Placements and place in class.

[Karina 07]

So another thread on here inspired me to ask -- what do you all reckon the distributions of placements are like for people at different universities? E.g. "I think the top 10% of the top 11-20 end up..., the middle 50% end up... the bottom 25% end up...", etc.

 

I know this is hard to say, and will vary tremendously (especially depending on what people want to do!), but I thought to still ask the question. And I also like another poster am wondering how you determine "top" students -- just by their job market paper?

[asquare]

As far as I know, job market candidates are literally ranked within their university. The faculty, under the guidance of the placement director, actually order the students and then use that information when "shopping" candidates to other schools. As in, "John Smith is one of our top three candidates this year." I don't know how the rankings are determined, but given what limited information I have about rankings of past cohorts here, I suspect that the main factor is the job market paper, and that other factors are other research or publications, the faculty's impression of the candidate's ability, and performance in classes and on prelims.

 

I'd guess that placement by percentile varies a lot from year to year. Last year, our top 10 percent of job candidates wound up at Yale, Harvard, and Berkeley. We can't claim that is normal for Michigan, much as we'd like to ;) A more "normal" top placement would be at schools ranked between 15 and 25, I would guess.

[jlist]

Hi Karina: Great question. I think the two major characteristics of top job market people in the "research" market are a nice job market paper and the ability/work effort to push the frontier of economics. The latter comes from other good papers, doing well in classes, and making a good general impression on the local economics community. At UC, that would be professors in the department, GSB, policy school, etc.

 

On the "teaching" market, having a good teaching portfolio, solid research (though much less important than on the research market), and a good reputation around the department for being smart and a team player helps. For example, one person from our department this year on the teaching market has roughly 30 interviews, many at top liberal arts schools.

 

As far as ranking to ranking. When I last looked at this--for a jnl of economic education study that I was writing about the junior job market in the late 90s--the stylized fact was that most people took their first job at a school ranked lower than their phd school rank and subsequently received tenure at a lower ranked school than their first job. I think the first link still holds today, but I am unsure about the second--it might be weaker today, but I have no empirical evidence for that, just casual.

 

In the end, we usually place some people in both top and mid-ranked schools. I have posted on this earlier so no need to rehash that, and I have to go to bed now anyway!

 

Best,

John

[jlist]

Hi Karina: Great question. I think the two major characteristics of top job market people in the "research" market are a nice job market paper and the ability/work effort to push the frontier of economics. The latter comes from other good papers, doing well in classes, and making a good general impression on the local economics community. At UC, that would be professors in the department, GSB, policy school, etc.

 

On the "teaching" market, having a good teaching portfolio, solid research (though much less important than on the research market), and a good reputation around the department for being smart and a team player helps. For example, one person from our department this year on the teaching market has roughly 30 interviews, many at top liberal arts schools.

 

As far as ranking to ranking. When I last looked at this--for a jnl of economic education study that I was writing about the junior job market in the late 90s--the stylized fact was that most people took their first job at a school ranked lower than their phd school rank and subsequently received tenure at a lower ranked school than their first job. I think the first link still holds today, but I am unsure about the second--it might be weaker today, but I have no empirical evidence for that, just casual.

 

In the end, we usually place some people in both top and mid-ranked schools. I have posted on this earlier so no need to rehash that, and I have to go to bed now anyway!

 

Best,

John