Economists' Major League

I ran into this article and got this interesting figure. The salaries paid by the public universities to assistant professors are not much different from those given by private ones. The gap is much larger for full professors. Apparently, private universities cheery pick the economists when they are proven to be ripen. In a way, public universities are very much like major league's farm system - only the very best get to pitch in the big league. I deeply believe the trend will continue in the foreseeable future.

(Source: Ronald G. Ehrenberg, 2004, Prospects in the Academic Labor Market for Economists, The Journal of Economic Perspectives,
18-2, p227-38}

How does Jay sound?

I am contemplating adopting an American-friendly alias. The motivation is simple. I took up the advice given by Steven Levitt. This is what he said:

"When I have Asian Ph.D. students go on the job market in the United States, I tell them that I think there is rampant discrimination against non-English speakers and encourage them to adopt Americanized first names for the job market."

I will do whatever I can to improve my chance of getting a decent job and you don't just ignore the advice from someone who is well known in the trade and willing to give you the fair assessment of the situation. So, how does Jay sound?

(Picture: www.answers.com)

How to stop free trade?

Maxim, Mahir, and I marveled at the star-studded list of this summer work shop at Princeton. All the big names we know from our international trade sequence were there. If there had been a terrorist attack at the seminar room, the research frontier of international trade would have been set back by at least 10 years. And that is how you stop free trade...