I shook him well from side to side,
Until his face was blue:
“Come, tell me how you live,” I cried,
“And what it is you do!”
Until his face was blue:
“Come, tell me how you live,” I cried,
“And what it is you do!”
– White Knight’s Song, Lewis Carroll
David Warsh states in his book Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations that the American university system produces about 850 Economics PhDs a year. The corresponding number of MBAs is something like 120000, and it is possible I have left out a couple of zeroes. An economist would begin to describe the situation in terms of demand and supply. However Warsh goes on to talk about the fact that most students who sign up for the programme don’t get through the first year, and a surprising number who do, don’t end up submitting their dissertations. And yet economics is an extremely popular subject at the undergraduate level. This implies that there is a supply of students who could potentially enter the graduate programme, and that there is a demand for lecturers who can teach the subject to this set. So is there a bottleneck?
My contention is that most undergraduate students of economics don’t know what the graduate programme entails. My cohort at Davis consisted of extremely bright and dedicated students from across the globe, but did contain several american university products. It is safe to say that no one was prepared for what the first year curriculum would entail. We called it bootcamp.
Is being an economist that tough? It also begs the question, what is it that economists do? The answer is that there are different kinds of economists, and if you put them all in a room, they may not have too much to say to each other. This brings us to the central question what is economics? That is what this blog is trying to explore.
I think the missing link is between all the undergrad economic majors and the PhDs and the sad fact is that many of them become those MBAs.
Please explore what economists do, and also what they should do.
Are you asuming that most students who decide to study econ at the undergrad level 'know' what economics 'is' (this questn is diff from the one you ask about what econ is) and know what it is to 'study' economics? Maybe fewer people should study economics at the undergrad level.
I somehow feel economis has been given this gloss of sorts – some sort of convenient undergrad degree to do cos it doesnt fit anywhere.
A lot of econ majors become lawyers too.
Lawyers, MBAs and academic economists- what a popular bunch…