Should i get phd in economics

Taking the step towards doing a PhD is a big decision, and one that shouldn't be made without the proper research and consideration.

Once taken, however, it can be an extremely valuable experience and one that can set you up nicely in the future. Here we consider some of the things you should definitely think about before taking the plunge. Will doing a PhD boost your career options? Absolutely, but with some caveats.

If you want to work in academia, for example in research or as a professor, then doing a PhD is essential. Having a PhD can also help you to land jobs in industry, for example working as an analyst or as an actuary. When applying for these jobs, your PhD is both a demonstration of your prior experience in running a research project, and an example of your motivation and self-discipline.

Our Salary Report found, however, that while the gender pay gap is closing for PhD positions, women still earn less than men, and for senior positions, there still exists a 'glass ceiling' for women, meaning they are less likely to be chosen for these roles. Yes, the direction of travel may be the right one, but we are clearly still travelling with the handbrake on. A PhD is also not essential for every job. If you know that you want to work in a field such as finance or accounting, then real-world job experience can be just as important when applying for jobs as academic qualifications.

And there are some employers who will be put off by a candidate with a PhD who is applying for entry-level jobs, finding them to be overqualified. It's not a good idea to do a PhD just because you think it will help you generally to get a better job in the long run, as this may not be the case. The time you spend studying is time that could be spent accruing work experience. So before you make your decision really consider the specific role that you want or the field in which you want to work, and then see if a PhD would be helpful for that career path.

One of the most important issues to consider when thinking about a possible PhD is the question of funding. As working on a PhD is generally a full-time job, you will need funding to cover your living costs and other expenses. There are a number of sources of funding: you might get funding directly from the research budget of your supervisor, or the department in which you do your PhD; you might get funding from your university; or you might get funding from an external body such as the Wellcome Trust.

If you are pursuing a PhD abroad, for example if you are Dutch but are doing a PhD in Germany, then you may be able to apply for funding from both the Dutch and German governmental bodies, doubling your chance of successfully receiving funding.

You might also get partial funding from several of these sources. Some students are so keen to do a PhD that they wish to start even if they do not have any funding. This, however, is not advisable. The amount of work which a PhD requires is immense at least three years full time, often more , and agreeing to work this much for no payment is a recipe for disaster. If you can't get funding now, it's better to wait and apply for more funding rather than risking starting your project unfunded.

You should also think about whether doing a PhD would suit you personally. Those who are interested in doing a PhD tend to be those who are academically inclined and who already enjoyed — hopefully thoroughly — doing a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree. Those are certainly good qualities to have; however, a PhD is a rather different kettle of fish. A PhD requires you to come up with your own ideas and to work independently — essentially running your own research project.

This is terrific for someone who values independence and exploratory learning, but can be a difficult adjustment for those who are more used to having strict guidelines and structure imposed on to them. For this reason, it's common for people to wait a few years after completing their graduate degree before doing a PhD, so they can gain some experience in managing their own time. Another requirement for PhD students is a degree of self-confidence and assurance about both their work and themselves.

Academia is a demanding environment and students often complain that supervisors give more negative than positive feedback. To be successful in a PhD, you'll need to be able to take criticism without becoming discouraged. It's also not uncommon for supervisors to be extremely demanding, so in order to preserve your life outside of work, you'll need to be an effective self-advocate.

This is another area in which a few years of work experience can help to build up your confidence, making you a better PhD candidate in the process. Or you are tired of being poor and you would like to spend a couple of years making some serious money. In general, if you have other things that you want to do with your life right now make money, travel the world, play in a band , you should go and do them.

Grad school will still be here. Once you start on the econ grad school track, it will be all-consuming and you should be intellectually and personally prepared for the challenge. It's not easy to take a break during grad school and get back on track. If you're not percent sure that you're ready right now, the time away from school will scratch that non-economic itch and might make you even more keen to come back.

Indeed, many students who jump into grad school without giving much thought to other things they might want to do regret not having pursued these other options before grad school. Now, you may be concerned that if you don't go to grad school right now, your skills will deteriorate. It is true if you spend time away from doing economics and math, you will be a little creaky when you come back.

As long as your time away is not more than two or three years, though, it will not take too long for you to recall the things you learned and get up to speed, so this should not be a particular worry.

The most important thing is that you have taken the time to fulfill any other ambitions you might have. Grad school is like marriage, a long-term relationship requiring a serious commitment; it's probably a good idea to date around a little before you get married.

Students often wonder if they really want to be in a Ph. These days, you can get a Ph. Why not one of those? There are obvious differences in curriculum, and related to that and perhaps more important, there are differences in job opportunities. While economics Ph. Unfair but true. What's more, in certain FOE departments, economics graduates may still have an advantage over FOE graduates; that is, an economics graduate may have a better chance of being employed at some public policy schools than a public policy graduate.

Thus, economics graduates generally have a wider range of employment opportunities than FOE graduates. If you are unsure of your area of interest within economics or if you are keen to have the broader training afforded by economics, an econ program would be a better option for you. If you are very sure of your research interests and don't want to waste your time taking courses not related to them, a FOE program is a better choice.

In some programs, the courses and qualifying exams you take are identical to those required of economics students, but you take fewer of them. For example, business economics students may be required to take the same microeconomics and econometrics courses as the economics students, but are excused from macroeconomics courses.

You should also know that, not only do FOE programs have a narrower focus, they also tend to have a more applied focus, and this is reflected in the content of the courses and in faculty research interests. Having noted the differences between the two types of programs, I should of course mention that despite these differences, the advice in this book is helpful for Ph. FOE students as well as econ students. Notwithstanding the curricular and labor market differences, the structure of FOE programs is very similar to that of economics programs, and FOE students and economics students face many of the same academic and professional issues.

If you are interested in a Ph. Perhaps you're unsure of whether you really would like to commit to a Ph. Or your undergraduate degree was not in economics and you're thinking about doing a Ph. In the United States, the master's degree is usually conferred as doctoral students progress through the program; there are few terminal master's programs in economics.

This is changing somewhat as more mid-level departments are offering the master's degree option; in addition, a few respected economics departments have in recent years begun offering terminal master's degrees for example, Boston University, Duke, and New York University. There are also good master's degree programs overseas. Many top universities in Europe e. Bear in mind that these programs will be demanding and technical.

They consist of the first year of coursework in a Ph. If you want to dip your toes in the graduate economics water, a master's program is not a bad idea. It will help you get your skill set together, help you find out if you enjoy graduate study in economics, and show others that you are serious about economics. If you do go on for your Ph. There are some downsides, however. In many master's programs, and especially the overseas master's programs, there is very little funding so you will have to fund yourself.

Second, in many European programs, exams take place only once a year. American students have difficulty knowing how to study for these kinds of exams and good students can do poorly on them; a whole year's worth of work and tuition, and your Ph. By the way, you should also know that a master's degree in economics has little professional value beyond getting you into a better Ph.

As I mentioned above, it is a poor substitute for an M. So if you decide to go for your master's degree, do it with the understanding that its only value will be to help you prepare for your Ph. So much for the highly opinionated part of this chapter. Now for a few facts. You may be curious to know some general statistics about economics Ph.

I should note that, here and throughout the book, I will focus primarily on economics training in the United States. Although the economics profession has become much more globalized in recent decades and there are many excellent economists and doctoral economics programs overseas, most advanced economics training still occurs in U.

There is also more heterogeneity in the structure of non-U. There are no official estimates of the total number of students in these programs, but several back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest the number is around 10, The top fifteen programs tend to have more students than the lower-ranked programs; an estimate from the s suggests that program enrollment in the top fifteen programs averages around students, whereas enrollment in lower-ranked program averages around students Hansen Econ allows you to think about human interactions, and social phenomena, in a number of different intellectually rigorous ways e.

And economists, even if their research is highly specialized, are encouraged to think about all different kinds of topics in the field, and encouraged to think freely and originally. In a lab science, in contrast, you are encouraged to burrow down in your area of hyper-specialization. In econ, furthermore, you get exposed to a bunch of different disciplines; you get to learn some statistics, a little math, some sociology, a bit of psychology, and maybe even some history.

Also, as an economist, your status as an intellectual will not disappear when you get a job. Even if you go to work as a consultant or a financier, your thoughts will be welcomed and considered by economists in the blogosphere. And you can even publish econ papers as a non-academic.

In economics PhD programs, the main risk of failure is not passing your preliminary exams. And after you pass the prelims, there is little risk of not finishing a dissertation; unlike in most fields, you do not have to publish to graduate. There are some caveats that you should definitely take into account. First, there is the fact that an econ PhD program is still a PhD program.

That means, first of all, that you will be in poverty in your late 20s. That can be stressful and depressing. Second, be aware that the culture of economics is still fairly conservative, and not in the good way. Econ is one of the few places in our society where overtly racist and sexist ideas are not totally taboo Steve Landsburg is an extreme example, but that gives you the general flavor. Finally, there is the fact that if enough people read and believe this blog post, it will cease to be true.

But information diffuses slowly. Expect the econ PhD to lose its luster in five to 10 years, but that still gives you a window of time. Anyway, despite these caveats, the econ PhD still seems like quite a sweet deal to me. And compared to a hellish, soul-crushing, and economically dubious lab science PhD, econ seems like a slam dunk. There are very few such bargains left in the American labor market.