There is no way that Judd posts here. If it was then please post weekly content on here. Judd has soooooo much insight and is more than happy to say as it is. Its a pity there aren't more like him.
Warnings to new PhDs on the Econ job market by Ken Judd
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I think it was ignored because there's no real reason to think this is Ken Judd (or am I missing some verification?).
There's some germs of truth here, but this is silly:Many people my age have stopped doing serious research in favor of consulting because they are unhappy with the current situation with journals and academics in general.
The reason people do consulting while being a professor is to pull down enormous HRM salaries while having full time second jobs that also pay exorbitantly...
Yes, Ken Judd posts here. I like to see the reactions. When I talk to professors, they say nothing, which is probably a rational decision. How can I verify my posts?
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I think it was ignored because there's no real reason to think this is Ken Judd (or am I missing some verification?).
There's some germs of truth here, but this is silly:Many people my age have stopped doing serious research in favor of consulting because they are unhappy with the current situation with journals and academics in general.
The reason people do consulting while being a professor is to pull down enormous HRM salaries while having full time second jobs that also pay exorbitantly...
Yes, Ken Judd posts here. I like to see the reactions. When I talk to professors, they say nothing, which is probably a rational decision. How can I verify my posts?
Just post something on your website saying that this is you.
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It is clear to me that the past 40 years has seen a substantial decline in the intellectual standards in economics.
In what ways?
Justin Wolfers. Need I say more?
That was the correct answer 10 years ago. Since then, unfortunately, the standards have slipped much further.
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This is all pretty obvious and uncontroversial, but it's worth saying. It's shocking how little JMCs know about the market before they go on it.
My 42 years of experience with economists have taught me much about academic economics. Here are four points you should consider.
1: Beware of plagiarism:
You will be presenting your ideas in your seminar but also in your office visits. You will often be asked about what other ideas you are working on in these office visits with individual professors. You need to be careful about what you tell people because there is no record of what you say in those interviews. If you tell someone about an idea you have, but then see that person writing similar work, you have to remain silent. No one will believe you. I have no example to share with you regarding a job market interview, but I can speak to journal attitudes. One editor told me that once you put something out there, any one can use it in their own work, with or without attribution. I know of (and can document) two cases where authors made errors in their paper, other people identified the errors and provided the correct analysis, and the editor thought it was fine for the authors to incorporate the corrected analysis -- done by others -- into their published papers, and do so without acknowledging or thanking those who did the correct analysis.
2: Read the fine print
There is a common belief that the first appointment is a three-year contract, and that you can be fired after one year only for cause. BEFORE YOU TAKE A JOB, READ THE FINE PRINT. Verbal descriptions of you job are irrelevant. Only the written document matters.
3: Beware of the ignorance of your interviewers
A student of mine was asked about the computational method he used. He tried to explain the interior point method he was using, but the interviewer declared that my student had to be using NFXP. My student had a PhD in computational mathematics and the interviewer received his PhD before the interior point revolution in math programming. That did not matter to the economist interviewer. He had the idea that NFXP was the only way one could solve a dynamic discrete choice empirical problem. Of course, this has also been declared to be true by many leading economists in their Econometrica papers. Economists are poor at mathematics and they become very hostile if you try to help them do better math. In general, if you criticize some existing work, the authors may view your work as undermining their case for a Nobel Prize.
4: Consider industry jobs
People like me want the academic life and would never consider going to industry. I used to tell students with technical skills about the great opportunities in academic economics for their skills. I no longer tell that to any young person. Many people my age have stopped doing serious research in favor of consulting because they are unhappy with the current situation with journals and academics in general. I am unhappy about the brain drain to industry but I must admit that academia has lost much of its appeal. One old guy told me that economics is corrupt and always will be, and that no amount of criticism by me or anyone else will change that. It is clear to me that the past 40 years has seen a substantial decline in the intellectual standards in economics. If I were a new PhD, I would probably still go into academia but it would be a much more difficult decision today than it was 42 years ago. -
Work at the Fed Board now. 200k, instant tenure and stress free life. Do research as I please. Happy to be outside the rat race of academia.
And you will be barely over 200k in 10 years time. In consulting you could be well > 500k
Married to a billionaire but thanks
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I think this is controversial to those who commit plagiarism and not every supervisor is willing to warn their students about those very people.
This is all pretty obvious and uncontroversial, but it's worth saying. It's shocking how little JMCs know about the market before they go on it.
My 42 years of experience with economists have taught me much about academic economics. Here are four points you should consider.
1: Beware of plagiarism:
You will be presenting your ideas in your seminar but also in your office visits. You will often be asked about what other ideas you are working on in these office visits with individual professors. You need to be careful about what you tell people because there is no record of what you say in those interviews. If you tell someone about an idea you have, but then see that person writing similar work, you have to remain silent. No one will believe you. I have no example to share with you regarding a job market interview, but I can speak to journal attitudes. One editor told me that once you put something out there, any one can use it in their own work, with or without attribution. I know of (and can document) two cases where authors made errors in their paper, other people identified the errors and provided the correct analysis, and the editor thought it was fine for the authors to incorporate the corrected analysis -- done by others -- into their published papers, and do so without acknowledging or thanking those who did the correct analysis.
2: Read the fine print
There is a common belief that the first appointment is a three-year contract, and that you can be fired after one year only for cause. BEFORE YOU TAKE A JOB, READ THE FINE PRINT. Verbal descriptions of you job are irrelevant. Only the written document matters.
3: Beware of the ignorance of your interviewers
A student of mine was asked about the computational method he used. He tried to explain the interior point method he was using, but the interviewer declared that my student had to be using NFXP. My student had a PhD in computational mathematics and the interviewer received his PhD before the interior point revolution in math programming. That did not matter to the economist interviewer. He had the idea that NFXP was the only way one could solve a dynamic discrete choice empirical problem. Of course, this has also been declared to be true by many leading economists in their Econometrica papers. Economists are poor at mathematics and they become very hostile if you try to help them do better math. In general, if you criticize some existing work, the authors may view your work as undermining their case for a Nobel Prize.
4: Consider industry jobs
People like me want the academic life and would never consider going to industry. I used to tell students with technical skills about the great opportunities in academic economics for their skills. I no longer tell that to any young person. Many people my age have stopped doing serious research in favor of consulting because they are unhappy with the current situation with journals and academics in general. I am unhappy about the brain drain to industry but I must admit that academia has lost much of its appeal. One old guy told me that economics is corrupt and always will be, and that no amount of criticism by me or anyone else will change that. It is clear to me that the past 40 years has seen a substantial decline in the intellectual standards in economics. If I were a new PhD, I would probably still go into academia but it would be a much more difficult decision today than it was 42 years ago. -
There is more corruption these days. Cambridge is a nest of cronyism. Minnesota isn’t much better. So many people play the system. It would help a lot if people just judged the quality of papers, and not where they are published. Stop treating people at top schools as gods.
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I think it was ignored because there's no real reason to think this is Ken Judd (or am I missing some verification?).
There's some germs of truth here, but this is silly:Many people my age have stopped doing serious research in favor of consulting because they are unhappy with the current situation with journals and academics in general.
The reason people do consulting while being a professor is to pull down enormous HRM salaries while having full time second jobs that also pay exorbitantly...
Yes, Ken Judd posts here. I like to see the reactions. When I talk to professors, they say nothing, which is probably a rational decision. How can I verify my posts?
Just post something on your website saying that this is you.
Okay but how do we know that "his website" belongs to him?... Its domain registration is private.
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I wish AP salaries were around 40-50k so that people who are in this business for the money would go to the industry from the beginning.
There are postdocs that pay in the $50k range in the US, and arguably this is getting closer to the median outcome, if not already. People are in for the immigration benefit though, don't kid yourself.