Early Career Paths of Economists Inside and Outside of Academia
利用新面板数据，研究了美国经济学博士在学术界内外的早期职业流动和收入增长，发现学术岗位占比降至一半，技术、咨询和政府岗位增加，且跳槽者、私营部门经济学家和男性收入增长更快。
Economics job candidates face considerable professional and financial uncertainties when deciding between academic and nonacademic career paths. Using novel panel data, we provide a broad picture of PhD economists’ early career mobility and earnings growth–both in and outside of academia. We find that academic jobs have fallen to just over half of US placements, with growing shares in tech, consulting, and government. We document considerable early career job mobility and higher earnings growth among job changers, private-sector economists, and men. We also find an earnings premium for graduates of top-ranked PhD programs that grows over early career years in academia while shrinking in the private sector. These different earnings dynamics mean the opportunity cost (in terms of potential earnings) of remaining in academia is generally less for graduates of top-ranked programs, although there is significant dispersion in mid-career earnings among these academics.