Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Salaries for New Ph.D.s in Economics

Greg Mankiw links to the study "Survey of the Labor Market for New Ph.D. Hires in Economics, 2011-12," which reports the following results:

1. Eighty-two economics departments reported 516 new Ph.D.s who sought employment for the 2010-11 academic year. Of these job seekers, 457 (88.6 percent) were successful.

2. Among the successful job seekers, 62.4 percent found employment in academic institutions as compared to 62.8 percent in the 2009-10 year.

3. Respondents to the current survey report a mean actual salary for the 2010-11 academic year of $87,596 or 6.6 percent below what was expected.  

4. For Ph.D. granting institutions, the mean actual salary in 2010-11 was $98,542, compared to an average of $115,000 for the Top 30 economics departments, and an average of $75,612 for bachelor and masters degree-granting institutions.  

14 Comments:

At 1/11/2012 10:05 AM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

At most universities, economics is in the school of liberal arts.

A Ph.D math tutor once told me a grad econ degree is the hardest degree in liberal arts (perhaps, I shouldn't say what he told me was the easiest grad degree in liberal arts).

He also told me economics uses a "crude" form of math, i.e. somewhat sloppy, although correct.

 
At 1/11/2012 10:51 AM, Blogger AIG said...

Those are pretty good employment numbers, considering that the ones who didn't get a job probably didn't because of other reasons than lack of options.

Peak, you're right. I think I've noticed a difference in pay between econ PhDs in the liberal art school and in the business school. Business school PhDs in typical make more than econ PhDs.

"perhaps, I shouldn't say what he told me was the easiest grad degree in liberal arts"

Perhaps you should ;)

 
At 1/11/2012 10:58 AM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

AIG: It's one of the five choices below:

A. Philosophy
B. Mathematics
C. Psychology
D. History
E. Political Science

He told me this field "brings up the rear."

 
At 1/11/2012 12:23 PM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

Marmico, what do you know? I guess, that Ph.D. math tutor was correct about bringing up the rear.

 
At 1/11/2012 2:06 PM, Blogger AIG said...

Peak, I'm going with E, final answer.

 
At 1/11/2012 4:09 PM, Blogger juandos said...

Hmmm, aig is guessing 'political science', which makes sense to me...

Since we've not acutally seen what pt last one is I would go with 'psychology'...

Is Psychology a Science?

 
At 1/11/2012 4:49 PM, Blogger The Drill SGT said...

Well, I was always good at multiple choice tests so

It's not

Math
Philosophy
History

because ultimately all three have some basis in logic or facts that need to hang together

so, Psych or PoliSci

I'm going to go with PoliSci as the back of the pack. Psych having some experimental guys who do testable research.

 
At 1/11/2012 5:07 PM, Blogger yourong said...

There are total 147 PhD-in-Economics granting institutes in US. These 82 might be the top 82. What happened to the new grads from the rest of the schools?

 
At 1/11/2012 5:21 PM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

Yes, AIG and The Drill SGT, the tutor said E (sorry about that political science majors).

And Juandos should at least get partial credit.

You guys seem to have good insights.

 
At 1/11/2012 5:55 PM, Blogger AIG said...

Yeah it couldn't have been psychology because they at least get some analytical training; they need some level of statistics to get their research done. Some of them can be pretty good at analyzing data.

Political Science on the other hand...you just pull out of your behind.

 
At 1/11/2012 6:07 PM, Blogger AIG said...

"There are total 147 PhD-in-Economics granting institutes in US. These 82 might be the top 82. What happened to the new grads from the rest of the schools?"

Not all schools produce PhDs every year. Some departments may only have 4 or 5 students, and they get a graduate every 2 or 3 or 4 years.

 
At 1/12/2012 3:55 AM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

Yes, according to "The Making of an Economist" only about 800 Ph.Ds in economics are awarded in the U.S. each year (and some foreign graduates go back to their home countries, e.g. to become central bankers).

 
At 1/12/2012 3:38 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"Yeah it couldn't have been psychology because they at least get some analytical training"...

They do?!?! Well aig its been almost forty years since I was in college and then it seemed that psych majors and even post grad didn't to get much in the way of analytical training and they all ran around the campus looking math and engineering majors to help them with their statistics...

So that's all changed, eh?

Well good!

 
At 1/13/2012 10:47 AM, Blogger AIG said...

"They do?!?! Well aig its been almost forty years since I was in college and then it seemed that psych majors and even post grad didn't to get much in the way of analytical training and they all ran around the campus looking math and engineering majors to help them with their statistics...
So that's all changed, eh?
Well good!"

I've only ever known one PhD in psychology, and she seemed well versed. So that's the impression she left me with, but it may not apply to undergrad level psych students.

 

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