Friday, August 14, 2009

The Return to Studying Economics

I love doing economics and I earn a comfortable living doing it. But, as a professor, my career has been atypical for an undergrad economics major. Now payscale.com tells me that my classmates have done well too.

DegreesDegrees
Methodology
Annual pay for Bachelors graduates without higher degrees. Typical starting graduates have 2 years of experience; mid-career have 15 years. See full methodology for more.


My wife's field, Social Work, is dead last on their extended table of earnings by major, but she loves what she does too. I would argue that love of subject should trump earnings potential in choice of career.
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 15, 2009 at 9:59 PM

    I'd like to know more about how many "engineers" stayed in engineering or how many guys in "finance" started out as finance majors?

    I was a civil engineer in undergrad with an MBA and then went to investment banking. What category would I fall in? Curious, because top earners who move between fields or change careers surely skew these results.

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  2. Michael WardAugust 17, 2009 at 9:15 AM

    A fair question. There actually is published research that distinguishes between those who go on to advanced business and law degrees and those whose bachelors degree is their terminal degree. Among terminal bachelors degree holders, the payscale.com results are generally confirmed. Among those that go on to get an MBA, economics majors do as well or better than all other undergrad degree holders, including those with engineering degrees.

    See Black, Dan A., Seth Sanders and Lowell Taylor (2007) "The Economic Reward for Studying Economics," Economic Inquiry (2007), 41(3), 365-377.

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