Economics is a highly applicable and general degree. It also teaches a person a new and rational way to think about the world. I would argue that the opportunity cost for an economist in the private industry is actually quite high and therefore the compensation for a job must also be high.
Wall Street, financial investment, banks, tech companies (Amazon, Uber, etc...) all have high demand for economists. Many of those jobs have a high value associated with them because of the scale of the companies and the profits that they produce. So if someone is looking for a job as an economist they have an opportunity to work at places that can pay them quite well. If this is the case then other businesses, not Wall Street, investment jobs, banks, or large tech companies, have to pay up in order to attract those minds to their particular sector of the private world. All because the opportunity cost (the next highest valued alternative foregone) is quite high for those people. If I am going to leave Chase Bank, where I work as an economist, I better have a good pay + benefits offer, or have some other intangible that is so attractive that it outweighs the pay cut.
Opportunity cost plays at least some role in the cost of everything that can be bought. That includes labor. That’s my two cents.
Economics is a highly applicable and general degree. It also teaches a person a new and rational way to think about the world. I would argue that the opportunity cost for an economist in the private industry is actually quite high and therefore the compensation for a job must also be high.
Wall Street, financial investment, banks, tech companies (Amazon, Uber, etc...) all have high demand for economists. Many of those jobs have a high value associated with them because of the scale of the companies and the profits that they produce. So if someone is looking for a job as an economist they have an opportunity to work at places that can pay them quite well. If this is the case then other businesses, not Wall Street, investment jobs, banks, or large tech companies, have to pay up in order to attract those minds to their particular sector of the private world. All because the opportunity cost (the next highest valued alternative foregone) is quite high for those people. If I am going to leave Chase Bank, where I work as an economist, I better have a good pay + benefits offer, or have some other intangible that is so attractive that it outweighs the pay cut.
Opportunity cost plays at least some role in the cost of everything that can be bought. That includes labor. That’s my two cents.