By Bob
Paul Kedrosky of Infectious Greed has a couple of interesting posts up on his blog. The first shows that even economists have trouble practicing what they preach:
Harry M. Markowitz won the Nobel Prize in economics as the father of "modern portfolio theory," the idea that people shouldn't put all of their eggs in one basket, but should diversify their investments.However, when it came to his own retirement investments, Markowitz practiced only a rudimentary version of what he preached. He split most of his money down the middle, put half in a stock fund and the other half in a conservative, low-interest investment.
"In retrospect, it would have been better to have been more in stocks when I was younger," the 77-year-old economist acknowledged.
One of the more Hobbesian choices faced by academic researchers with commercializable technologies is what they should do with them. While most money-minded people would say "Go out and make money from your invention", the reality is that most (but not all) academic researchers are in research institutions for a reason: They like to do research, not start companies. Leaving, creating a company, and then selling stuff doesn't strike them as a good time -- and that's fine.Maybe they got an original idea that is applicable in the real world? I find it odd that students go from undergrad directly into graduate school and expect to produce interesting research. A lot the graduate students here aren't really sure what they want to do for their dissertation. I have about twenty ideas and most of them can be traced back to my work experience in one way or another. Ultimately, this threatens economics as a viable profession if they can't produce relavent research. I found it amusing researching admissions that my work experience didn't really count for much most likely. Over the last couple of years, I think my amusement has been justified. So, if you're an undergrad thinking of going straight to Econ Phd program, think about getting a job for a few years instead. Posted at May 11, 2005 11:54 PMAt the same time, hoary Stanford anecdotes aside, most universities still sniff somewhat at faculty-members-turned-entrepreneurs. What's going to happen to your NIH/NSF grant? Who's going to manage your lab? How will you publish papers in the private sector?
All valid questions, so it is interesting to see a paper in the new issue of journal Research Policy that presents a startling factoid: Researchers are more productive at producing papers when they shift from academia to industry, and then they become more productive again if/when they come back into the academic fold.
The choice of an undergrad is unlikely to be between an Econ Ph.D. program and working for minimum wage. The jobs open to future Econ Ph.D. candidates are generally more interesting and lucrative than the average, and are worthwhile endeavors in themselves.
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The core of all my solid papers came from interests I had developed from working before and during my time at GMU Econ. However, my particular work experience (read, good references)-- the Fed and RAND -- could count towards admissions...
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Paul Kedrowski at Infectious Greed writes about an interesting study in the journal research Policy:
...Researchers are more productive at producing papers when they shift from academia to industry, and then they become more productive again i... [Read More]