My experience is from Australia where things are a little different yet the same patterns emerge in returns to these majors.
All Australian universities offer undergraduate business majors, from the top to the bottom. Typically a Bachelor of Commerce in which a student will take intro courses on accounting, finance, economics, management etc and select a major for the remainder of credits. Universities with large econ departments often offer a Bachelor of Economics, alternatively or in addition to Commerce which covers more ground in econ but less in other areas. The placement of the econ department within a university also differs which may be in the business school, the social sciences faculty or liberal arts, and the teaching emphasis may be different. I think this demonstrates that economics is a subject which does not easily combine with others under a broader field of study. Good econ students will often take an additional ‘Honours’ year which is essentially masters level micro, macro and some specialised courses and a dissertation. The typical post uni path (for those that don’t immediately go on to further study) is graduate programs in the commercial sector (typically commercial banks, professional services firms, insurance etc) or government (typically treasury, finance, reserve bank etc). Of those that go to government a large proportional end up at banks, insurance, consultancies etc. These programs are typically not open to grads from all majors and some will be open to a very narrow list of majors.
It seems to me that all of the hypotheses JonahSinick detailed are correct. The question is to what extent do each determine the gap in returns. There is a large existing literature on returns to different majors and there are surveys of grads that can help. Maybe an extensive lit review would be prudent before digging much further, if only to become familiar with available data and measurement issues.
My experience is from Australia where things are a little different yet the same patterns emerge in returns to these majors.
All Australian universities offer undergraduate business majors, from the top to the bottom. Typically a Bachelor of Commerce in which a student will take intro courses on accounting, finance, economics, management etc and select a major for the remainder of credits. Universities with large econ departments often offer a Bachelor of Economics, alternatively or in addition to Commerce which covers more ground in econ but less in other areas. The placement of the econ department within a university also differs which may be in the business school, the social sciences faculty or liberal arts, and the teaching emphasis may be different. I think this demonstrates that economics is a subject which does not easily combine with others under a broader field of study. Good econ students will often take an additional ‘Honours’ year which is essentially masters level micro, macro and some specialised courses and a dissertation. The typical post uni path (for those that don’t immediately go on to further study) is graduate programs in the commercial sector (typically commercial banks, professional services firms, insurance etc) or government (typically treasury, finance, reserve bank etc). Of those that go to government a large proportional end up at banks, insurance, consultancies etc. These programs are typically not open to grads from all majors and some will be open to a very narrow list of majors.
It seems to me that all of the hypotheses JonahSinick detailed are correct. The question is to what extent do each determine the gap in returns. There is a large existing literature on returns to different majors and there are surveys of grads that can help. Maybe an extensive lit review would be prudent before digging much further, if only to become familiar with available data and measurement issues.