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The collapse of the econ PhD job market

chrisbrunet.com

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Re: The collapse of the econ PhD job market

#211

Post by sarchertech »

reducesuffering wrote: post #132
sarchertech wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Austrian school is economics for people who never learned calculus. That doesn’t mean they don’t have interesting things to say now and then, but it’s mostly just a collection of folk wisdom.

Keynesian Bernanke on famed Austrian Milton Friedman: "Among economic scholars, Friedman has no peer. His seminal contributions to economics are legion, including his development of the permanent-income theory of consumer spending, his paradigm-shifting research in monetary economics, and his stimulating and original essays on economic history and methodology." https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2002/2…

As someone else said Friedman wasn’t an Austrian. Not even close. The only real similarity is that they both are proponents of free market capitalism. Friedman was a mainstream economist who used mathematical modeling and statistical methods. The majority of Austrians don’t use either and prefer reasoning about individual actions from first principles.

Re: The collapse of the econ PhD job market

#212

Post by sarchertech »

linguae wrote: post #190
reducesuffering wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keynesian Bernanke on famed Austrian Milton Friedman: "Among economic scholars, Friedman has no peer. His seminal contributions to economics are legion, including his development of the permanent-income theory of consumer spending, his paradigm-shifting research in monetary economics, and his stimulating and original essays on economic history and methodology." https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2002/2…

Milton Friedman was not part of the Austrian School. Rather, he was part of the Chicago School. While both schools promote free market economics, there are differences. In fact, one of the biggest differences has to do with their views on central banking, with the Austrian School generally being against fractional-reserve currencies while the Chicago School being more sympathetic. Milton Friedman was a monetarist.

Milton Friedman also rejected one of the central Austrian tenets, the business cycle.

Re: The collapse of the econ PhD job market

#213

Post by aprilthird2021 »

bonsai_spool wrote: post #80
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally I have heard similar things from top tier institutions in the US as well. They are all in recession mode basically and actively cutting classes, staff, and lecturers. This all started when the govt began withholding federal funding in an attempt to clamp down on campus protests

> This all started when the govt began withholding federal funding in an attempt to clamp down on campus protests This is definitely not why the 'govt began withholding federal funding'

I guess it's the excuse, maybe not the real reason. But the cases with UCLA and Harvard is when this all changed

Re: The collapse of the econ PhD job market

#214

Post by aprilthird2021 »

kadushka wrote: post #109
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally I have heard similar things from top tier institutions in the US as well. They are all in recession mode basically and actively cutting classes, staff, and lecturers. This all started when the govt began withholding federal funding in an attempt to clamp down on campus protests

I hope they're cutting their bloated administration departments before cutting classes and lecturers, but I'm not holding my breath.

They are cutting both from what I hear from lecturers in top schools

Re: The collapse of the econ PhD job market

#215

Post by aprilthird2021 »

harvey9 wrote: post #154
michaelt wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most phd programmes are very, very low fat when it comes to salaries. An academic CS department has to attract PhD level talent in hot areas like ML while only paying $30k a year.

Is there a long term financial payoff, or does it mostly attract people who are choosing academia over commercial for some other reason?

In CS there's a long term payoff bc tech has the money to invest in R&D even in an economy like this one

Re: The collapse of the econ PhD job market

#216

Post by aprilthird2021 »

supportengineer wrote: post #136
kenjackson wrote: post #40

UCSD this year said they are not taking any new math PhD students due to the fiscal situation. The world of academia is in more flux than I've seen in recent memory.

Their acceptance rate is in the 25% range. Clearly the demand is there, so why is there a "fiscal situation"? In the mid 90's I went to a university that had cafeteria-style food, and dorms with no air conditioning. You don't need Waygu beef and massages in order to teach students. There shouldn't be any "fiscal situation" in higher education. What is a university anyway? It's some buildings and classrooms with profe…

> Their acceptance rate is in the 25% range. Clearly the demand is there, so why is there a "fiscal situation"?

They are projecting multiple years of declining federal investment in education and research which made up an important portion of their budgets.

They also would rather cut or shrink classes / labs, etc. than loosen academic or admissions standards because their institutional reputation is very important and decided by such things.

> You don't need Waygu beef and massages in order to teach students.

I went to one of the top (and most expensive) schools in the US. I never once saw Wagyu beef or massages offered to students.

The fiscal situation, again, is because of increasing government clampdown on academia. The Trump admin just a few days ago circulated a "compact" it wants universities to sign which would mandate all science degrees be tuition free and int'l student admissions be capped at 15% of the whole student body. Such dramatic lurches and demands can be hurled any time by this admin so schools cannot afford to be caught off guard anymore

Re: The collapse of the econ PhD job market

#217

Post by aprilthird2021 »

mothballed wrote: post #49
ActorNightly wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its C. the market doesn't follow traditional models anymore. The whole profession was basically centered around putting a dollar amount on risk. For example, lets say I give you a chance of either taking $1k now, or playing a game where you have 1 in 10 chance to win $200k. What would you do? The right answer is "sell" the risk to someone. For example, on the average, if I "buy" the game from 10 people, at a price of…

There was an electric vehicle stock I was watching for awhile (WKHS) hoping for a good time to short. All their reports showed what I believed was an unviable vehicle, there was simply no way to produce it that was anywhere near gross margin positive and they didn't have the money nor access to capital to lose hundreds of millions proving that out. All the economics of the company was going to zero, and they had a ti…

> I feel something very fishy happened there.

The man scammed his own supporters twice with crypto scams. He, of course, is not at all opposed to market manipulation or other types of financial scams

Re: The collapse of the econ PhD job market

#218

Post by closetohome »

dleeftink wrote: post #4

A specific market collapse, or a general one? --- Quick edit: I also dislike the persistent narrative of 'guaranteed' placement for certain degrees and occupations. This assumes a stagnant market and skill-set that does not at all hold for current-day markets.

The "people think they're guaranteed a job" narrative is because the author is a right-wing journalist who "exposes" academics.

Re: The collapse of the econ PhD job market

#220

Post by bonsai_spool »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #213
bonsai_spool wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This all started when the govt began withholding federal funding in an attempt to clamp down on campus protests This is definitely not why the 'govt began withholding federal funding'

I guess it's the excuse, maybe not the real reason. But the cases with UCLA and Harvard is when this all changed

> I guess it's the excuse, maybe not the real reason. But the cases with UCLA and Harvard is when this all changed

That is not true. Those happened in 2024.

The extortionate demands are happening in 2025.

The campus protests are clearly a pretext.

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