interesting careers you can pursue with a BA in economics.

1. Environmental Economist

Average salary: $93,070 / £52,500

Are you concerned about industrial pollution, plastic in the ocean and excessive deforestation? Do you wish you could effect policy changes to address those concerns? As an economist, you can do just that – especially as most environmental economists work for the government.

Environmental economists collect research, analyse historical data and use statistical software and complex modelling programs to evaluate the economic impact of environmental changes. You could also perform cost-benefit analyses of green technologies to help influence implementation, as well as propose economic incentives and trade policies that encourage business practices favouring improvements to air quality, global temperature, plant life and more.

2. Personal Financial Adviser

Average salary: $88,890 / £57,500

After investing time, effort and money into your economics degree, it's not a bad idea to consider a career path that has room for advancement as well as projected job growth in the coming years. This is also a great job for those who want to combine their people skills with their recently acquired knowledge in business, banking and finance.

Personal financial advisers assist individual clients with budgeting, taxes, mortgages, insurance, investments and retirement goals. There are entry-level positions to get you started, while extra training and certification in financial planning could get you up to a six-figure salary.

3. Accountant

Average salary: $70,500 / £62,500

The beauty of a career as an accountant is the variety of jobs available, as every kind of company – as well as individuals of a wide range of income levels – requires assistance with financial matters. Depending on personal preference, you can choose anything from a straightforward role in a private tax practice to a high-pressure job for a large corporation, dealing with complex budgets and international finance laws.

Accountant positions are perfect for people who love detailed work , number-crunching and financial analysis and forecasts.

Looking for an added thrill? Consider a forensic accountant position, assisting law enforcement agencies on tracking money for embezzlement, corruption and other criminal cases.

4. Market Research Analyst

Average salary: $63,120 / £41,000

Rapidly-evolving technology has made a career in marketing more exciting and challenging than ever, and your economics degree can help you land a job as a market research analyst. This is another career that has good job growth, as companies are increasingly looking for solid data to influence their business decisions.

You'll be evaluating economic and industry trends, as well as gathering surveys and statistics to best advise companies on what products will sell well, to which group of consumers and at what cost. Coursework in psychology and skill with social media analytics can give you an advantage over other job candidates.

5. Business Journalist

Average salary: $43,490 / £32,000

If you love the thought of using all your recently acquired knowledge to inform and educate others, consider a career as a business journalist. Your economics degree allows you to classify yourself as an expert, but success as a freelancer, columnist or TV correspondent lies in your ability to communicate complex business and finance topics to the average Joe.

One of the ways to set yourself apart from other candidates and land an awesome graduate job is to create a personal brand . That will be especially helpful for getting a gig as a business journalist, as online publications especially love hiring someone who already has a strong social media presence and following.

Average salary: $102,880 / £50,000

A job as an actuary is all about assessing risk, assigning a financial cost to potential events and helping organisations plan for and hopefully mitigate negative outcomes. While this is a role that is vital to the insurance and healthcare industries, you can also find careers in government, the stock market and banking.

If you find statistical analysis and predictive problem-solving addictive, and you don't mind potential morbid aspects of the job, working as an actuary could be a perfect career path after earning your economics degree. Apprenticeship and certification can lead to jobs with a substantial salary , particularly in the US.

7. Financial Analyst

Average salary: $85,660 / £51,000

As you consider the many jobs you can get with an economics degree, you may want something that offers a lot of day-to-day variety.

The basic role of a financial analyst is to offer clients advice on their investments. You'll need to research historical financial data, keep up with constantly shifting economic and business trends, and visit companies in person to fully assess their prospects.

Some analysts specialise in certain industries or regions, which offers opportunities to travel to study an area's culture and political environment and its effect on investments. An MFA certification will help you advance in your career.

8. Stockbroker

Average salary: $64,120 / £74,500

If you're looking for a job with constant excitement that requires quick thinking, diligent monitoring of financial markets and a lot of responsibility, a stockbroker gig may be for you.

You'll seek out clients and manage their investments. You'll also buy and sell stocks, bonds and commodities like oil and gold.

Your BA in economics can get you in the door for on-the-job training, but many brokers go on to an MBA programme to progress in their career. In the UK, you'll also need to be registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and, in the US, with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

9. Academic Economist

Average salary: $104,340 / £62,500

After earning a BA in economics, taking on the role of economist may seem like the first step in your new career . If you want a career in research and teaching, however, you'll need to attain a master's degree or a PhD.

As an academic economist, you'll have the freedom to explore the subjects and topics of interest to you, seek publication of your analysis and pass your knowledge on to future economists. Communication skills are essential for effectiveness as an instructor as well as any fundraising efforts required to support your research.

10. Foreign Service Economic Officer

Average salary: $86, 365 / £35,000

While you may have learned a lot about other countries while earning your economics degree, this diplomatic position allows you to gather more knowledge first-hand. Economic officers may represent their own country at a foreign post or be stationed at home with frequent travel abroad as an official negotiator.

As a diplomatic officer in economics, you'll study financial and political trends and develop contacts in the host country's business community. Your work helps facilitate your home country's commercial interests and can influence trade policy and mutually beneficial economic treaties. Advanced degrees will help you achieve a senior-level position.

As you can see, there's a wealth of diverse career options open to you as an economics graduate. Whether you're an introvert who loves numbers, a thrillseeker who loves a high-pressure environment or a people-person who hopes to travel, there's a lot for you to consider.

What job are you considering with your new degree? Let us know in the comments!

Salary information is based on data compiled and published by various sources, including the   National Careers Service , the   Bureau of Labour Statistics  and the University of Illinois .

Career Exploration

What Can You Do With A PhD In Economics?

A ph.d. in economics gives you the luxury to take your career into new heights as phd. is the highest educational qualification that an individual can obtain. before you make up your mind let’s take a look at some of the most lucrative jobs available in the market for doctoral students. .

Updated by TCM Staff on 6th May 2020

6th May 2020

A PhD in economics gives you the luxury to take your career into new heights as PhD. is the highest educational qualification that an individual can obtain. Most people with this set of qualifications apply to join the elite financial institutes of the country. But there are many other job opportunities for which a PhD graduate can apply. Whether it's research or being an advisor in a federal office, people with PhD. degrees are highly preferred. If you are one of those who wish to obtain a doctoral degree in Economics then you must be aware of what are the careers available for you and which career can be the best fit for you. If you are a student then you might prefer to go to a regular class and get your doctoral degree. But if you are a working professional then you may not like to go to a normal regular class and get a doctoral degree. You would probably like to attend an online class.  But not all online classes provide doctoral degrees and not all online degrees are of value and quality. But there are only a few numbers of colleges whose doctoral degrees are recognized all over the world. So before you make up your mind let’s take a look at some of the most lucrative jobs available in the market for doctoral students. 

Accountant or Auditor

Most people with an Economics background go with the accountant or auditor job. Accountants or auditors are mostly responsible for examining financial records, understanding the taxation regimes, and maintaining account books. Accountants or Auditors are hired by large financial firms. But some Accountants are private practitioners as well. The pay scale of accountants or auditors ranges from $55,000 to $75,000 per year. The jobs of accountants are supposed to grow by 10% in the next 10 years, which means that there will be a lot of new openings and a huge demand for auditors and accountants. 

College Professor

The next lucrative career which everybody looks into is the job of a College Professor. Many graduates with a PhD. in Finance or Economics who prefer a career in academia may choose to work as a professor. The job of College professors is also considered to be one of the safest careers as it is not affected by the market condition or economic downturn. In an economic downturn, an entire financial firm might collapse but the education industry remains stable. 

The average salary of a college professor ranges from $68,000 to $80,000. The job outlook is expected to grow by 15% in the next decade, as per the BLS.  Many graduates with doctorates who wish to be wholly and solely related to academics prefer the job of a College Professor. 

An economist can be the best term for someone having a doctorate in Economics. When it comes to the roles and responsibilities of Economists, they are the ones who dive deep into the economical problems faced by government or companies or business firms. They take a problem, analyze it, and then formulate a solution for it. With years of experience in this field, many prominent Economists also become financial advisors for federal bodies or private firms. They usually earn a salary in the range of $62,000 to $95,000. 

Urban and Regional Planners

Urban and regional planners aid project developers and public officials in creating development plans that will help in the utilization of the resources and the land fully and minimize the cost. In order to do this they have to gather and analyze information related to various economic and environmental factors. These planners also check whether a project is doable or not. Out of several projects, they choose the best one and disapprove of others. 

Most recent PhD graduates are preferred for these positions as they will be able to solve real-world problems and help the businesses and govt officials make some sound financial decisions. 

They earn a salary ranging from $45,000 to $67,000. 

Personal Finance Advisor

Personal Finance Advisors usually give financial advice to their clients regarding loans, investments, mortgage, taxes, and other financial matters. They can either be hired by large companies as a full-time employee or they may prefer to work as private consultants to individuals. This career is a lucrative and safe career option for doctorate degree holders. 

Personal finance advisors in America earn around 70,000 to 90,000 U.S dollars. This field is and in the future, it is expected to grow by 15%.

Financial Managers

Financial managers are usually hired by large business firms, financial corporations, and financial institutions. Their job is to monitor the financial transaction happening in an organization, assure that proper legal procedures are followed, analyze the financial reports, look at cash inflow and outflow, give advice for investments, make maximum utilization of the resources, and reduce cost and to keep track of market trends. It is also considered to be one of the higher paying financial jobs which gives you a lucrative career. 

Financial managers usually earn an average salary ranging between $98,000 to $1,30,000 per year. This field is growing rapidly and is expected to grow further by 20% in the coming years. 

Statisticians

With a background in economics and having a good understanding of mathematics and statistics, one can also become a Statistician. The main job of a statistician is to look at a large set of economic and business data and to derive meaningful conclusions from them which will help the business to make sound decisions. 

The average salary of statisticians ranges from $58,000 to $1,00,000. With the advancement in technology where one has to deal with large numbers of datasets, this field is growing at a rapid speed. 

As discussed above these are few lucrative careers that one can opt for with a doctorate degree in economics. Today there is a wide range of opportunities for such qualified people. The employers are happy to hire efficient and qualified candidates and are ready to pay higher salaries to such employees. 

Kamala Harris has put the Democrats back in the race

Economics Degrees: Worth it or Useless for Getting a Job?

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

Learn about our Editorial Process

With an estimated 13% employment growth rate for economists in the next decade, an economics degree is worth it to many.

Entry-level jobs are available for graduates with a bachelor’s degree in economics. But, to thrive in the field, many people do also go on to pursue a Master’s degree or PhD in economics.

What Is an Economics Degree?

Economics is a discipline that explores how money and the global capitalist market affects and enhances human life.

While it’s a heavily mathematical and theoretical degree, at its heart it is the study of how to help people thrive. Economics can explain the reasons that drive human behavior, reactions, and decisions.

With an economics degree, students obtain top-tier statistical and mathematical skills, including the knowledge to apply economic models and principles to problems related to finance, assets, business, or public administration.

What Jobs can you get with an Economics Degree?

Studying the financial market and social policies are some of the major components of an economics degree. As a result, it paves the way for countless job opportunities. Here is a quick look at some of the most popular jobs with a degree in economics.

Pros and Cons of an Economics Degree

If you can’t figure out if an economics degree is the right fit for you, then take a look at its pros and cons below. It’s important to consider all the positives and negatives when seeking out proper career options.

1. Benefits of an Economics Degree

Here are the benefits of having a degree in economics.

• You will develop logical and analytical thinking skills.
• The degree combines mathematics and social theory in a very interesting way.
• Optimistic job outlook. Many employers are looking to hire graduates from economics majors.
• High pay. While an entry-level position might not pay as much as you’d like, career economists often end up in high-paying positions.

2. Negatives of an Economics Degree

Just like any major out there, economics has its downsides.

• Math and statistics are the core of economic classes. If they are not your strong suit, then you probably won’t like it.
• You may need an advanced degree such as a Masters of PhD to beat the competition.

What are the Requirements for Economics Degrees?

The minimum GPA requirement in overall economics courses is usually 3.3, while in upper-division economics, you will need at least a 3.5 GPA .

Of course, these requirements will vary depending on the university you select.

For example, students who enter Berkeley as freshmen need a minimum 3.0 GPA in the prerequisite courses. For a transfer student, a minimum 2.7 GPA is necessary. So, check the requirements in the college you want to apply to.

What Economics Majors are There?

Economic majors cover topics related to economic systems and theories. This includes mathematical methods and practical knowledge that can come in handy when analyzing resources, trades, and other factors of a business.

Here are some of the majors you can go for. 

What is the Average Salary for Economics Graduates?

According to the American Economic Association , the average wage for economists varies based on the major you work in.

For Applied Economics and Management, the starting salary is usually about $58,900, which can reach $140,000 in mid-career. With Econometrics, the average starting pay is $60,100, reaching $131,000 in mid-career.

Overall, in the salary race, economists generally earn more than most, but less than engineers and computer science majors. However, economics majors also have excellent employment prospects and earnings.

Skills Learned In An Economics Degree

1. soft skills.

• Problem-solving
• Critical and logical thinking
• Spoken and written communication
• Polished presentation and research skills
• Time management
• Interpersonal skills

2. Hard Skills

• Data analysis
• Cultural & commercial awareness
• Using literary and information-processing skills
• Drawing economic inferences
• Assimilating quantitative & qualitative data

Final Verdict: Are Economics Degree Worth It or Worthless?

Economics is a popular field of study for people who are interested in the practical application of mathematical and analytical thinking. It can be a challenging but worthwhile area of study if you want to work for big corporations, banks, or international companies. It pays well and will likely be an in-demand qualification for many decades to come.

Do Further Research on your Degree Choices:

• Is a Liberal Arts Degree Worth It?
• Is a Chemistry Degree Worth It?
• Is an Engineering Degree Worth It?
• Is a Business Degree Worth It?
• Is a Finance Degree Worth It?
• The 6 Types of Degrees
• 15 Jobs you can Get with a Teaching Degree
• Is a Computer Science Degree Worth It?
• Is an Economics Degree Worth It?
• 17 Types of Bachelor Degrees

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 10 Reasons you’re Perpetually Single
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• Applying for a PhD in Economics with a Math Undergraduate Background: Intro Series Completed

Abstract: A math undergraduate considering applying for a PhD in Economics or Econometrics, having completed introductory series courses.

Applying a PhD in Economics with an Undergraduate Background in Math: An Introduction Series Completed

As an undergraduate math major considering pursuing a PhD in Economics, you have already taken the crucial first step by completing an introductory series in micro and macroeconomics. This article will provide you with a detailed overview of the key concepts, skills, and knowledge required to successfully apply for and complete a PhD in Economics. We will also discuss the different areas of specialization within the field and provide resources for further study.

Why Pursue a PhD in Economics?

A PhD in Economics can open up a wide range of career opportunities in academia, government, and the private sector. With a PhD, you will have the advanced analytical and research skills necessary to tackle complex economic problems and contribute to the development of economic theory and policy. Additionally, a PhD in Economics can provide a solid foundation for further study in related fields such as econometrics, finance, and public policy.

Prerequisites for a PhD in Economics

Most PhD programs in Economics require a strong background in mathematics, including coursework in calculus, linear algebra, and statistics. Additionally, a solid understanding of micro and macroeconomic principles is essential. Some programs may also require coursework in econometrics, game theory, and mathematical economics. It is essential to check the specific prerequisites for the PhD programs you are considering to ensure that you meet the minimum requirements.

Key Concepts in Economics

Here are some key concepts in economics that you should be familiar with as an undergraduate math major considering a PhD in Economics:

• Supply and demand: The fundamental principles that govern the pricing and allocation of goods and services in a market economy.
• Microeconomics: The study of individual economic agents, such as households and firms, and their interactions in markets.
• Macroeconomics: The study of the economy as a whole, including topics such as inflation, unemployment, and economic growth.
• Econometrics: The application of statistical methods to economic data to test hypotheses and estimate models.
• Game theory: The study of strategic decision-making in situations where the outcome depends on the actions of multiple agents.

Areas of Specialization in Economics

Here are some common areas of specialization within economics:

• Behavioral economics: The study of how psychological, social, and emotional factors influence economic decision-making.
• Development economics: The study of economic development and growth in low-income countries.
• Economic history: The study of the historical development of economic systems and institutions.
• Environmental economics: The study of the economic impact of environmental policies and the efficient allocation of environmental resources.
• International economics: The study of the economic relationships between countries, including trade, finance, and economic development.
• Labor economics: The study of the labor market, including the determination of wages and employment.
• Public economics: The study of the economic role of government, including taxation, public goods, and redistribution.

Resources for Further Study

Here are some resources for further study in economics:

• American Economic Association: Resources for Students
• Brookings Institution: PhD in Economics
• EconJobRumors: A Forum for Economists
• JSTOR: An Online Library of Academic Journals, Books, and Primary Sources
• National Bureau of Economic Research: A Nonprofit Research Organization

Pursuing a PhD in Economics with an undergraduate background in math can be a challenging but rewarding experience. By familiarizing yourself with the key concepts and areas of specialization in economics, you can position yourself for success in the application process and beyond. We hope that this article has provided you with a useful introduction to the field and inspired you to continue your studies in economics.

Tags: :  phd economics application math undergraduate intro series

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Blog The Education Hub

https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2024/08/20/gcse-results-day-2024-number-grading-system/

GCSE results day 2024: Everything you need to know including the number grading system

Thousands of students across the country will soon be finding out their GCSE results and thinking about the next steps in their education.   

Here we explain everything you need to know about the big day, from when results day is, to the current 9-1 grading scale, to what your options are if your results aren’t what you’re expecting.  

When is GCSE results day 2024?  

GCSE results day will be taking place on Thursday the 22 August.     

The results will be made available to schools on Wednesday and available to pick up from your school by 8am on Thursday morning.  

Schools will issue their own instructions on how and when to collect your results.   

When did we change to a number grading scale?  

The shift to the numerical grading system was introduced in England in 2017 firstly in English language, English literature, and maths.  

By 2020 all subjects were shifted to number grades. This means anyone with GCSE results from 2017-2020 will have a combination of both letters and numbers.  

The numerical grading system was to signal more challenging GCSEs and to better differentiate between students’ abilities - particularly at higher grades between the A *-C grades. There only used to be 4 grades between A* and C, now with the numerical grading scale there are 6.  

What do the number grades mean?  

The grades are ranked from 1, the lowest, to 9, the highest.  

The grades don’t exactly translate, but the two grading scales meet at three points as illustrated below.  

The bottom of grade 7 is aligned with the bottom of grade A, while the bottom of grade 4 is aligned to the bottom of grade C.    

Meanwhile, the bottom of grade 1 is aligned to the bottom of grade G.  

What to do if your results weren’t what you were expecting?  

If your results weren’t what you were expecting, firstly don’t panic. You have options.  

First things first, speak to your school or college – they could be flexible on entry requirements if you’ve just missed your grades.   

They’ll also be able to give you the best tailored advice on whether re-sitting while studying for your next qualifications is a possibility.   

If you’re really unhappy with your results you can enter to resit all GCSE subjects in summer 2025. You can also take autumn exams in GCSE English language and maths.  

Speak to your sixth form or college to decide when it’s the best time for you to resit a GCSE exam.  

Look for other courses with different grade requirements     

Entry requirements vary depending on the college and course. Ask your school for advice, and call your college or another one in your area to see if there’s a space on a course you’re interested in.    

Consider an apprenticeship    

Apprenticeships combine a practical training job with study too. They’re open to you if you’re 16 or over, living in England, and not in full time education.  

As an apprentice you’ll be a paid employee, have the opportunity to work alongside experienced staff, gain job-specific skills, and get time set aside for training and study related to your role.   

You can find out more about how to apply here .  

Talk to a National Careers Service (NCS) adviser    

The National Career Service is a free resource that can help you with your career planning. Give them a call to discuss potential routes into higher education, further education, or the workplace.   

Whatever your results, if you want to find out more about all your education and training options, as well as get practical advice about your exam results, visit the  National Careers Service page  and Skills for Careers to explore your study and work choices.   

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Effective Altruism Forum EA Forum

Should you do an economics phd (or master's).

David Reinstein: all opinions are mine unless noted. Extensive input from Phil Trammell and an Anonymous Contributor (quoted extensively, henceforth “AC”). Thanks to Pete Wildeford and David Moss for feedback. I intend to continue to update and improve this post in situ (or linking out a ‘permanently updated' version).

Overview and some takeaways

Should I do an economics PhD (or master's)'? What do I need to learn to work at an EA org? How can I level up on this stuff and prove value?

These were the most frequent questions I got at the 2022 EAGx Boston conference. I mainly discussed this with undergraduate students, but also with people at career pivot points. [1]

My overall view, epistemic basis/confidence, key points

Main ‘pros’: Much of EA is based in economics, and economics speaks to most of the important cause areas and debates in EA, as well as to the important empirical questions. Conditional on going for a PhD, I believe economics will be one of the stronger choices for the sort of people reading this post. A PhD in economics, and much of the associated training (over ~2 years of coursework and ~3-5 years of ‘writing’) helps you towards a range of career paths with potential for strong impact (and a comfortable life) both within and outside EA organizations. Being a PhD student in the right place and time (and mental state) can be very stimulating, productive, creative, and connection-building. [2] You are typically given a lot of freedom in the research phase, as long as your work meets the general approval and framework of your advisor(s) and what the gatekeepers think is important, credible and ‘is economics’. Typically, you don’t have to pay for a PhD, you will get money to support yourself, and PhD stipends are often OK.

Important considerations:

• Economics is broad (in its methods and focus-area paths). Often differences in approaches among economists (pure theory, applied econometrics, macro, etc.) are greater than the difference between some economists and some (e.g.) political scientists or psychologists.
• Applied work ‘informed by expertise and credibility',
• Deep work formally/mathematically addressing fundamental questions of global priorities and social welfare,
• Theoretical, computational, and empirical work considering markets and/or the global economy, informing (e.g.) animal welfare policies or the development of technology,
• Empirical work assessing the impact of interventions, or considering assessing human behavior, choices, attitudes and preferences.
• There are a range of relevant career paths
• doing EA-relevant research
• as well as potentially transforming academia and the scholarly debate ‘from the inside’,
• Working in governments or NGOs (many require/prefer PhDs),
• Working at EA-aligned organizations like Rethink Priorities, Global Priorities Institute, Open Philanthropy, maybe MIRI … note a lot of differences across these,
• For-profit and entrepreneurial options; possibly impactful for out-of-the-bun thinkers/doers.

Main ‘cons and caveats’:

For many/most paths you could learn most/all of the relevant skills and approaches, and background without getting a PhD, [3]

In some key areas economics might not be as strong or relevant as other fields (statistics and data science for robust empirical work and predictions, decision science and cognitive science for AI alignment work),

The economics PhD program makes you jump some time-consuming hoops that are likely not going to be relevant to your applied career path, [4]

People around you will not mainly be value-aligned; beware value drift towards academic prestige and publications as a goal in itself (sometimes also towards earning money). Remember: your goals may not be your advisor’s/the professors' goals. And what you (and we in EA) think is important may not be what the field has traditionally found is important (or what they think others think).

TLDR on ‘Master's programs ’: Some of these can be good (especially the ones tailored towards research) but many are cash grabs and ‘barely worth the paper they are printed on’. Caveat emptor; look at the outcomes, talk to the people who’ve done it recently. The ‘research targeted’ ones can be better.

Epistemic Basis/background

Moderately confident. My views below are very much shaped by my experience and; some aspects may be dated or shade towards my own particular journey (Berkeley, UK, etc). However, I have asked around a bit, especially on the (EA) Economics Grad School Advice Slack.

Background – David Reinstein ( davidreinstein.org ): My advice is based on my own background and perspectives. I am 45 years old. [5] I went to Berkeley for my PhD, and I switched between topics, fields, and advisors a few times. After this I worked in the UK for 15 years as a ‘lecturer’ and ‘senior lecturer’ … roughly equivalent to Assistant/Associate Professor. [6] In 2020 I took a job as a Senior Economist at Rethink Priorities. [7]

Background - Anonymous Contributor: I am in my late 20s, but have not yet done an Econ PhD nor have I worked in the non-profit or gov sector. I recently finished (what I consider to be) a high-quality Econ Master's in the Washington DC area, and decided to pursue a PhD path partway through that. My advice is colored by my exposure to policymakers, and my relatively old age to be starting an Econ PhD. Both factors mean I value personal fit more and prestige less, compared to other aspiring economists. This is because policy work is medium- or low-prestige among academic economists, and also because I don’t want to spend too much more time building signals. (When young, it may be useful to spend time doing more predocs, taking more math classes, or reapplying to PhDs in a future year.)

Sidebar: The 80k advice is good as a first pass . However, I think more detail is needed

Why is the 80K advice not the end of story?

• There are now more competitive requirements for admission (‘pre-docs’),
• this cuts both ways because these are better options for people with PhDs but also the credential seems less necessary
• e.g., it doesn’t specifically consider cause areas (animal welfare, AI alignment, cause prioritization and EA meta etc) or skills and types of work (data and statistics vs real analysis and economic theory)
• It seems not very informed by insider perspectives.
• 1 out of 5 rating for earnings seems too low… in the short run, maybe, but in the medium the earnings are certainly pretty decent compared to many other paths.
• The “50% chance of going into academia” seems too high to me. Maybe half of people end up doing something involving some teaching/university affiliation, but probably not substantial research. Even at the top-10 PhD programs I’ve heard that less than half go into academia. And many people go into academia briefly but don’t get tenure/permanency. [8]

Your Mileage May Vary: What are your goals? What proximate ways do you hope to achieve them? What do you like/are good at doing?

The ‘best advice’ (and the optimal choices) depends on...

• What are you trying to do with your life and career? What are your impact goals ? (E.g., ‘reduce existential risk’)
• The ways you want to achieve those goals, through what activities and approaches (e.g., ‘by helping design better legislation in the US and internationally’)?
• What position you are in, and what are your skills, aptitudes, and things you want to build? (E.g., writing, pure math, coding and data, analytical argumentation, social skills)
• What are your opportunities (have you been admitted, do you have job experience, etc.)?

To give advice, you need to consider how to answer … [9]

What causes and areas do you care about?

Areas of interest (Listed roughly in declining order of ‘how interested were the people who talked to me at EAGx’):

• AI risk: fundamental/alignment research, AI governance
• “Broad longtermism” and specific LT risks
• Global health etc.
• Improving institutional decision-making
• Fundamental and theoretical EA epistemic and meta-issues (determining ‘what is of value, how can we know this/learn about this, how to consider moral uncertainty…’ GPI and philosophy-leaning stuff )
• Outreach, Messaging, Community building, Political and social change
• Animal welfare (maybe tied with the above)

Activities and aptitudes

How do you want to spend your time? What do you want to ‘get good at’?

“Pure research”:

• Research to ‘understand the world’ or ‘understand deep theoretical puzzles’ for their own sake
• Methodological work (esp. econometrics and some parts of micro theory) to learn about the world for its own sake and to provide tools for other economists
• Pure math and theoretical modeling of optimization and decision theory, strategic interaction, markets and aggregation
• EA/GPI-esque applications of the above, interacting with analytic philosophy (how to measure and consider value and welfare functions, etc.)

Applied economic theory:

• How markets adjust in ‘partial equilibrium’, prices, etc., … often engaging with data. This ‘unglamorous’ field is highly relevant to animal welfare considerations
• Macroeconomics, including growth; understanding banks, finance, and financial transactions
• Considering specific policies and market failures
• Mechanism design … e.g., applied to real-world auctions, prediction markets, public goods provision, etc.
• Game theory: the ‘lessons and logic’ can be applied to the real-world [10]

General ‘applied econometrics’:

• Econometric and statistics/data-sci work where you don’t necessarily formally derive the properties of your estimators and don't come up with new estimators
• Maybe the bulk of what economists do … relevant to global health and development, animal welfare, perhaps various sources of existential risk, analysis of institutions

Designing and running experiments and RCTs

• Statistics (power calculations etc)
• Considering confounds and psychological motivators
• Microeconomics of incentives and mechanisms
• “Making things happen online”
• Making things happen in developing countries and with in-person interventions

‘Informed literature review’ … assess and summarize, informed by economic ‘lessons and principles’, and by an understanding of empirical methods

• Clear writing and communications
• Reasoning transparency and analytical rigor

Applied ‘impact work’; sometimes used in policy econ academia; very relevant at EA orgs like RP

• MonteCarlo Fermi ‘guesstimation’ (for CBA etc)
• Practical forecasting
• Finance, accounting, actuary-adjacent stuff (maybe various discounting and risk-adjustment calculations, cost of capital, dynamic optimization (?), asset valuation/CAPM etc)

My impression/memory of the “standard” Economics (academic, careerist, status/signaling seeking, Risk-averse, and perhaps backwards-looking) advice

Note: This ‘standard advice’ is not my advice ; I agree with some points and disagree with others [11]

The standard advice (perhaps geared for top students) I’ve heard is something like...

Go to the top program you can get into

Keep trying until you get into a top 5-10 program* [12]

• A non-top program (below 25 ranked or so) is probably not worth going to
• But it may still be worth doing if you are not trying to get an academic job
• But “no matter where you go, you will need to be one of the top students in the program to get an academic job.” – AC

Don’t worry about your research interests now as these will change

Take as much real analysis as you can; this will help you ace the microeconomics (theory) course and impress the faculty (professors)

• But don’t do theory as your field, choose an empirical and applied field like health economics, where ‘the market is good in this field’

Finding ‘an interesting question’, a ‘novel’ data set, and a clever ‘identification strategy’ are the keys to research success (i.e., a ‘top job market paper and publication’)

Work as hard as you can to do exactly what your supervisor thinks is best … (but don’t bother them too much)

“Just write” and, as you move towards your dissertation, try to present and submit your work to a top journal.

• Never submit your work to a journal below the top-50

Sacrifice everything to prepare for the job market and don’t take any risks. Apply to all the universities that might be interested in you, but don’t customize your applications.

Apply to research-focused academic jobs, at universities and university-equivalent institutes and think tank (the Federal Reserve, World Bank)

Note: Some of this advice is good, but I don’t agree with all of this advice for reasons I’ll try to cover… and it may be somewhat bad advice for people interested in certain EA career paths.

Why that ‘baseline advice’ may not (and probably is not?) relevant to you, and may be risky

Your goals are different

Value drift, especially in academia … ‘getting top papers’ becomes the goal

They may give backwards-looking advice … advice that worked in past and recent years but may not be good going forward. They may be unaware of the new world of opportunities, including in EA

Much of the economics curriculum may be irrelevant to your interests (Real analysis? Macro? General equilibrium?) …

• Trammell: I think this is true for basically any economist, not just one getting a PhD for EA reasons; everyone specializes in something. [13]

Economics tends to be conservative; they may not sign off on your research areas/interests.

• They want you to ‘publish in top journals’ and become a professor

In economics/academia, ‘top papers’ need to

‘Flex’ to show how clever you are [14]

Show relevance to existing/prior models and paradigms… the ‘deep parameters of economics and human behavior’

Perhaps* “motivate” its importance to existing (often US government) policy priorities and non-EA-aligned goals (like improving pension systems in rich countries)

• *Trammell: “My strong impression is that the oft-lamented tension here doesn't really exist at all, at least on the current margin.” [15]

The no-brainer cases: Who should ‘definitely go for a PhD’

• I’m a professor-type
• If you want to do ‘pure research’ → you almost definitely need to go into academia → you need a PhD
• Remember that the teaching part of an economics PhD is, in part, training you for the above
• I’m interested in impact, but the PhD is giving me everything I want …

Your PhD admission comes with ok/decent funding, with few strings attached, [16]

• Trammell: Even if it comes with no funding, it might be worth getting EA funding to do it instead of getting EA funding to do similar research outside a program... the latter at least comes with a credential at the end, and support from an advisor.

The taught component seems relevant to you

• usually real analysis-heavy microeconomics (the ‘hoop to jump through’) , macro, econometrics, maybe econ. history in the first year …
• choose 2-4 fields in the second year

There are likely to be several professors you can work with… ideally willing to mentor you, generous with their time, and _willing to support and sign off on your intended research. _

• AC: rare to know all of these before admission, especially since it's common for faculty to ignore you until you're in PhD Year 3. 3+ professors in fields/ methodologies / values you like is a good rule-of-thumb. 2 senior tenured professors may also work.” [17] If either A or B hold, and you think you can do it → it’s probably worth getting the PhD.

Advice by field, interest; “case studies”

Ai alignment research.

I speculate that some of the methods of theoretical economics are not so relevant to important standard economics questions but actually highly relevant to AI alignment! (DR speculation; PT and AC have broadly similar thoughts)

Decision theory, axiomatic specifications of preference and choice: These were useful in considering the basic ‘existence proof’ for things like ‘could we think of a person as an optimizer’ and ‘when can markets yield optimal social outcomes’. But people don't act so rigidly, there are few ‘very general results’ (e.g., even ‘demand curves slope down’ is only under a bunch of conditions, and only applies to the theoretical Hicksian demand). A small amount of complexity can reverse important results derived from simple specifications

But computers _do _ behave rigidly, and they ‘do just what we tell them’. So it's very important to know the implications of what we mean when we are stating a set of preferences, and what choices this could lead to. We need to define it rigorously; otherwise computers will find ‘edge cases and loopholes’ and may make a lot of paperclips.

Game theory and mechanism design also seem to take on a new life when we consider the deep issues of alignment and developing adversarial systems to keep other computers in check.

This seems a very ripe area for research. But doing an econ PhD with this target comes with some caveats:

• Much of the economics curriculum you will have to cover in the first 1-2 years (and maybe engage with for the run in your teaching and seminars) will be largely irrelevant to this target
• It may be hard to find advisors and people supportive of this research within the profession and within your department. I know that some exist, but they are not completely willing to ‘come out’ in public.

Global health and development

The case for doing a PhD is strongest in the global health and development (GH&D) field. This is an area where you have numerous employers (J-PAL, World Bank, IMF, maybe Treasury or World Trade Organization for trade issues etc.) who respect an econ PhD, heavily reward (or even require) it for certain senior roles, and have lots of openings.

This is (probably) a good fit for empirically-minded folks and people who care about policy relevance. Theory is relatively de-emphasized in dev econ fields, and systemic theories of change are viewed with intense suspicion. A PhD is not necessarily the fastest track to gaining status or seniority, but it is useful for certain technical policy making roles

(DR) Still, even within GH&D, there are particular skills and focuses that are probably more relevant for EAs, and some institutions and researchers who are more sympathetic to these approaches than others. You can work at EA orgs like Rethink Priorities without necessarily having a PhD in this area. There are collection of key relevant skills and experience that partially overlap a GH&D PhD. These include data and statistical acumen, an understanding of impact evaluation, measures of value and social welfare (QALY/DALY etc.), clearly synthesizing literature with reasoning transparency, digesting technical work in other fields (especially medicine), the ability to derive practical quantitative insights, and Fermi/MonteCarlo guestimation.

At other EA organizations, particularly charities doing direct work (Lead Exposure Elimination Project etc.), the “working on interventions in the field” part of much GH&D PhD and RA work may also be relevant.

General long-termism, meta-EA, cause prioritization, deep philosophical issues in EA

You might be engaging in a range of issues and concerns of ‘what is important and why’ and ‘how do frameworks compare’ and ‘how should we expect to know things’. A broad background in economics may be important here, as well as some background in philosophy and other fields. But potentially, very strong undergraduate engagement could suffice.

The deep theory: For the majority of ‘GPI type stuff’ you will probably need technical depth in economic theory (e.g., microeconomics, preferences and choices, constrained optimization, risk and time preferences, market failures, welfare economics and social welfare functions, public choice, game theory, mechanism design, growth theory, finance theory) … or perhaps in philosophy or cognitive science or decision science or another adjacent field.

(As I mentioned for AI alignment/risk) I think that some of the most formal aspects of economic theory (such as ‘preference axioms’) take on new relevance when we consider deep and thorny issues of social preferences and welfare functions. E.g.,

• Non-utilitarian preference relations like 'lexicographic' ... seems particularly relevant to population ethics (it's OK to have 'non-continuity', perhaps)
• ‘Incomplete preferences’ and ‘non-transitive preferences’ seem bizarre when applied to individuals, but arise naturally in discussing social choices and acceptable social rules, and their implications

Animal welfare

I think academic economists often see ‘actually modeling particular economies and markets’ as prosaic and unsexy, unlikely to get those hot and juicy top publications. Empirical work in these areas is seen as ‘something industry people do.’ Applied theoretical results about systems of production, supply, and demand are seen as ‘fully explored and old-school’.

But I see an important new role for these questions, and this modeling, in considering the impact of specific policy changes on animal welfare. There may be situations in which ‘if we consider the sum of producer and consumer surplus, little can be said, and markets can be expected to work well’.

However, if we consider the externality of (various measures) of animal suffering and well-being, there may be a range of new results and approaches, and practical findings. Much of this may adapt methods used in environmental economics (which also takes externalities seriously), but other work may tread new paths. The interaction of inputs and supply and demand in multiple animal product (and agricultural) markets seems distinct. (General and partial equilibrium models, and Implications of GE models for animal welfare interventions; a new set of value measurements and possible interventions; not just the 'market failures' approach.)

What to focus on if you are interested in animal welfare? I’m not sure. David Rhys-Bernard’s syllabus has some interesting articles in this section . But as I highlight above, I suspect that modeling markets, perhaps agricultural economics as a field, is particularly relevant. Work involving ‘consumer behavior (maybe IO and marketing) and behavioral economics fields also seem important, particularly in considering interventions to reduce animal-product consumption. (Further afield, there may also be some role for economists as behavioral/decision scientists in considering, measuring, and quantifying measures of sentience and capacity for pain and pleasure, to potentially adapt to moral weights.)

For this target area, finding an aligned program may be particularly important. I don’t think there are many Economists who do, or are interested in this stuff, although there are signs the field is growing. Jayson Lusk’s name comes up a lot, and I know a few others, such as Josh Tasoff, who have work/interests in this area. This upcoming Stanford conference seems particularly promising.

Do you need a PhD to work in EA aligned Animal Welfare research?

Probably not, but it could help. There seems to be a shortage of quantitative and data skill, or ability and willingness to make calibrated guesstimates in this area (see discussions of Animal Charity Evaluators’ decision making ). However, this may reflect the deep underlying uncertainty about interventions themselves. The economist’s skills are indeed valued in this area (e.g., see Rethink Priorities recent hiring and job advertisements).

A Master's degree: sometimes a scam, sometimes worth it?

There are skills to learn and getting feedback is important.

But many MSc programs are money-spinners; they will admit anyone who has cash, even if they don’t speak the language, know little economics or math, etc. They often provide little value to students, and all students who can regurgitate a few bullet points will graduate with the degree. I (David Reinstein) know this from experience.

Even in these suboptimal programs, top students who proactively engage with the academic staff might be able to get a lot of attention and value. [18] But on the whole, I would say it tends not to be worth it. It might be better to enroll in a PhD program and then consider dropping out after you complete the master's program part of it. [19]

Trammell: Agreed that the big difference seems to be whether it's a "dissertation-prep" master's (often called an MRes) or not. For any EAs interested in the MPhil at Oxford, I can testify that it really is basically the first two years of a typical US econ PhD. The first year is maybe the same as what you'd get at Brown but with ~20% less material.

AC: Agree with Trammell. That said, at least in the US, these dissertation-prep ,aster’s are highly competitive, difficult, and expensive. Schools will charge a premium since attendees typically have an inflexible demand for attending a top 10 program. Think carefully about whether this is the best use of your time. If you’re good enough to get into one of these programs, you may be good enough to get a Predoctoral Research Assistant role instead. That would make you money, give you access to letters of recommendation, and give you some exploration value.

Exception to this exception, if you’re from a marginalized group or a developing country, you may qualify for some scholarships and PhD-prep programs designed for under-represented minorities. These are few and far between, but they are out there.

In more detail (AC)

Cautionary note: Even if a program had a reputation for being good, they may no longer be good or as good as they used to be. The incentive for a master's program is always to exploit reputation for profit. Quality can decrease fast, sometimes between years if the university is losing money. Best sign is asking someone who goes to the program today what they think about it, and also ask if they're heard any rumors about planned declines in standards. (More adjuncts, bigger class sizes, etc.)

DR: You might expect universities to want to maintain quality to preserve their reputation in the long term. But, working against that… 1. Many administrators are given short term incentives, 2. Master's programs often seem to be sustained income-generators in the long term, as a sort of degree mill. Universities are happy to let them cross-subsidize other things. They may expect that “it’s well known that universities run Master's for cash, so it shouldn’t affect the reputation of a university as a whole.” Perhaps the governments (and employers?) sending students to this even know the degree is of low value… but they use the credential as a way of signaling to outsiders, or maintaining a power status quo.

Upside note: Scrutinize the placements carefully. This is your next-best sign of program quality. Most programs won't publish anything. But even if they do, be skeptical. Say the program places 10 people into Great Organization. Is that 10 people per year? Is that 10 people across the entire history of the program? Would these 10 people have counterfactually gotten into the Great Organization already? Nearly all Master's programs report selectively, but some are more manipulative of their reports than others. Sometimes, universities will claim credit for placing someone who already works at the United Nations into the United Nations. Even if the placements seem legitimate, ask yourself if it's realistic for the median student to accomplish. If not, would you expect yourself to be a top-quartile / top 10% student?

Rough rule-of-thumb: If the university website shares employment outcomes and tuition info in a detailed and accessible way, then that's a promising sign. If you have to cross-reference multiple webpages and track down fine print to get this information, then that's a worrying sign.

Other paths to EA-economics-adjacent research; building skills and credibility

There is a wealth of online and written material to learn all of the aptitudes described above. There are also great Slack groups and support communities and the modern world enables all sorts of ways we can organize collaborative learning and knowledge bases.

(But see the caveat below about credentials.)

In fact, I think that in many areas you will do better by working through interactive web books and their coding examples and exercise than you would from a program involving sitting in lecture theaters. It should not be difficult to replicate the training you get in the first year or two of a PhD economics program through self-study, if you have the "fuel”, and some feedback. (In fact, I think we could and should develop a better curriculum for this that is more relevant to EA or the specific EA-linked fields described above. Some stabs at this here (see links within).)

What you need is:

• The confidence that you are going in the right direction and what you are learning is valuable
• Social support
• Some feedback and setting you on the right path, particularly when you get stuck on certain questions
• The opportunity to demonstrate what you have learned in a way that employers will believe you

The first of these could come through our great EA networks. The second is a bit challenging, but you could consider things like hiring a PhD student as a tutor, or engaging directly with online textbooks open (helping professors build these while getting your questions answered). And again the EA network can probably help you with this. There are a few EA fellowships and training things; more could and should be built to focus on more technical economics and related training.

For the third “proof of value” part, I suggest

• Helping build online web material at the nexus of EA issues and advanced and intermediate econometric and methods … This could include online textbooks (esp. ‘Bookdowns’), Wiki resources, StackExchange, and perhaps some parts of LessWrong and the EA Forum (if we work to make these more rigorous)
• Open peer-review and feedback on economics research
• (Obviously) Doing research and assisting on research projects, with people at EA organizations, with academics, and on your own initiative. Effective Thesis may be able to help coordinate this, hopefully even for people not enrolled in a degree program

Credentialism caveat:

• AC: I would caveat that this only gets you the skill and not the credential. For traditional roles, particularly in government and some think tanks, the credential is important in and of itself. For EA roles and Silicon Valley and places that value self-learning, this is less important.
• DR: I agree; also in academia itself, obviously. Slight caveat to the caveat, is that the world is changing. If credentials are no longer an important signal of value, we might expect institutions to adjust to no longer require the same credentials.

Maybe the second-biggest group I talked to was: PhD students and academics looking to learn more about EA and RP, and to have more impact. ↩︎

But it can also be very stressful and lonely. ↩︎

Online materials, workshops and support and groups are growing. There are new EA-aligned paths to get your research time funded outside of a PhD program (but without the credential). However, EA organizations are less credentialist anyways ↩︎

Examples of nonproductive effort and dead-ends in my case:

• The application process
• Year 1: Courses in macro and economic history which I was not able to get interested in. Massive struggling to learn real-analysis heavy consumer/producer and general equilibrium theory without adequate preparation; cramming things I didn’t fully understand
• Year 2: Field courses in Industrial Organization reading many papers I didn’t understand (some were not fully explained), you should ‘learn about industry details and how they work’ (often seemed like facts without anything interpretable).
• Year 3-4: Much focus on empirical structural IO models (Berry, Levinsohn, Pakes model; Nevo’s work), that didn’t seem robust to me.
• Later years: Work at a litigation consulting firm to help support myself (interesting but not pro-social or impactful)
• Throughout: Attending seminars (presentations) that I often could not follow. Reading papers that had missing explanations. Administrative work securing my funding for continued study and living expenses.
• Some of my RA work was tedious. (But much other work was useful.) However, a grant tied to this pushed me towards working in ‘the economics of the internet’, which was not quite what I wanted to focus on; this pushed me into a detour.
• Switched advisors several times (change of topic, advisor left, advisor lost confidence, …) . Some research dead-ends because advisors/faculty did not have the bandwidth to give hands-on advice (publish or perish pressure)
• Encouraged to do work ‘explaining how markets and behavior work’; discouraged from ideas I found (and still find) impactful.
• Massive bureaucratic burdens in applying for funds to do experimental work and use the lab.
• Teaching assistant work without strong support/encouragement, and in some cases, hostile and bullying behavior by instructors.
• Much work formatting my dissertation in Latex according to the university guidelines. (I now think Latex is good for equations but we have better systems for document processing).
• Sending out 200+ applications and negotiating the ‘econ job market’.

I went to GWU (a middle-prestige undergraduate university in the US) majoring in economics and doing some fun research with a great professor. ↩︎

These jobs were low-teaching, low-pay (by US standards) and low/medium prestige. First job: Essex, well-rated for certain areas of applied theory and with a strong data center. I worked on a few eclectic topics (often EA-adjacent), involving applied micro theory, observational empirics, and lab and field experiments. I published my work in sort of ‘middle rank’ journals and I got ‘permanency’. I also focused a lot on ambitious entrepreneurial projects; I didn’t follow through on these as much as I wanted to. I later moved to Exeter where I focused even more on ‘impact’ (with some ESRC grants for this), open science, building research and teaching ‘web books’, and building knowledge, rather than strictly focusing on getting papers into top journals. I did hustle to aim at ‘high prestige publications’ to some extent. this for a while. Particularly with a very large project involving an administrative data set and lottery assignment … But things didn’t pan out, because of things like co-authors changing career paths, and other authors writing papers that partially ‘scooped’ us. ↩︎

… on the Survey Team (social science, movement building and outreach) team. This has involved the EA Survey, statistics and methodology, and providing support to a range of projects and partners. I have also spent a bit less than half my time on a grant-funded project continuing some of my own research into barriers to effective giving and the EA Market testing team, and more recently, the ‘Unjournal’ project. (I have also done some consulting work involving data science training, behavioral economics, and litigation consulting.) ↩︎

Watch this space: According to Phil Trammell, some people at GPI are putting together some data on how many people at each "stage" move on to a given-ranked school at each next "stage" (including e.g. distribution of assistant professorships by school rank given being a PhD student of a given school rank). ↩︎

I return to answering some of this under ‘Advice by field. interest’ ↩︎

IMO the models themselves rarely yield direct practical implications ↩︎

This is also not the advice of Phil Trammell or the anonymous contributor; this is simply my impression of the conventional wisdom. ↩︎

AC moderates this take on the standard advice… I would operationalize this with how school ranking + cohort ranking interact…. (1) Some people may be competitive enough to get into a top 30 program today, and don't want to spend extra years building more signals for top 10 programs. (2) I had the mistaken impression that getting into a top school was by-itself enough (3) IMHO being the very top student at a lower-ranked program requires a different mindset than being the 5th best student at Harvard. Suggestion (numbers aren't exact): No matter where you go, you will need to be one of the top students to get an academic job. The median student at Harvard does not go into academia. However, your school ranking determines how good you have to be within the cohort to get an academic role. At a top 10 school, being in the top quartile is probably good enough to be competitive for academia. At a top 30 school, you want to be the top 1-2 students. At a top 50 school, you'd need to be the top student across 5 different cohorts. ↩︎

DR: But perhaps more so if you aren’t planning to teach economics, attend general departmental economics seminars, co-supervise and sit on committees for a range of research students, etc. Trammell: For my part, I was surprised at what a large fraction of the standard first year grad curriculum struck me as at least somewhat relevant to something I might want to do--60% or so. DR: But your work is relatively broad in scope, rigorous, and applies theory to deep social, philosophical and existential questions .. You have research topics like “Labor, Capital, and Patience in the Optimal Growth of Social Movements”, and you combine micro (decision theory, game theory), and macro (growth theory). ↩︎

Trammell : “That hasn't been quite as much of an issue as economics's reputation would have it” ↩︎

Trammell: You have to motivate a paper somehow, sure, and the motivation is often a big government's policy priorities. But EA is a gold mine of economically interesting and important research motivations, and if you just put a bit of thought into how to translate things for an econ audience, writing directly with respect to EA goals strikes econ professors as novel and exciting, in my experience. So far the only concrete evidence I can give for this is my MPhil thesis on patient philanthropy (or, translated, "dynamic public good provision under time preference heterogeneity") won the MPhil thesis prize here. But most of the evidence I'm basing this impression on is anecdotal conversations. DR: That is promising, but you might have been at a particularly forward-looking program; and the second- and third-order beliefs can often bite (people at some programs might tell you “don’t do this because it won’t publish well”). ↩︎

Trammell “… econ PhDs usually do come with few strings attached, at least if you're not going to a very low-ranked place. [In contrast], people often have the impression from other disciplines that PhD students are basically RAs for their advisors” … “ in some other disciplines, even the dissertation-writing part of your PhD is something like being a glorified RA–you apply to work on a particular project designed by a particular supervisor.” DR: True, but note that conditions of your offer may differ in meaningful ways, even in economics. E.g., at UC Berkeley I had to do RA and TA work to get funding, which slowed me down and pushed my research in a direction which ended up being a detour. Also, I suspect that in some EU programs (with fairly generous funding) the PhD student is somewhat more of an ‘employee of the PI or project group.’ ↩︎

AC: 1 is too risky. Professor may leave for greener pastures. Professor may have personal issues come up. Professor may not jive with your personality. This is partly why prestigious universities are so good. They're larger departments, so a personal fit is easier to find. ↩︎

AC: This is the best-case scenario for a Master's program. … Even better if faculty have relatively few PhD students. However, in worst cases, if the program has lost respect, then even if you are an exceptional student, you'll get lumped in with the "ambitious but bad" students. And the faculty will, understandably, ignore you until a blanket policy of ignoring all Master's students. You would need to be even more exceptional to get noticed. ↩︎

This varies a bit by country; there are a few different variations on what you are expected to enter with, and some things called “MRes” in the UK that serves as pre-PhD training. ↩︎

More posts like this

Amazing and super informative post! A few more thoughts on "predocs" (1-2 year post-BA full-time research assistantships focused on empirical work), which have exploded in popularity since the 80k article was written:

• They're increasingly a soft requirement for entry into top PhD programs. My impression from looking at the admit pools at the top ~5 schools this year is that virtually everyone either (a) did a predoc or (b) is an international student with a Master's degree. The few students who got in straight out of undergrad were mostly students from very elite institutions (Harvard/MIT) interested in doing economic theory
• I think doing a predoc at a top institution dominates doing a Master's degree at a top institution, unless you're interested in theory: you get paid fairly well, the skills you learn are much more  relevant for research (unless you're interested in theory), and you get more face-time with the faculty who write you recommendation letters.
• You can figure out whether you actually enjoy/are good at the style of research that academic economists do.

It's a very educational experience (you're forced to quickly pick up technical skills, you get exposed to what cutting-edge economics research looks like, etc.). You might do a predoc and decide you've already learned enough to dive directly into an EA research or policy job.

• One factor I severely underestimated when applying to predoc jobs is the importance of being a good "fit" in the sense of being personally interested in the kind of research you'd work on in that predoc job. If you don't ultimately care about or aren't interested in the research you're assisting with, you end up being much less motivated and productive and both the educational and credentialing value of the predoc decrease substantially.

Thanks. My knowledge of what predocs are and what they involve is very limited. I hope to update this post with more information. It might be nice if RA jobs at EA orgs could take on the equivalence if a predoc, but I’m not sure how feasible this is.

They're increasingly a soft requirement for entry into top PhD programs

To make it clear, I think you mean that it increasingly is a requirement, but not officially.

This is a good sign that it is a valuable experience.

I'm currently working as a predoc so am happy to chat if you have any questions. Honestly, I doubt RA jobs at EA orgs can achieve that in the foreseeable future, since so much of the value of a predoc comes in the form of a letter from a professor who's tightly integrated into the network of top academic economists. Unless EA orgs can attract senior researchers with tight connections to faculty at top schools, and clout with those faculty, that won't happen.

Right, hope we can do that. I suspect that the main issue is giving a credible letter of reference, not so much giving a letter that comes from someone with high academic status. So I'm a bit hopeful.

I have a good set of connections, and I think others at EA orgs do as well. And I hope we are hiring more from this pool going forward. Obviously some EA orgs like GPI are very much academically-connected.

• Generally, when it comes to PhDs I always tell people that a major consideration is choosing between a UK/EU 3-year PhD and a US 5-year degree. A 3-year PhD, especially in economics, might make more sense if one is uncertain about going into academia.
• In retrospect, I personally found a major benefit of doing a PhD was that it was a good way for me to catch-up to more high-achieving peers' who went better schools / universities because I felt a bit behind after my three year undergraduate degree in a non-quantitative subject.
• There's a new paper out showing large returns to majoring in economics - perhaps applicable:   https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20200447

Caveat to your first point: 3 years/5 years is probably understated

I think the UK "3 year degree" presumes one comes in with a strong masters's degree (which are rare in the UK unless they are an MRes, which is 2 years IIRC. And they often last a bit longer than 3 years anyways, with extensions.

In the US five years would be on the quick side. If you come in with a strong masters degree and a clear idea of your research, and you are fully funded (so not a lot of teaching or RA work) you could do it in 5 or even 4.5. But I guess the median is more like 5.5-6 years. It took me 7 (but I came in without a master's, I switched topics and advisors, I had funding issues and took a break to do some part time consulting).

Generally (not specific to econ), I would think of it as 3-4 vs 5-7. So it is a real difference, although less so if (as it sometimes does) the UK plan requires an additional (1-2yr) masters degree.

UK students who want to get “top econ jobs” often try to do a postdoc after their PhD, maybe especially to polish up their research further

For those interested in animal stuff, also check out agricultural economics, which is mostly a separate field (probably looked down on by many mainstream economists but still legit).  Jayson Lusk at Purdue is a good person in this area. He has a book on the economics of farm animal welfare. 

Edit: what I said about being looked down on was not based on really any evidence so I should take that back. 

Definitely agree ag econ is worth looking into. I have an ag econ PhD and have never had a time where I felt that I would have gotten an opportunity or job if only my degree was in general econ. I don't think it is looked down upon by general econ people except that it pigeon holes you into agricultural/environmental/development/natural resource issues. If you are sure that you want to work in those areas, then I don't see the down side. The caveat is that top programs in ag econ are considered worse than top schools in econ, so if you get into to Chicago/Yale/Harvard/MIT econ, that's definitely a better degree than ag econ Berkeley/Davis/Purdue/Maryland/etc. It also happens to be the case that some of the top ag econ schools have higher ranked econ programs (e.g. Berkeley econ is ranked higher than Berkeley ag econ). But Berkeley ag econ is still considered to be more prestigious than a lot of general econ programs, so I would not say that ag econ as a field is looked down on. Fwiw in my program, we took a lot of the same classes as the general econ and there was a nontrivial amount of cross-program advising.

Berkeley Ag econ, at least in my day 15-20 years ago, was very focused on modelling consumer behaviour, quant marketing, and industrial organisation. It was sort of “Ag in name only”.

On a related note, if people reading this are interested in political economy & GHW, feel free to email me to chat about the advantages/disadvantages of being in a political science department instead of an econ department.

I have a PhD in ag econ. I came to my program with good but not exceptional math abilities. It was five incredibly grueling years of my life. I worked all the time and constantly felt stupid and inadequate in ways I have never felt before or after. I was frequently worried about failing out of my program. But then I got the PhD and it opened a lot of doors. I have what I consider a high-impact career in animal welfare doing what I love. I'm really glad I did it now that it's over with but it was no fun at the time.

This is definitely not the experience of everyone--I have friends who had a great experience in grad school. I also have friends who dropped or failed out.

I think it's very hard to predict what your experience will be like, but I think it's important to be aware of the range of common experiences.

Sorry for the stress. Grad school was very tough for me too in some similar ways.

It doesn't have to be this way. E.g., sitting in a lecture theatre being confused, because you are missing some key reasoning steps/tools is not a great use of time. Nor is it productive for these programs to instill a sense of shame or inadequacy.

The 'credential involves jumping through hoops unlocks doors' thing is also something that I hope we can improve upon.

Can you do an economics PhD after doing an international political economy masters?

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Can I get a Master's in Economics with a Bachelor's in Mathematics?

I am going to receive a Bachelor's of Science in Applied Mathematics soon. I found out facilitating medical environments is what I found interesting after volunteering at a hospital for two years and getting to meet an administrator and a medical actuary.

I have ZERO background in Economics, minus basic Macro and Microeconomics AP credit that I still remember. I can program really well, and I'm a very, very strong mathematician. I have 4 total undergraduate publications in Numerical Solutions to PDEs (1), Set theory (1), and Mathematical Models in Ecology (2) using differential equations. Although none are economics per se, friends who I have talked to say that economics is highly mathematical and involves rigorous programming, so these tools will serve me well.

I have a 3.98 GPA in Mathematics, have relevant tutoring experience on a campus math help center, etc. Is a graduate degree in healthcare economics or even an MPH with a focus in healthcare economics viable with an undergradaute degree in mathematics?

• graduate-admissions
• mathematics
• changing-fields

• 1 Side note: One of my Computer science professors did a B.A. in Tourism, then went into a PhD in Computer Science straight after. If that can happen, anything is possible! –  user22748 Commented Oct 10, 2014 at 2:39
• Seriously? Of course you can! In fact you are overqualified. Have you considered mathematical finance? –  BCLC Commented Oct 10, 2014 at 10:22
• Economics in general is NOT highly mathematical unless it is of course mathematical economics/mathematical finance. The math they use is up to basic differential equations, linear algebra and statistics. I've seen economics texts that use real analysis and partial differential equations, but I;m pretty sure they are advanced for most economists. The average STEM undergrad degree only person will find the math in economics basic. Well at least for math, physics, chemistry, computer science I think. Another suggestion: Mathematical biology/Biostatistics? –  BCLC Commented Oct 10, 2014 at 10:28

Mathematics is a good undergraduate major for a prospective economics grad student. And I suspect that you could gain admission to (and succeed in) a master's program somewhere with the background you already have. But graduate programs in economics do generally expect that you've taken at least some upper-division economics courses, so you would be a much stronger candidate for a master's program (or even a PhD program) with a bit more preparation.

For example, here's what UConn (where I earned my MA) has to say about application to graduate programs in economics http://econ.uconn.edu/grad/apply/faqs/ :

Do I need to be an economics major to apply? No, though some economics background is preferred. Students with little or no economics training, however, will usually only be considered for admission to the master’s program and, if admitted, will generally be required to take some undergraduate economics courses before beginning graduate study.

So, I think the answer to your question is "yes" for at least some values of "master's in economics". Completing intermediate level microeconomics and macroeconomics (or, if you can only take one, micro) would probably improve your chances of acceptance, though, not to mention giving you a better idea whether this is something you want to spend a year or two on.

From your description of your interests, though, it sounds to me as though a MPH is a better fit for you.

• 1 Do eco grad programs really expect such eco background? I've seen some that begin at basic macro and micro. I mean it's not like a Math grad couldn't handle learning such after going through PDEs, numerical analysis and set theory. –  BCLC Commented Oct 10, 2014 at 10:31
• There wouldn't be any concern about handling the math, which for a master's program might be nothing beyond calculus and linear algebra. But one does also need to understand the economics. I would think that a motivated math major could get caught up in a month by working through intermediate micro and macro texts on their own, but at least at UConn that background is assumed at the start of the first class. More to the point, I think an admissions committee would wonder about an applicant's fit with the program. Why are they suddenly interested in econ after ignoring it for four years? –  szarka Commented Oct 10, 2014 at 11:53
• Hmmm...I see. Also szarka, you said "Mathematics is a good undergraduate major for a prospective economics grad student." What would you say are better undergrad majors for such? –  BCLC Commented Oct 11, 2014 at 21:32
• For a PhD program, at least, there's no better preparation than an econ+math double major, unless perhaps it's some combination of econ+math+stats. IMHO. You'll find tons more opinions here: < urch.com/forums/phd-economics >. –  szarka Commented Oct 17, 2014 at 0:04
• In fact, I think many economics programs will place a very high value on superior mathematical knowledge. Some econ MSc programs find uses for real analysis, stochastic analysis, group theory, &c. Cf. files.nyu.edu/ts43/public/math_courses.html –  Charles Stewart Commented Dec 9, 2014 at 12:18

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This is the old Noahpinion archive. Noahpinion continues at noahpinion.substack.com

Tuesday, May 07, 2013

If you get a phd, get an economics phd.

[E]ven going to the abysmally ranked [econ]department that I go to I have no worries at all about getting a good job after I graduate. It may not be an academic job, but that's fine by me (or if it's an academic job it might be in a policy department rather than an econ department).

228 comments:

Shh, I don't want more competition for the next round of grad apps!

^ Yeah Noah, keep it on the dl man, jeez!

You have no idea how relieved I am upon reading this.

How can you be so certain that this isn't yet another form of misleading indoctrination? A path of gold for the gullible to follow, only to find a fish market selling red herring at the end?

I've heard that part of the reason econ phds do so well is that the programs are relatively more selective of who they accept (more so than math and physics for example). Is that true? I guess it would make sense that the econ programs understand supply and demand...

How much is data gathering vs analysis and theorizing? Is it really as small as it seems to be?

Well, publishing in econ has shifted decisively toward empirics and away from theory in recent years...

About that, do you think, with more Econ-PhDs in the pipeline looking for "new and innovative" research topics, more emphasis is definitely going to be laid on empirics? Especially considering, for students (being one myself), empiric research is a safe-haven compared to those dreaded theory topics.

But decent econ PhD programs are so hard to get into! Have the rest of us effectively locked ourselves out of fulfilling upper middle class lives?

I'm not sure that decent econ PhD programs are relatively harder to get into than decent PhD programs in comparative field. But the job prospects are probably superior. As a case in point, I suspect that anybody who can get into a decent math/physics PhD program can easily get into a decent economics program while the reverse is not true. On the other hand, the guy with the economics PhD will have far better job prospects than somebody with a math/physics PhD.

I'm just finishing up in a decent ranked Ph.D. program. I expect that it's more difficult to get in if you're not a U.S. citizen, but I understand that our department received quite few domestic applications for admission. From what I understand, if you're willing to do the work to get in, such as good foundation courses, then the real trick is staying in, not getting in. I was talking with a fellow econ Ph.D. candidate this morning and we were both taken back by how few of our classmates actually lasted to the point of passing prelims.

In re: the last bit: My sense is that the quality of the applicant pool has been increasing, while most programs have not significantly increased the number of admits to the same degree (if that makes sense). Its already the case that the median successful applicant in most top 25 (or even top 50) places has the equivalent of an undergrad math major. If programs can continue increasing the difficulty of the first year core, and maintain the same level of selectivity, there's no reason why an Econ PhD can't maintain its value indefinitely.

But they can start charging more - implementing onerous teaching requirements and the like, giving out fewer first-year fellowships and other department support. And the difficulty of the first-year core is a real cost too.

" Its already the case that the median successful applicant in most top 25 (or even top 50) places has the equivalent of an undergrad math major." If you don't have a math major to start, you're [probably not going to succeed.

Also, this is just wrong, most incoming econ PhD students do NOT have the equivalent of a math major. Simply false.

and they (students without "proper" math background) are the ones who fail the prelims. the mathematical rigor expected for incoming econ phd students is pretty ridiculous these days

Noah, curious, why do you think Economics is not as "deep" of a subject as Physics or Literature? And this is coming from someone who studied Mathematics and Philosophy in undergrad.

Well, that's just how it seems to me...your mileage may vary...

Also, electrical engineers usually get funded by companies and don't take out loans for phd programs. At least at any school in the top 10 or so, and probably even in the top 30. Profs expect to help students find funding without much TAing.

"Econ is one of the few places in our society where overtly racist and sexist ideas are not totally taboo (Steve Landsburg is an extreme example, but that gives you the general flavor)." You seemed like such an even-handed individual up until this point. :(

Noah uses a very ... broad definition of sexist. It's not him - a lot of people do these days.

Since profs don't usually fund econ students out of grants (few even have big grants), econ grad students mostly pay their way by teaching. Doing a PhD -- economics or otherwise -- can actually translate to relatively gainful employment if you consider places like Scandinavia . Certainly, you don't face the same opportunity costs as elsewhere :)

"An econ PhD at a decently ranked school leads, with near-absolute certainty, to a well-paying job in an economics-related field." Just wondering... How would that probability change if it was conditioned on having an Econ Masters instead of a PhD ?

A lot. A masters just gives you a pay bump at some government job and makes you overeducated for anything else you might want to do. There also arent really any good US programs that are just for masters degrees anyway.

And its next to impossible to find a job with Masters and not being US citizen

Interesting post, Noah. A few thoughts: 1. You say that you're guaranteed a job in academia or a something related in the private or public sector. But you can get any of these jobs (except working in academia) without a PhD. An Honors or Master's (or possibly even just undergrad) degree will do. 2. While you're virtually guaranteed a job in academia (or so you argue), what's to say that you'll keep that job. To keep a job in academia you need to continually publish papers, probably at least 1 per year. How can you be sure that you'll think of enough original ideas to keep up this rate of publishing? 3. Another reason to avoid lab based PhDs which you didn't mention is the hell people have to go through to get grants and funding. I hear that something like only 10%-20% of funding applications are successful. Is it your experience that this isn't needed in economics (or even fields like math and physics), because all you really need to do economics is pen, paper and brain (and possibly a computer)?

"While you're virtually guaranteed a job in academia (or so you argue), what's to say that you'll keep that job. To keep a job in academia you need to continually publish papers, probably at least 1 per year. How can you be sure that you'll think of enough original ideas to keep up this rate of publishing?" Until you get tenure, you mean. Once you get tenure, you have to do something egregious (like show up drunk for a class you're teaching) to get fired.

I don't think that answers the question, because to get a tenure job in the first place is very hard and requires a lot of publishing.

Not really, Kevin. Not that many economics PhD graduates have any publications at all when they graduate. You mostly rely on the strength of your job market paper, which is generally an unpublished section from your dissertation.

So a mere unpublished chapter of your PhD thesis decides whether you get tenure or not? I highly doubt it.

Kevin, I think that Anonymous above (who is a different 'Anonymous' than me) meant that the job-market paper - which is indeed often times an unpublished chapter of your PhD thesis is sufficient to obtain a tenure *track* job. It obviously is insufficient for you to obtain tenure itself. But at least you've obtained the job. You can then later worry about amassing a CV worthy enough to obtain tenure. And besides, look at it this way. Many (I suspect most) starting tenure-track positions will guarantee employment, by virtue of an employment contract, for at least 2-3 years (provided you fulfill basic job requirements, such as actually teaching the classes you are assigned) . Granted, after that period, your work will be reviewed, and you could be terminated. But hey, at least you have 2-3 years of guaranteed pay...and, if, with a year remaining on your contract you haven't published anything, you can use the remaining guaranteed time as an extended job search. Let's face it - how many private sector jobs will guarantee employment for 2-3 years? I know people who were terminated literally only 2-3 *days* after they were employed. {For example, a firm, right after hiring you, decides to engage in a major strategy shift, hence relegating your position as expendable.}

Regarding the comment of "You say that you're guaranteed a job in academia or a something related in the private or public sector. But you can get any of these jobs (except working in academia) without a PhD. An Honors or Master's (or possibly even just undergrad) degree will do." Uh, really? I can certainly think of plenty of people with honors undergrad degrees, and some even with master's degrees, who in this economy can't find gainful employment and are stuck working, say, in low-paid service jobs (waiting tables, stocking shelves, etc.). Heck, I can think of some people with Phd's stuck in those positions. {Granted, their PhD's are in humanities or related matters, but still.} In contrast, somebody with a PhD in economics is assured of at least not being stuck stocking shelves.

I am also much more doubtful about doing a PhD just because it's a great life choice. Reading your text sounds a lot like Groupthink. We really like to rationalize our own life choices and to explain to others why that was definitely the best choice to make.

Well, I'll say this. I wish I had completed a PhD in economics when I was in my early 20's, as, frankly, it would have probably been a far more productive use of my time than what I actually did during those years. Since I don't have an economics PhD (and never will), I can't be accused of rationalizing my own life choices. Nor am I the only one. Let's face it - many (probably most) people in their early 20's are not really improving their lives. Nor are they entirely to blame, for many of them are simply not being given strong opportunities to improve, particularly in this economy. Most entry-level jobs available to new college graduates simply don't provide great career opportunities for advancement and development. An economics Phd at least gives you the chance for an excellent career.

Another upside to economics is the opportunity to be completly wrong for your whole working life in a field where the tools for proving you wrong are absent.

Now, there's a true statement if I ever heard/saw one! And someone will pay you big bucks for whatever you say, 'cause they need an expert on board AND they personally know nothing about economics. Further,no other profession is so fraught with "theory" as opposed to "actuality".

Noah - "And after you pass the prelims, there is little risk of not finishing a dissertation" What evidence do you have for this, Noah? My guess would be that the percentage of prelim passers who do not go on to finish their PhD is closer to 10 to 20 percent. Some drop out because they find better opportunities, others fail to find a topic or a supervisor, others find writing a thesis too much. The outside opportunities available to econ PhDs also vary from field to field - not all fields are in demand in business schools. You're in a field that's particularly marketable right now. That people get a middle class job after completing a PhD does not mean that the PhD was a good investment. I once talked a student out of getting a PhD by pointing out that, after the PhD, he was quite likely to end up with a good job as an analyst in government - i.e. exactly what he was doing already. Last I heard he was thriving, and very grateful to me for my advice.

others fail to find a topic or a supervisor, others find writing a thesis too much. I've never heard of such a case! But I guess it happens. That people get a middle class job after completing a PhD does not mean that the PhD was a good investment. Sure! That's why the title of the post has an "IF you get a PhD" in it... ;-)

Just found some Canadian data - in Canada's 13 most research-oriented universities, the share of PhD students who graduate within nine years of starting is 54% for humanities, 64% for social sciences, 72% or physical sciences and 76% for life sciences. It doesn't say *when* they drop out, but lots of people who start a PhD don't finish.

If you consider 25-30% of the students don't pass comps then you are pretty close to the 64% number that you just reported. I'm guessing the number of students that drop out during the first year and from not pass comps is somewhere between 30-35%.

The lab-based PhDs aren't nearly as bad as you make out (I have one). Its true that job prospects in Academia are pretty grim right now (even tenure-track positions rarely result in tenure). However, only a minority of lab PhDs prefer to work as professors. There are lots of jobs in industry, in government, or working for research institutes. The job market today is still challenging, but that is surely temporary. It's a cycle that has been repeated many times since my grad school days.

There are lots of jobs in industry, in government, or working for research institutes. Sure. Lab science PhDs get you a job. But the PhD experience itself is usually hellish. The "lifestyle PhDs" are the opposite; the PhD experience is not so bad, you just don't get a job in your field. The "PhDs that work" get you jobs in your field and also usually don't destroy your late 20s and early 30s with hellish slavery. And I think econ is the best of these.

Well, my PhD experience 40 years ago was anything but hellish. Yes, I worked a lot of hours, but it was great fun. I not only picked my own research subject, I strongly suspect that my advisor didn't really understand exactly what I was working on. My son is currently in a Molecular Biology PhD program at Berkeley. His experience is roughly similar to mine. He will undoubtedly do a PostDoc, since that's a box that needs to be checked in his field, but that is more about broadening skill sets than anything else. Nothing against Econ PhDs. That also sounds like a very rewarding experience.

Well, glad to hear your son's experience is non-hellish... :-)

My first year as an undergrad, I and everyone else was forced into a freshman comp course. It was a big state university, and the PHD candidate teaching it looked like she was about to have a heart attack. She was teaching 3 sections of freshman comp (our group was around 30 students) and finishing her dissertation that year. I just googled now to see if that was a weird, abusive situation and I see the top results come back with English departments promising prospective English grad students they'll get to teach 2 sections, maybe even from their first year if they're lucky! I got a check-plus on all of my papers and no comments. I never sought office hour help because she made it pretty clear we'd kill her if we did. It was like a scared-straight video, where they take high school kids to prison to get yelled at by prisoners, hoping they'll not repeat the same mistakes. I, on the other hand, was assigned to TA the "writing in the major" requirement my first year in a big state school for econ. I had 1 section each semester and, even though I took two full-time course loads at the same time, still could read each paper and give them lots of comments and mull over grades and work with students and generally do the whole thing with some joy. I love Austen and Shakespeare and Hemingway, but I'm so glad I studied econ. Even without considering the job aspect.

Noah, math isn't like that. It's a good PhD experience *until you get to the thesis*, and then nearly everyone agrees that it's hellish. It does get you work, but only if you can prove that you're practical. Also, many of the "lifestyle PhD" situations are beyond hellish. Ask a philosophy PhD -- worst stories I've ever heard. The same applies to any field where the demand for teachers and researchers has dropped below a critical threshold. The only nice "lifestyle" PhDs are the ones where lots of undergrads want to or have to take your courses, such as English or history. In the "humanities", history's a bit of a special case because it is actually sought after by industry. (Specifically, the military.) It's verging on scientific, most of them aren't.

Re: the Austrian-MMT debate--please keep in mind that Murphy represents one wing of Austrian econ, the Mises Institute (i.e., he's somewhat suspicious of that "fractional reserve banking" thing). He is a very sharp, funny, open-minded guy. But I'd much rather see George Selgin up there repping Austrians.

Also--when will we see the great Keynesian-Market Monetarist debate go down? (live, not twitter)

I'll let you know how I feel about this in three more years.

What's up with the Steve Landsburg comment?

Landsburg always puts himself on the opposite side of assorted gender issues: http://www.thebigquestions.com/2012/08/21/in-the-matter-of-todd-akin/ http://www.thebigquestions.com/2012/03/05/contraceptive-sponges/ http://www.thebigquestions.com/2013/03/20/censorship-environmentalism-and-steubenville/ Other than defending an idiot, name-calling, and not adding the necessary disclaimers to a thought experiment, it's not clear what Landsburg is guilty of. It's certainly not clearly that he regards women as inferior to men, but the label "sexist" not appears to have very broad definition.

*...the label "sexist" appears to have... *...the wrong side of assorted...

I believe Bryan Caplan wrote several posts on this issue as well. http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2005/10/is_the_econ_phd.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/12/another_reason_3.html

The most important questions in economics are recessions, financial crisis, unemployment, monetary/fiscal policy. If you want to contribute in those arenas, you should apply to Ph.D. programs that focus on modern macroeconomics like Minnesota. That is where the cutting edge dynamic stochastic models of the macroeconomy are developed.

"cutting edge" DSGE models? Is this post from 1995?

They'll be saying that for the next forty years, until all of the currently-tenured macro guys there have dropped dead. And twenty years from now, if you ask a mid-career macro prof about Minnesota, they'll look at you funny, and say that they didn't get the joke.

"But decent econ PhD programs are so hard to get into! Have the rest of us effectively locked ourselves out of fulfilling upper middle class lives?" Nope, I think Noah has a pretty narrow view of options. Becoming a doctor still means a very stable & generally lucrative career (because MD's have one a great job of protecting their own; though many doctors are deeply dissatisfied now due to our screwed-up health-care system). Other health care fields promise to be in high demand going forward as well. Along with econ, I would lump in other non-lab practical fields of study like CS, stats, and almost everything taught in b-schoool besides psych.

BTW, Noah, in one of your links, you pointed to www.econjobrumors.com, which is really a breathtaking site. I see more emotional maturity in 12 year-olds. Is it the anonymity? The stress & competition? Yet even when anonymous, the people in the circles I've run in (CS geeks and b-school students) show more forbearance, logic, and generosity of spirit than what I find on www.econjobrumors.com (I've been on the Businessweek b-school forum and too many CS geek forums to count). Is it due to econ PhD programs attracting maladjusted juveniles or econ departments turning folks in to maladjusted juveniles?

I guess one difference is that both b-school students and CS geeks have regularly done work that other people depended on. Is that it?

BTW, Noah, in one of your links, you pointed to www.econjobrumors.com, which is really a breathtaking site. I see more emotional maturity in 12 year-olds. Always remember what anonymity does to a normal human being ... Yet even when anonymous, the people in the circles I've run in (CS geeks and b-school students) show more forbearance, logic, and generosity of spirit than what I find on www.econjobrumors.com...Is it due to econ PhD programs attracting maladjusted juveniles or econ departments turning folks in to maladjusted juveniles? Good question; I don't know the answer. I guess it might be the conservative political culture of the field. Conservatives might just be a lot more personally nasty when they're anonymous and online...and we just don't normally see that, since most anonymous online forum denizens are liberals. Then again, go to 4chan and they make the econjobrumors people look like kittens...

Possible. Certainly, the libertarian/conservative ideology would attract psychopaths, and while both econ and b-schools would be attractive to them, b-school students are trained to keep a veneer; so much so that the smoothness is almost second-nature, while I don't think any such training exists for econ PhD students.

Try: there is a huge selection bias to participation on that website. Economists who don't like nastiness know to stay the hell away from there, because it's more a source of stress than it is helpful, with any weighting of concerns appropriate to a mature adult. You learn that the anonymous online econ communities are full of awfulness by the time you pick a grad program (it's all just as nasty for the grad school acceptance websites). Sane people decide early on that it's better to pretend these places don't exist and to ignore them completely. (I am an econ grad student. Most of my good friends in my program don't post, and many of us don't even read the site. When it comes up in conversation between us, it is usually someone complaining about how awful it is. I know that others in my program do read and post regularly, but there are plenty of us who avoid it like the plague.) As to why it's worse than CS or other programs, I think it's a result of the way the first year is structured: direct competition under which a pretty much set percentage of students is going to fail. That environment is going to bring out the most immature, petty, nasty side of almost everyone, and it does, because a huge aspect of that competition is psychological, and you can't help knowing that the programs are set up that way (so psychological nastiness becomes a dominant strategy and thus a dominant culture). Once you've been trained to view your classmates in that light, it takes conscious work to switch perspectives, and only a plurality of people make that effort. I'd be willing to bet that the students at the schools with the highest failure rates on comps are the nastiest online. I'd still agree that if you're going to get a PhD, economics is the way to go. But the first year deserves its own circle of hell (increasingly so as the technical requirements keep rising); it's only after year 1 that the lifestyle is better than other disciplines.

"I guess it might be the conservative political culture of the field." Hmm, I would like to see a survey with some data on this. My observation is that there are more liberal academic economists than conservative ones. And it is not just me: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/education/edl-24notebook-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 As far as sexism and racism go, in every hiring search I have participated women and minorities are placed at the top of the list, everything else being equal. And I have participated in at least one search, I will not disclose for which institution, where we excluded all male candidates because they were men, and we felt we sorely needed another woman in the department. However, maybe it is precisely these practices that generate the juvenile behavior that I too disaprove of.

I was expecting just that going to grad school (I studied a lab science as a UG and didn't know a single econ major), but I found the other students to be plenty collaborative. We did weekly study groups, emailed each other our homeworks to compare and discuss answers, and generally commiserated and supported one another. A few people went to great lengths to help others, which was good for me at first because I went there knowing little math. It varies by program. But there are plenty of cool econ grad students out there.

"As to why it's worse than CS or other programs, I think it's a result of the way the first year is structured: direct competition under which a pretty much set percentage of students is going to fail. That environment is going to bring out the most immature, petty, nasty side of almost everyone, and it does, " The correct way to describe this type of "academic" program is "offensive". The correct treatment for this type of program is to remove accreditation from the school and arrest the people running it. There is no excuse for this type of forced curve.

Arguably a Ph.D in many areas of Engineering or CS can be an even better deal than Econ. Areas like theoretical CS and information theory have the rigor and depth of math/physics. Reasonably stimulating Ph.D-level jobs in industry are aslo plentiful. Ph.D students are funded by research grants, and typically don't TA for more than 2-3 semesters. Where Econ wins is the ease of getting a faculty position. The academic job market in Engineering has taken a nose-dive in the past 10 years (the "hot" areas change every couple years) and it's suddenly become common for people to do a post-doc for 2-4 years.

This rings true to me. The reason econ has a better chance of tenure-track, I think, is the proliferation of b-schools, combined with the explosion in the finance industry. Those trends will end soon, though.

As enrollments start to decrease in b-schools I would not be surprised if you see a switch to more economics phds. Among the business disciplines, economists are cheap labor. Can b-schools continue to justify paying $175-200k for a finance position when you can hire an economists for $125 (or less)? I also see undergraduate enrollments increasing in economics and other data fields. With law schools experiencing a rapid decline in enrollments all of those political science students need to go somewhere.

1. Depends on what banks & hedge funds want. Is the pay differential between finance and econ that big? A lot of the tools and skillsets are the same. 2. Unlike law, econ does require some math skills. Then again, near everything will in the future (even poli sci).

Ryan: Interesting. Dohsan: Finance PhDs probably get paid a little more than econ PhDs. They are much more likely to work in industry. The finance PhD lifestyle is almost as good as the econ PhD lifestyle, with the exception that it's more intellectually constrained, since the topic range is much narrower.

I was going to mention engineering also. I think in some ways it's "easier" than Econ because you typically get a research assistantship which just involves you working on your research and getting paid for it. However, unlike Econ, most industry jobs are accessible to people w/ a Master's degree, and pay almost the same as a PhD job, so the opportunity cost of the Phd is not really justified unless you want an academic job.

I agree that most jobs in industry can be acquired with a Master's (at least in EE). However, there are still some fields that do require a PhD. This is particularly true for research positions, of which there are many. As for opportunity cost, even the majority of jobs that a Master's student could get, the starting salary is 80-90ish. The starting salary for a PhD is 100+. Since you're paid to go to school anyway, it doesn't take too long to make it worth your while from a financial perspective alone. Additionally, even among companies that do higher both Master's and PhD's, there can often be a difference in flexibility. Big companies (I've heard Boeing among others) lets PhDs have much more say in the type of work that they do than Master's students. A friend of mine whose dad worked at Boeing in EE recommended getting a PhD for the additional flexibility alone.

Dohsan: Finance PhDs know a gobload of detailed institutional-structure stuff which you can miss out on entirely in an econ PhD. That's what finance PhDs are hired for. An Econ PhD isn't a substitute, though Econ *with a course record which shows that you know the finance* is a different matter.

I'm too lazy to read all comments, but in case it hasn't been addressed: Chicago is not nearly as cut-throat as you depict it. The dropout rate in the last 7 years, at least, is around 10-15%. Nowhere near the >>25% you mention. That includes people who voluntarily quit and those who had to leave due to failure to fulfill a requirement such as passing the prelims.

Huh! That must have changed then. I heard they flunked out half their entering class every year.

As a neuroscience graduate student near finishing who interacts with a lot of econ grad students let me say that barely does a day go by when I don't wish I went to econ grad school (I almost applied! Silly me.)

As a holder of a lifestyle PhD, I would also add the opportunity costs to the list of reasons not to get one. After you get your doctorate, and muddle a year or so as an adjunct looking for a real job, you will find yourself in your early 30's competing for entry level positions with recent college grads. Very few employers care about your PhD as it is, at best, irrelevant to their needs and at worst, marks you as a possible malcontent.

The skills you learn, however, are mostly useless (unless you become a Professor to propagate the information further). The best skills you can get out of this study are econometrics and programming skills. Macroeconomic theory is great if you love talking about trade or want to become a politician. Otherwise, it's mostly BS.

I'm not so sure about this. Data skills and statistics skills are very important in a lot of data-related fields, including the aforementioned consulting and finance industries (which are both huge), but also in lots of random white-collar jobs.

I am talking specifically about microeconomic and macroeconomic theory on a graduate level. Statistics and data skills are going to be taught in almost every field, especially in engineering.

Re: "The skills you learn, however, are mostly useless...I am talking specifically about microeconomic and macroeconomic theory on a graduate level." In fairness, we have to judge the usefulness of the economics curriculum on a *relative scale*. While you might say that micro/macro grad theory are useless, let's be perfectly honest, much of the engineering curriculum, quite frankly, is rather useless as well. {Trust me, I know; I have 3 engineering degrees, all from prestigious engineering schools.} Let's face it, few if any actual real-world engineers actually derive pages after pages of calculus-based equations as part of their normal jobs. But that task comprises the overwhelming aspect of the grading (exams and homework) of most engineering programs. If you can't perform those derivations, you will flunk out and therefore never be awarded an engineering degree at all, regardless of how skillful of a real-world engineer you might have been. As a case in point, I know one guy who works as successful software developer yet who not only doesn't have a CS degree, but openly admits that he probably could never get one, because he doesn't think he could pass the required theory courses. {Thankfully for him, you don't need a CS degree to work as a developer.}

"Data skills and statistics skills are very important in a lot of data-related fields, " Yeah, but you don't learn those skills in economics classes, Noah. As Reinhart and Rogoff recently proved. You learn them by actually taking statistics.

Ha ha, yes. Seems pretty inefficient to hire an econ PhD to do stats work when someone with a stats UG w/ a CS minor would be more suited. So the transferable skills argument is weak.

No thanks, I'll just get my MBA from DeVry.

Thanks for pointing out how, by following this "law", you will help to eventually invalidate it. I call it Grey's law: any economic law or regularity which is specific enough to be acted upon in a beneficial way, will create incentives to be acted upon until the benefit vanishes, possibly even turning negative. This is what bubbles are about. Just imagine that 10% more students enter econ grad school each year, and each year they earn more, until ... they don't. But I'd guess it's more like 20 years for econ folk, since most non-econ people believe it's a "science" when the laws of greatest interest are subject to the above invalidation.

Yep, everything goes through phases. We've seen the JD devalued by technology change, and I expect MBA's to follow fairly soon after. The best jobs are where you can get very far if you are entrepreneurial (right now, that's tech). Plus, supply & demand. I expect the demand for being able to do stats, numerical analysis, & code well/imaginatively to remain high in to at least the near future, and supply is constrained somewhat by talent. Anyone who's reasonably smart can get a JD; not as true when it comes to hard skills.

Dohsan3:28 PM "We've seen the JD devalued by technology change, and I expect MBA's to follow fairly soon after." Noah: "This rings true to me. The reason econ has a better chance of tenure-track, I think, is the proliferation of b-schools, combined with the explosion in the finance industry. Those trends will end soon, though" The MBA is going down, and hard, I believe. There's a glut in the market, and b-schools don't have the mystique of law schools - when the prospective MBA students look at the salary data, they'll stop immediately.

Sounds to me like professor of economics fishing for grad students. Note your updated links are dated from before the most recent financial crisis, do in large part to dumb economists (some with Nobel prizes). Funny when magazines publish the year's "best jobs" you never see economists high on the lists. Hard to believe a PhD in economics is better in any way than one in computer science (which often heads such lists). I'll take working at Google versus teaching at Stony Brook.

Sounds to me like professor of economics fishing for grad students. I work in a b-school, hoss. Nice try. ;-)

OK, sounds like a b-school professor fishing for students. That's the kind of difference an economist would think is important. I side with Nassim Taleb, in that we need fewer and not more business and finance students.

Hey, I never said more econ PhDs was good for the world...

"I side with Nassim Taleb" No need to say anymore, you've already signaled your ignorance!

Regarding the comment: "Hard to believe a PhD in economics is better in any way than one in computer science (which often heads such lists). I'll take working at Google versus teaching at Stony Brook." But how many CS PhD grads will actually receive job offers at Google, or similar such 'cool' firms (which I assume would include Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple, and the like}? I know CS PhD graduates from strong schools, and they aren't receiving offers from any of those employers. {To be clear, they're getting offers, but just not at any of the glamorous tech employers.} I don't know about anybody else, but trankly, I'd rather take that faculty job at Stony Brook than be a software developer at some average firm.

"I don't know about anybody else, but trankly, I'd rather take that faculty job at Stony Brook than be a software developer at some average firm. " Don't worry - these guys will be offshored soon, and then can become professors of CS! :)

not entirely true about lab science phd.

It is funny that you argue lab science PhD's are bad because of how difficult it is to become a professor, but you ignore this aspect of econ PhD's. According to the most recent research I can recall, the unemployment rate of chemistry PhD's is around 3%. Half of them go into postdoc positions (which I would personally consider unemployment), but the 40% who decide to go into the industry make bank and seemingly have no trouble finding jobs. Maybe the process is a bit harder, but it strikes me as a little slimy to judge real science by one metric and then heap praise upon econ under an entirely different metric!

It is funny that you argue lab science PhD's are bad because of how difficult it is to become a professor, but you ignore this aspect of econ PhD's. No I don't. I just don't have specific data on how many econ PhDs get faculty jobs. I think it's a lot higher than for lab science, though, given the explosion in b-schools (which often hire econ profs), and the growth of econ departments. but the 40% who decide to go into the industry make bank and seemingly have no trouble finding jobs Sure, after they go through the hell of a lab science PhD, being hit in the face with a brick by their slave-driving Nazi advisors.

If you compare the NSF survey data to the various ACS type society numbers, you can ball-park that less than half of those lab science phds who go into "industry" actually go into a LAB SCIENCE industry (many go into finance, or science writing, or something totally out of left field). You have to be careful with those numbers for "industry" because its such a broad catch-all. So only 20% find jobs in the field- there is so much trouble finding work that a solid 20% leave the field immediately upon graduating. Its worse in bio, and worse still in physics. Getting a science phd (of any kind) is a fairly bad idea.

Yup. Physics is something you should do if you love physics (which I did, by the way; studying physics is just pure intellectual pleasure). Bio is something you should do if you're a masochistic nutcase. Same goes for chem.

"According to the most recent research I can recall, the unemployment rate of chemistry PhD's is around 3%." These statistics are garbage - if you can't get a job in your Ph.D. field, you'll get *something*, or live in the street. If you ended up as a barista, then you count as an employed barista, not an unemployed Ph.D.

"Econ is one of the few places in our society where overtly racist and sexist ideas are not totally taboo (Steve Landsburg is an extreme example, but that gives you the general flavor)." and you're an extreme example of a moronic self righteous politically correct goody goody spewing out dishonest propaganda and smearing bullshit. Shame on you.

I applaud the bravery, shaming someone on "smearing bullshit" from behind "Anonymous" (with nothing but ad hominem attacks, to boot!) Are you related to Landsberg, perchance?

So you say you're not being forced to work 80 hours a week... how many hours are you working? I am in my 2nd year of the Econ PhD and I am hoping to find a job that will allow for good "work-life balance" since I am a mom. My understanding is that tenure-track positions involve lots of hours (at least until the tenure is achieved) but do you have any insight into what kind of hours people are expected to work at the typical industry and/or govt. jobs?

Noah, Cool post. I shared it with my kids. ( Son in college ( Global studies), Daughter graduated a few years ago with a BA in Econ and Business psychology. (UCSB) ) Of course coming from me they automatically think it is a stupid idea... Sorry to hurt your reputation that way. I should of seen it coming.

Noah, what about Econ PhD's from non top-25 schools? Still a good bargain or no? Non top-50? At what point does the advantage of having an Econ PhD get trumped by getting crowded out by graduates of better schools?

I wish I had the data on this, but I don't. Anecdotally, people at non-top-50 schools say they aren't at all worried about getting jobs.

I completed my PhD in Econ (well Applied Econ) last year at an unranked school, and had little trouble finding a good job. The academic job market wasn't very receptive, but I received a fair amount of interest from different businesses, and ended up in risk management at a bank. Most of my peers had similar success finding work. It seemed to me that getting a tenure-track job from an unranked school is difficult. But, getting a good, well paying non-academic job was pretty easy.

Could the current market value of Economics PhDs be the result of a bubble?

The word "bubble" gets thrown around a lot, but compared to other areas (CEO compensation or traders' compensation or professional athlete salaries, for instance), the compensation for econ PhDs isn't terribly high nor have then risen very rapidly very quickly. They are pulled up by external market forces, however: 1. private industry (namely finance and consulting), and you can argue that the FIRE industries & consulting have built up a big bubble that is slowly deflating. 2. the growth in b-schools, which may be a bubble (and also pulled up by FIRE and consulting), but as gigantic parts of the third world start pulling themselves up, they may keep feeding the b-school bubble for decades to come.

I think the only thing that has kept econ phds from hitting the career-hell of most other phds is the rapid growth in b-schools, if the student loan market stops growing rapidly, so will b-schools, and the market for econ phds will quickly begin to resemble that of all the other phds.

I think the only thing that has kept econ phds from hitting the career-hell of most other phds is the rapid growth in b-schools That's part of it. But the econ and business majors have gotten a lot more popular among undergrads too, IIRC. http://visual.ly/trends-higher-education-0?view=true But also, you have to remember that industry and govt. are out there too. Government has been hiring a LOT of economists since the crisis, including for existing offices, and for new things like the CFPB. And industry provides huge demand for economists. Consulting and finance are absolutely enormous. In the future, I predict that economists will see a lot of demand from the data science field as well. So yes, the better tenure-track job situation is partly because of the temporary expansion in b-schools. But the general high demand for economists is not going away soon, I think. Maybe 10 years from now.

Regarding the comment: "Government has been hiring a LOT of economists since the crisis" Surely I'm not the only person who finds it deeply ironic that a crisis that - other than a few outliers such as Roubini and Shiller - was embarrassingly missed by the bulk of the economics profession would actually result in *greater* overall demand for the profession? How many other professions actually benefit so prodigiously from their own failures? For those who agree, go ahead, name me some economists who actually lost their jobs because they missed the crisis. I'll wait.

great post noah. When you say "top-50", what ranking do you have in mind?

This is a wonderfully written article and I hate you. - Social Science Grad Student

I'm so glad that my parents didn't allow me to go in to my first love (history) and their's (they were both history majors). It's just too bad that many people (I include myself) don't know enough about the impact of their decisions when they are young and making those decisions.

That dynamic can cut both ways, though. I fell in love with math at an early age and wanted to be a math major. My parents were dead set against it, because pure math is so ... impractical. Then the Internet happened, and pure math of the kind I was studying suddenly found an important application in the form of cryptography and network security. I currently do research in this field, in a math department. I have both tenure and full-time industry experience. I'd like to claim credit for having the foresight when I was 18 years old, but the truth is I just lucked out. While some truisms may always hold (the job market for history has never been strong in decades), the future is impossible to predict with complete accuracy. There is something to be said for following your passions. At least you are guaranteed some satisfaction with life for a little while.

I think this is mostly correct, and especially clever with regard to the 3-part taxonomy. It only leaves out that PhDs in Finance and Accounting have (in my experience) slightly better lifestyles (well-capitalized business schools and consulting income) as well as very attractive switching options when the economy is in a boom period. Also, whereas there are quite a few economics PhDs in "finance" positions in business schools, there are almost no finance phds in economics positions at (lower wage) institutions...i.e. argument via the revelation principle. Your comment about the intellectual "constraints" of finance is curious especially given your vast previous writings on how siloed the macroeconomics field is. Do you have any evidence on the intellectual constraint argument? I do think we all agree that accounting is boring though. :) http://www.aacsb.edu/publications/datareports/salarysurvey/2012-13.pdf In particular, Table 5c.

The fact that finance departments want econ PhDs (but not vice versa) should weigh in econ's favor, should it not? ;-)

I think it's more fair to say that finance departments want a *subset* of econ PhD's. Let's face it, if your specialty is in, say, labor economics, you're probably not going to receive a job offer from a finance department, even if your PhD is from a top program. You also probably won't receive an offer from the finance industry, or at least, not a finance offer commensurate with having a PhD. On the other hand, finance departments want *all* of the finance PhD's, at least from the top programs. That is to say, if you graduate with a PhD in finance from a top program, you're effectively guaranteed a lucrative job in finance academia or industry. Note, the academic job might not be at a top finance department - you might end up at some lower-ranked program - but you're effectively guaranteed a job somewhere.

not a hater, but, econ reminds me of meteorology. there's science involved, but alot of bad forecasts. your last two links seem to bely one econ theory. however, noah, I like your style. You make econ interesting. ( this coming from a carpenter)

Noah, thanks for promoting discussion of this. It's an important public issue. As you know, especially with a career in personal finance, one of the things I'm most interested in is how young people and children can have financial security, and non-brutal careers, in today's America – and the America of the future, where advances in computers and robots may often decimate earning power and job security. One of the things that most surprised me was the evidence you, and your linked-to articles, presented on how bad lab science PhDs had it. Medical research, natural research, applied chemistry, these are such noble and interesting pursuits. It's so sad that it's so common for these scientists to have such harsh, often brutally inhumane, careers. This stuff is so cool and so important; I used to really think my friends from childhood in the 70's who were into this would have such cool lives. And I was into it too, but as a kid in the 70's, B.I. (before internet, or even PCs!), you know so little about the world, and it's hard to really find out not the hard way. I actually thought I could go into business and economics first, get wealthy, and then switch to physical science, not realizing how demanding things were, and how early you have to start.

The big question is what went wrong. Why? I think there are two big factors, with the second probably being much bigger: 1) In academic research, provided you have the health, endurance, vigor, mental health, etc., you can usually create much more than 50% greater societal utility if you work 60 hours per week instead of 40. It's just not linear at all, given train of thought, intensity, not having to lose things from memory and get them back again all the time, being able to immerse for longer, rewards for doing things quickly, etc. In some cases you can create vastly more societal utils, far more than twice the amount, over a career working 80 hours instead of 40. At some point you'll burn out and the marginal product of additional hours will decrease, and become negative. But given the advantages of strong health and energy, the successful people in academia tend to have this – athletes tend to do very well, and of course people who need little sleep – and they can work long hours fine. 2) Externalities and asymmetric and poor information are just so ginormous with regard to the basic sciences. Why are there so relatively few jobs to start with in the basic sciences? Why do finance people, and real estate developers, and the guy who started a granite countertop business (mammoth zero-sum-game positional externalities) make 100 or 10,000 times as much as someone making key contributions to curing cancer, quantum computers, or creating cheap solar? Monumental externalities of non-rival idea/information goods, and over generations, making it so hard to capture even a tiny fraction of the utils created. And at the same time, so much of what can be captured very well in profits has negative externalities, like the pink elephant of economics, positional externalities. Thus, left to its own devices, the pure free market worshipped by the Republicans will amazingly underpay for basic science relative to other things. The inefficiency and lost utility will be off the charts, especially over generations. And we see this. And with such poor public information on economics, on externalities, so many people fall for pure free market soundbites when they vote. And this is understandable as people have so little time to learn economics. The result is we spend way less on basic science than we have good smart people who would be willing to work in these areas, if they could get decent, non-brutal, jobs at comfortable middle class wages, or better to attract the top brains to the most important research. If the government dealt with the externalities commensurately, there would be far more money chasing the talent, and smart people would regularly have the bargaining power to not be brutalized, and to get good, or extraordinarily good, wages in the basic sciences.

Regarding the comment: "the pure free market worshipped by the Republicans will amazingly underpay for basic science relative to other things. The inefficiency and lost utility will be off the charts, especially over generations. And we see this...The result is we spend way less on basic science than we have good smart people who would be willing to work in these areas" At the risk of instigating a political discussion, if it is true that basic science (and, by extension, career opportunities for scientists) is underpaid because of the free-market ideology and influence of the Republican Party, then I must ask - why hasn't the same occurred with regard to the *economics* field? It would seem to me that if the Republican Party was so intent upon reducing funding for basic science research, they should be just as intent upon reducing funding for basic economics research as well. Or, at least, economics research that doesn't conform to Republican-leaning economics. After all, there are plenty of economists working in particular subfields - most notably within micro - that do not easily translate to political punditry, whether left or right-wing. And even within those subfields of economics that do lend themselves to the political subfields, one can find plenty of highly paid *left-wing* economists. If the Republican Party really has sufficient power to reduce the overall funding for the sciences, why wouldn't it then likewise use that power to reduce the funding for non-right-wing economics subfields? Heck, the Republican Party should have eliminated funding for every single left-wing economist a long time ago. {That's exactly what I would expect if the Republican Party truly had the power that you imply.} So why do such large battalions of well-paid left-wing economists continue to not only exist, but thrive?

Because science research requires tons of money while economic research requires almost none, so virtually no money would be saved, and in any case, what liberal economists would the GOP be able to cut funding for? Curious, are you still in high school? However, the GOP (certain members, anyway) do want to stop collecting economic data: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/01/a-new-gop-bill-would-prevent-the-government-from-collecting-economic-data/ There's good reason to call the modern-day GOP the Party of Ignorance.

Curious, are you still in high school? Economics research requires "almost no" money? Really? You think data is cheap? The Bureau of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Office of Management and Budget, the Federal Reserve, and the research divisions of the (partially-US-taxpayer funded) NGO's such as the IMF and World Bank together surely produce economics research and data analysis in the billions of dollars. Indeed, the existence of those organizations is one of the key reasons why - as per Noah Smith's post - the career prospects for economists are so strong. They could also stop funding the *economics*-specific research that is currently supported by the NSF, which currently supports plenty of it. Plenty of savings is therefore available. But to do so would require a far more cunning and savvy GOP than we have currently seen. If they were really so capable, why couldn't they just leverage their savviness to simply win the 2008 or 2012 Presidential election in the first place, rather than wasting its energy to, as Richard Serlin has asserted, simply cut science funding, which doesn't really seem to meet their true goals (which I would assume would be to attain political power). As far as which liberal economists the GOP might possibly cut funding for, the answer is elementary: cut all funding for, say, behavioral economists, as, let's face it, the political implications of most behavioral economists are mostly left-wing (for behavioral economics research almost always tends to indicate that people do not behave rationally and therefore cannot be trusted to make welfare-maximizing decisions). Reduce funding that investigates all market failures - including the 'New Keynesian' School and information economics - as the implications of that research are that free markets may choose suboptimal equilibrium points, such that government interventions may improve overall welfare. In short, reduce spending for the entire 'saltwater economics. ouevre. One could shift that funding to *increase* spending for proponents of, say, Real Business Cycle theory and the Efficient Market Hypothesis. As far as whether the modern-day GOP is the Party of Ignorance, well, hey, the Democratic Party hasn't exactly showered itself with glory when it comes to the advancement of knowledge either. As a direct case in point, do prominent Democrats support a true evidence-based approach to investigate the effects of, say, gas fracking (which is almost certainly environmentally friendlier than the coal-mining activity that it replaces)? Or the Keystone pipeline (which, if not built, let's face it, would merely result in Canada exporting the oil to Asia, where it will still be consumed)? Or, perhaps most controversially of all, how about the true empirical effects of race-based affirmative action? To be clear, I believe that both political parties suffer from their own idiosyncratic facets of ignorance. I simply find the notion that GOP-style free-market ideology would underfund specifically only science research to be unfounded. It would make far more sense for free-market ideology to underfund *all* research, economics research included. That does nothing to explain the disparity of career prospects between scientists and economists.

Besides, I'll offer another thought experiment. Dohsan, you assert that the difference between science and economics is that science research is costly (or at least, costlier) than is economics research. So let's explore that idea more closely. Plenty of science fields - notably the 'theoretical' fields - involve incur relatively low costs, indeed, arguably, lower than that of most economists. Research in string theory, loop quantum gravity, M-theory, requires little more than a desk, some pencils & paper, and copious quantities of coffee. Theoretical chemists who specialize in, say, computational chemistry and cheminformatics just require computing power, which becomes cheaper every day. And naturally we have the entire discipline of mathematics which, at most, requires some computing power, and usually doesn't require even that. {Granted, one might argue that math is not an actual science, but hey, it is funded by the NSF.} One would therefore not expect that reductions to science funding to greatly impact the job prospects for the mathematicians and theoretical scientists. Yet last time I checked, their job prospects were nowhere near as promising as that of economists. Indeed, Noah Smith categorized those pursuits as "lifestyle PhD's": enjoyable, but unemployable. {The deep irony is that many of today's economists are basically rebranded mathematicians, publishing math theorems that could easily have appeared in math journals.} It's not at all clear how a free-market ideology that reduces science funding could explain the poor job prospects of the science *theorists*.

Hey Noah -- have you seen this paper on the importance of which grad school you go to for econ if you want to become a professor? The upshot is that the top "fifteen Ph.D. programs get 59% of their faculty from only the top six schools with 39% coming from only two schools, Harvard and MIT." Zhengye Chen (2013) "The Path to Being an Economics Professor: What Difference Does the Graduate School Make?" http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2193581 This obviously doesn't invalidate your point about those graduating from a non-elite grad school still being well-off, but it's food for thought.

Do you need a masters first? Is there a benefit for having a masters before entering a PhD program? I have BA and a JD, am pretty bored with the latter and looking at other options. Thanks.

No, I don't think you need a masters first, though it probably does help. The first econ classes I took in my life were my first-year PhD courses.

Interesting post. I am at the other end of this job discussion, as our group (an Analytics group within a Fortune 50 company) has hired a couple of Economics Ph.D's recently, and we're looking soon to hire 1 or 2 more. We hire Economists mainly for forecasting sales, etc, so time series analysis is important, but being able to do and learn other things is certainly essential (handling Big Data for example). The job market certainly seems tight from our end, as the number of applications we received for each position has been surprisingly low (maybe we're not posting in the right places?). When it comes to the applicants, all too many fall into one of two disqualifying categories: (1) very mathematical, with not an ounce of common sense, or (2) very policy-oriented, with a weak math ability. It is absolutely essential for people in our positions to both create a good model and translate it into terms non-economists can understand, so people in both of these groups usually disqualify themselves. While many of the Economists we have interviewed fall into one of these 2 categories, the percentage is still lower for Economics than for other fields we hire from. The economists who do not fall into one of these two groups are very solid additions to our group.

I knew economists were out of touch with the reality of how people interact with the economy, but I didn't realize it extended to their own employment existing entirely within a controlled guild system of guaranteed employment. This is just amazing.

I knew that Mike could not express his thoughts clearly in writtent English (people do not interact with the economy) but I didn't realize it extended to writing a single sentence. This is just amazing.

Noah. Very nice piece. Very unfair to Steve Landsburg, though.

No, if anything too nice to Landsburg! Anyway, thanks. :-)

Stay in academia if you can. You have no real world social skills. (Look, no emoticon.)

Stay in academia if you can. You have no real world social skills. (Look, no emoticon.) derp

I just read Landsburg's article, and it seemed very obvious to me that it was not sexist. He was pointing out that we can't judge actions just based on the direct harm, because otherwise having sex with an unconscious woman who never finds out what you did, would be perfectly fine. How is that a sexist argument?

That's way beyond sexist, but it is also sexist. "If I only steal people's kidneys who never wake up and find out what I did, it isn't unethical" is apologia for illegal violence. If you then said "if I only steal black people's kidneys who never wake up and find out what I did, it isn't unethical", of course I am a racist (as well as a terrible human being). The difference, of course, is that there isn't wide-spread stealing of black people's kidneys without consequence, while there is wide-spread rape of unconscious women (Stubenville being only the most egregious recent example.)

don't forget computer science - a fabulous field to be in these days.

There is one other field that matches the beneficial characteristics of Economics very well: Industrial Engineering. IE may be a decidely unsexy field, creating a low supply of Ph.D students, but the job opportunties are huge. It is virtually impossible to find IE students--they get snatched up so quickly, especially the ones with an OR specialization. I'd bet it's even easier to get a job with an IE background than with Economics, and you have the same flexibility in the Ph.D program as is mentioned about in Economics.

Wish I'd read this before doing my MBA - I'm 32 now and too late considering I can't live in poverty anymore.

One thing before entering an econ Ph.D. program is to look into Ag Econ programs. They are often equivalent to the Econ program at the same school, sometimes colisting courses, and there is much more grant money, and therefore research assistantships, available than in the straight econ programs. These days, many Ag Econ programs are positioning themselves as applied econ more than traditional production econ programs.

This is a really good suggestion for the poster below who is considering a second Ph.D. in econ after a Ph.D. in ecology. A very close friend did his Ph.D. in Ag Econ at UC Davis and now has a fantastic career as a fisheries economist, teaching in the Natural Resources School at Duke. My impression is that others in his cohort also had good outcomes, though I don't have more than anecdata on that. More importantly, he loves his work and gets to think about the natural world as well as about economics -- what he wanted in the first place.

For what it's worth, when I failed to pass my prelims[1] at a large flagship state institution, I was very much not awarded a complimentary Master's. I basically came out of those two years with nothing to show for it but some teaching experience that I leave off my resume because observant HR folks will ask questions. [1] Turns out that they ask you general Macro questions regardless of whether or not they scheduled you to take any general Macro courses. Makes sense in retrospect, but came as an awful shock during the exam...

Noah, what about all the math? How high up the math food chain do you need to go to get a PhD in econ?

It's easier than what you'd do for an engineering PhD, but harder than what you'd do for a bio PhD. Statistics, mainly, and a little calculus.

If you go into an economics Ph.D. thinking that you will be doing "a little calculus," you are in for a horrible, rude surprise and total nightmare from hell.

Really? I guess "a little" could mean anything.

Do you have any experience with think tanks and other organizations that do applied research? If people want these jobs, are they generally successful in getting one?

Noah, I wish there was more of a comparison here between a Master's and a PhD. There is some stuff in the comments, but I'd like to know more. I'm doing a Master's program myself, full disclosure.

How do you feel about business PhDs...such as accounting?

You forgot one caveat: observation bias

"There's a piece of economics for you: as soon as people become aware that a thing is overvalued, they will start bidding up its price." I'm no econ PhD, but that doesn't sound quite right...

Thanks, fixed.

Based on the opinions expressed in this blog, does one really require six-figure debt and upwards of eight years of tertiary schooling to reach the false conclusion that government consumption is a source of sustainable economic growth? But then, considering the glut of economic PhDs working in government and academia, and the dearth of them actually handling client portfolios, their role in the real world might best be summed up by something along the lines of: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, get PhDs in it."

People actually go in to debt to get econ PhDs? I would be surprised if that happened at any decent institution in the US. Same holds true for the engineering and hard science PhDs.

Six-figure debt??? Are you sure you're not thinking of law school? :-) Welcome to the real world, sir...

It is a bit depressing to be asking this question, but how do you think econ departments would view someone applying who already has a PhD in another field. I could see it going either way. I just finished a PhD in ecology. I really like my field, enjoyed the process of getting the PhD, and have been fairly successful (10 peer-reviewer publications 6 first authored). Most of my work has involved modeling with a mix of dif eqs and agent-based simulation, so I think a lot of the skills would transfer. With 4-6 years of postdocing and a bit of luck I could probably land a faculty position in my current field, but due to how few positions are available I would have little choice on where I end up. I nor my partner want to end up in some random midwesten college town (no offense meant, it's just not for me). Considering the timescales are probably equivalent for getting a permanent position in my own field and one in econ, maybe it is not so crazy to switch fields. Or is it...

I think it is a bit crazy if you're passionate about your field of study, but not if you're indifferent and are deadset on becoming a professor. Plus, having a PhD in both may be a benefit. Private sector isn't an option? Also, once you become older, you may come to the view that where you are based isn't as important as your career. At least, that was true for me.

BTW, before knocking small Midwestern (college) towns, have you actually lived in one? Noah at least lived in Ann Arbor before deciding that it wasn't for him (though after growing up in S. IL & living and working in Chicago, NYC, & the Bay Area, I don't see a big difference in cultural attitude between the upper Midwest and East Coast--and _really_ don't see much difference between the Midwest and NoCal).

Thanks for the reply. I am passionate about what I do, but I think what I like about my field is probably general to most disciplines in science: tying to discern processes from patterns. At the end of they day if I get to spend my day thinking intensely and creatively I will be happy. There are private sector jobs in my field, but they tend to be in areas where there is a bit of a conflict of interest between doing good science and company profit. Say you work for a consulting firm that is paid by a company to assess the environmental impact of a given product or activity, and that assessment is used as part of a formal regulatory risk assessment. Do you think the company would continue to hire your firm if you determine that the impact is too severe? I have no problem working in the private sector, but preferable when there is a clear benefit to the company when I do my job better.

I have spent 7 out of the last 10 years in small midwestern towns. For me it is not the people that are the problem. I just prefer city life and living near a geographical feature of interest.

oh really you don't think QF phd is better.

Nope! You just end up sleeping in the lab all the time... ;-)

You should walk over to the other side of the campus sometime, and ask, say, a junior philosophy professor or grad student how they like thinking away at their own pace. But be prepared to duck. 70 hours/week. Falling asleep at the computer instead of the lab bench. Etc. Your distinction between the first two categories hasn't been accurate for decades.

Finance PhD is much better than an econ PhD for any topic where they overlap. For instance, if you want to study "Experimental Finance, Behanvioral Finance, and Macroeconomics," you are much better off getting a Finance degree. The job market is much better and the salaries are much higher, and the PhD programs are much more supportive. Econ PhDs tend to take many students and weed them down, while Finance tends to take few students and nurture them. Econ offers a broader range of topics to choose from, and that's the trade off. I wouldn't begrudge anyone getting an Econ PhD, but I don't think how great a Finance PhD is is widely appreciated. I certainly didn't know, when I entered an Econ PhD wanting to do macro-finance, and I'm much happier making the move to Finance.

I just complemented by MBA in Finance and was wondering what to do for my PHD. This just confirms it. I have always loved Economics.

That's too bad.... I hope you actually mean that you love totally impossible math problems.

I have mixed feelings about this article. The focus is completely on academic jobs, which isn't the sole reason that many people go for a PhD. I'm an engineering PhD student right now, and most - if not all - of my classmates are looking to go into industry, consulting, or entrepreneurship (all of which snap up eng. PhDs VERY quickly). Also, engineering PhD are free of charge (your adviser pays your tuition and health insurance), so...win-win.

Noah, I am asking just for curiosity. Why did you switch from physics to econ for a Phd? I mean you say that you loved studying physics, you liked what you were doing and you enjoyed it. So why econ suddenly for a Phd? I guess it would be possible to do physics for you (stanford physics, btw, which is pretty cool) and keep writing econ, reading econ, blogging, etc. so why econ phd, not physics? I hold a phd in econ and sometimes I am asking to myself why not physics. It would be fun, too.

"Lifestyle PhDs. These include math, literature and the humanities, theoretical physics, history, many social sciences, and the arts." Some of these are not like the others. There may not be many job openings for pure mathematicians or theoretical physicists per se , but they are very, very employable in computing or any field requiring mathematical or statistical know-how (eg. finance). Also, the distinction between pure and applied mathematics is not exactly well-defined. :-)

I was surprised when I read this article. But it makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing this to everyone.

> Second, be aware that the culture of economics is still fairly conservative, and not in the good way. Econ is one of the few places in our society where overtly racist and sexist ideas are not totally taboo (Steve Landsburg is an extreme example, but that gives you the general flavor). I clicked on, and read, the Steve Landsburg blog and I didn't see any sexism in it. Landsburg article was saying that if judge an action based purely on the direct harm that it causes, then having sex with an unconscious woman, who isn't harmed at all, would be moral. It's a thought experiment to make you think about rights, right and wrong, etc. It's extremely poor reading skills to think that he was making a sexist comment!

Second, be aware that the culture of economics is still fairly conservative, and not in the good way. Econ is one of the few places in our society where overtly racist and sexist ideas are not totally taboo Total bullshit.

Yet another article by an economist talking about how great it is to be an economist.... That's all well and good, but prospective students should be under no illusions: the barriers to entry are extremely high, as you need to be prepared to get a Ph.D. in what is actually just a flavor of applied mathematics. If you don't love proofs and aren't amazing at them, then you will never get through the Ph.D., let alone the first year or two. As Noah Smith is implicitly arguing, Life's Easy When You're Born a Math Genius. No, you don't have to be Terence Tao or Richard Feynman, but yes, you do probably need to be in the top 0.05% of the population in mathematical ability (more so lately)--so, in most cases, even asking, "Should I get a Ph.D. in economics?" is a fanciful absurdity. Just crack open some grad-level textbooks and you will see what I'm talking about.

Hi Noah, I graduated school in May 2011 with a double major in Math and Econ. I also wrote an economics thesis paper as an undergrad. I have worked as an analyst and a research assistant for corporations over the past two years and working with phd's at these firms has made me realize how much I miss conducting my own research. I am thinking about applying to grad schools this fall, so if I get in I would start in fall of 2014. My question is, is it too late to pursue a phd now? Would working for three years hurt my chances of getting into a good program? The jobs I have worked have given me great statistical and research skills and these are skills that would def come in handy for a phd.

Suggestions for anyone still reading this old post and its comments: 1) Apparently the dire reports re: life sciences Ph.D.s are pretty accurate. Of course, a lot of people with life sciences Ph.D.s go into industry, but they commonly still do one or more post-docs first (meaning quasi-poverty into your early-late 30s). In my limited experience (two years as a research biologist at a now-very-successful biotech firm in the early '90s), these jobs are much less intellectually stimulating, and involve a much more "corporate" culture, than academic work does. Finally, the percent chance that a life science Ph.D. graduate will ever find a tenure-track academic position seems to be very low, although it is hard to tell because this particular measure (% of Ph.D.s *ever* obtaining a T/T position), while it may be the most meaningful for people trying to make decisions about a life-long path, is neither well-studied nor well-disseminated. E.g., % of life-science Ph.D.s with a T/T position immediately after completing the Ph.D. is meaningless, since a post-doc is simply required to obtain a T/T position. 2) The humanities are not nearly as bad, across the board, as popular reports would have it. In fact, humanities Ph.D.s have by far the highest chances of obtaining a T/T position immediately upon degree completion, and it's well above 50% -- much higher than any social science, a category that includes economics. Further, if you're a besotted humanist, but early enough in your career (say, college freshman or earlier) and/or willing to accumulate one or more MA degrees in the course of learning the skills to do research in technical humanities fields, your chances of finding not just a T/T job, but a good one -- well-paid, with a reasonable teaching load, and in a location a sane person would want to spend their working life in -- are much, MUCH higher than the aggregate would suggest. What's the secret? Learn ancient Greek and Latin, plus four modern foreign languages and either/both Hebrew and Arabic (classical and modern); go into Religious Studies, late antiquity (a tiny but not-shrinking field), or medieval history, where Arabic-Christian-Jewish interaction is cutting-edge. Even better, learn classical and modern Japanese and Chinese; go into any field of literature, history, or -- especially good -- religious studies in East Asia. Finally, master not only Arabic but the very difficult fields of Quran, Islamic origins, and/or Islamic law. In ascending order, these fields promise pretty good to practically guaranteed chances of an academic "dream job". History Prof Living a Pretty Lifestyle in [Name of Highly-Desirable US City Redacted]

Humanities PhD's typically take two years longer to complete than economics PhD's. The pay in an equivalent tenure track position is considerably lower. There is often no fall-back if you don't make it in academia. If you go to the adjunct project at the Chronicle of Higher Education, it is littered with stories of humanities PhD's working as adjuncts for $2000 a course or even less.

A pure math PhD will get you a job, guaranteed, *if* you pick the right field within math. I.e. a useful one which *has* applications. You don't need to *do* applications, you just need to be able to teach a subject which is needed for applications. There are always jobs teaching math to undergrads. There will not be similar jobs teaching econ, because econ is mostly bullshit. ;-) Of course, I speak as someone who took a different route: learn enough, inherit enough, and get lucky enough, to make a fortune off the stock market, and forget about these silly job things which you 99%ers think about. ;-)

Hmmz, well I just sealed my PhD position, actually just 3 days ago (btw: thanks www.phdposition.com !), however... it's a biochemistry position... and after just reading this blogpost I must say: I am not that worried about my future career perspectives, frankly speaking...

PhDs that work: * business subjects including finance; * computer science; * statistics and applied math; * economics. These fields pay better than other PhDs. Of the traditional intellectual disciplines, economics is the best paid. What do these subjects have in common? A credible level of nonacademic demand. This is also characteristic of engineering, whose PhDs can work in corporate labs and become corporate execs. You omitted to mention that postdocs are almost nonexistent in economics and business subjects. At age 26, one goes straight to the tenure track. I did PhD studies partly in 2 Econ depts., partly in a business school. Yes, the interpersonal culture is conservative. The econ grad student's idea of fun is rather cautious. Econ and business PhDs all marry in their 20s and have 2 kids and a low divorce rate. Econ and business academics are more likely to vote GOP than any other academics. Econ PhDs are rather cool to affirmative action in hiring. Most idealistic young people would deem it abhorent to study in an economics dept. A reason you omitted: ECONOMICS IS A BIG TENT WITH MANY SUBDISCIPLINES. The emphasis on purely technical modeling is declining. There is a growing appreciation for the intricacies of the real world. Economics is more data based than was the case 40-60 years ago. Economics helps you save for retirement, minimise your taxes, do a bit of consulting on the side, serve on the board of a nonprofit. In my social life, I often find myself advising friends. " Reason 1: YOU GET A JOB." ME. The residual employer of many econ PhDs is the public sector. Teaching in a mediocre business school is not rewarding. A "failed" PhD in economics is one who works for state or local govt. The pay is middle class, and the civil service rules give you fair job security. "Reason 2: You get autonomy." In economics, on the other hand, you can start doing your own original, independent research the minute you show up (or even before!). Profs generally encourage you to start your own projects. Unlike in lab science PhD programs (but like in "lifestyle" PhD programs), your time is mostly your own to manage." ME. I largely agree. "Reason 3: You get intellectual fulfillment." ME. Yes, if thinking very rationally about human behaviour and social institutions does not bother you. I have noticed that it does bother many people. "And economists, even if their research is highly specialized, are encouraged to think about all different kinds of topics in the field, and encouraged to think freely and originally." ME. Agreed, but most everyday economists do not succeed at this. "In econ, furthermore, you get exposed to a bunch of different disciplines; you get to learn some statistics, a little math, some sociology, a bit of psychology, and maybe even some history." ME. Leave out the other social sciences, and include business functional areas. "...econ is a field in which outsiders and mavericks are able to challenge the status quo." ME. I am not as optimistic about that as you are. "The simple fact is that econ, you don't need money to advance new ideas, as you do in biology or chemistry." ME. Very true. "And you don't need math wizardry either, as you would if you wanted to introduce new ideas in physics." ME. In econ, you must be comfortable with freshman year uni math, and with undergrad probability and statistics.

It seems there are two schools of thought on the math needed for an Econ Ph.D. program: (1) Basic calculus and statistics, or (2) theoretical courses on par with a math major (e.g. Real Analysis, Metric Spaces, Topology, etc.). Can this be attributed to area of specialization, or the rigor of the program? For example, the prerequisites to understand, say, labor economics would likely be very different from game theory or econometrics. Any other engineers considering changing fields? Our math background falls between these two cases; more than basic calculus, but little if any exposure to the theory.

Theoretical physics? There are quants on wall street with those so called useless phds. LOL

Noah, what do you think is the value-add? What can you do as a result of your econ PhD that you couldn't have done otherwise, or that other people can't do?

He can talk nonsense with a straight face? The problem is that there isn't any value-add in a modern econ PhD program. Someone with dual history & math PhDs is more or less what you want for most econ jobs -- what you get from an econ PhD is someone who's been brainwashed with nonsense, instead. Econ PhDs are slowly being devalued in the outside job market. Math PhDs are *never* devalued in the outside job market, although you are expected to prove that you can do something practical too (a CS Masters, Eng Masters or whatever), because the risk in hiring a math PhD is that you've got an ivory-tower type.

Linking to a slightly more sober take: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/02/how-much-does-graduate-school-matter-for-being-an-economics-professor.html Of the 138 Ph.D. economics programs in the United States, the top fifteen Ph.D. programs in economics produce a substantial share of successful economics research scholars. These fifteen Ph.D. programs in turn get 59% of their faculty from only the top six schools with 39% coming from only two schools, Harvard and MIT. Those two schools are also the PhD origins for half of John Bates Clark Medal recipients. I guess your point is that the outside market for econ PhD's is good. Which I find strange because in the quant-finance area econ PhD's are not valued.

Hi, I'm relatively old for this sort of thing (54) but something for the last few years has been drawing me towards getting a Ph.D in Economics. Not sure why. I certainly would like to understand how the economy/economies work. I have what I consider a good job, which is very fulfilling. Why do I want to get a Ph.D. in economics? Why should I at this age? I could just read about economics I suppose, and formulate, and perhaps act on, my own conclusions and opinions.. but why is this desire still there, quietly nudging me it seems? Is it just for an ego-boost? A better bump in pay right before I retire? My older brother is currently working on a physics Ph.D. (he's already a working scientist, making a good living). Is it brotherly competition which is driving me perhaps? Someone please talk me out of (or into) this!...

Hi Noah, I just sent you an email about this. What about Accounting Phds? If business schools implode as you say, do you think they will lose their status as a useful Phd? Also, what about MOOCS? Will they lower demand for econ Phds and accounting Phds?

If you think you can succeed in an Econ grad program without mathematics, think again. The math requirement is no joke. I should complete my Masters in Econ this Fall, ceteris paribus. However, the thought of laboring for another 5 years as a grad student has got me thinking.

I am a third-year PhD student in neuroscience at an Ivy League institution with an undergraduate degree in theoretical physics. Due to dismal job prospects and unfulfilling lab work, I am contemplating a change. In your oppinion, do you think I would have a realistic chance to get accepted in a decent economics or finance PhD program? Also, do you think it would make sense to change fields at this stage? Thanks!

In your opinion, do you think I would have a realistic chance to get accepted in a decent economics or finance PhD program? You will need to have taken statistics. You will also need letters of recommendation showing you are a diligent researcher. You will need to demonstrate a true interest in the econ field. In that case, I think yes, most definitely. Also, do you think it would make sense to change fields at this stage? That's something only you can answer for yourself! But remember that the Sunk Cost Fallacy is a fallacy!

Chief economists at Google, who really is their chief strategist, by virtue of his comfort with dealing with stats and big data, is non other than micro-economist extraordinaire, Hal Varian.

Much, though not all, of the difference between economics and other fields is selection, not the effect of the PhD itself. It is harder to get into an economics PhD than a humanities PhD. It is also harder to get through, as there are plenty of people who fail prelims. A different selection issue operates for maths, theoretical physics, and maybe some others. Many of the people going through these programmes are very smart, but not brilliant enough to make it as academics. They have all of the skills needed to land one of the econ fall-back jobs you mention (accounting, finance, consulting, etc.). However, these disciplines are much more likely than economics to attract weirdos without the social skills needed to function in these environments.

@Noah, Do I have the same prospect with a PhD Agric Econs and a straight PhD Econs?.

Which one is better in terms of industry placement, prestige, and future gains, an Econ or a Statistics PhD? If you fulfill the requirements to enter an econ PhD (real analysis, linear algebra, etc) would it be that hard to opt for a stat PhD instead?

Noah, when you applied to graduate school, how did you demonstrate interest in economics if you had a physics background? Did you do research in economics? I'm currently a math undergrad and I'm thinking about doing an econ PhD but have no coursework in econ as of yet.

I agree with you on getting a job, even if you graduate from a low ranking school. I got my PhD in Econmics from a mid to low ranking school in the UK. I did my PhD there because I had a great relationship with my supervisor for 3 years. Soon after my PhD graduation he moved to a top 5 UK Economics department. I secured a job in buyside finance before I'd even finished in London. I've never looked back since. I've now been employed by someone who has PhD in Econ from Oxbridge and went to Lse as an undergrad, it has never been an issue that I didn't go to a top 5 Econ school in the UK. Oh and yes 10 years after PhD graduation, I make in the region of 150K to 200k GBP total comp. So you are correct, you do get paid well. Why did I go and do a PhD in Econ? Because I always loved Economics, was good at it and had no clue what to do with my life at 25 years old

"An econ PhD at even a middle-ranked school leads, with near-absolute certainty, to a well-paying job in an economics-related field. I believe the University of Michigan, for example, has gone many, many years without having a PhD student graduate without a job in hand." This implies that you consider the University of Michigan to be a "middle-ranked" program. Being that Michigan is ranked in the top 10-20 in most rankings, I suppose I do not know how to interpret the rest of your blog post, because you and I must understand certain words in the English language to mean very different things.

Noah I have a question if u or other buddies answer. I am a bachelors in Plastic engineering, MBA in general business administration. Took 2 courses of econ ( intro to micro 201 and business economics).. If i apply for econ PHD in international economics, will they accept me cause i don't have econ bachelors or masters but i know math and i loved the two econ classes i took. I hate my plastics engineering job with the depth of my heart. Replay please cause it's the question of my future. Very very tense and confused today of what will i do in future... so came to your site in hope of some encouragement.

Actually if you get a math PhD with a Masters in CS you can do better than the Econ PhDs in the job market. You can be hired by INDUSTRY. Even if you aren't, there's an infinite number of teaching jobs. It's actually work to get a math PhD, though, and requires being actually smart. You have to invent a new theorem. It can take people a *decade* after completing the coursework. Most people who get math PhDs never want to do math research again. By contrast, you can get an Econ PhD without doing any hard work, and you can even get one by spouting falsehoods (which is not acceptable in mathematics).

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Does it make sense to do a Ph.D. in Economics ?

Hello everyone,

Does it make sense to do a Ph.D. in Economics in a reputable university in Europe, for a person who holds M.Res in Economics and has not decided between academic vs non-academic jobs?

Is it an investment that costs outweigh the expected benefits for non-academic opportunities?

Thank you very much.

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