Aug. 5, 2005

Pecking Order

If you want to be an economics professor at top research institution, you better get your Ph.D. at an elite graduate program. If you want to be a math or sociology professor, you might have a bit more leeway.

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Stephen Wu, an assistant professor of economics at Hamilton College, combed department Web pages at the top 25 research and liberal arts institutions, as defined by U.S. News & World Report, to see what kind of pedigrees faculty members had. In a study published in Academe, the magazine of the American Association of University Professors, he reported that more than two-thirds of economics faculty members at top research universities earned their Ph.D. at a graduate program at a top 10 institution. Over 80 percent earned degrees at a top 20 program. (Tables showing the breakdowns for disciplines at top universities and liberal arts colleges appear at the bottom of this article.)

“In economics, it’s fairly well known that if you want to be a professor, you pretty much want to get into a top program, or you might as well not really bother,” Wu said. He added that graduates from outside top graduate economics departments often have good job prospects in the private sector, so they may not worry about the academic job market.

Wu also noted that professors from top economics departments tend to dominate the pages of the most prestigious journals. In another study Wu conducted, he found that in 2002-3, 40 percent of the pages of The Quarterly Journal of Economics were by authors from just four institutions: Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and the University of Chicago. He said that if professors are publishing a lot, it is more likely they will co-author papers with Ph.D. candidates, which will help them win a faculty spot at a research institution.

Derek Neal, chair of the economics department at the University of Chicago, thought some of concentration of faculty members with Ph.D.’s from select institutions might have to do with good departments eventually hiring their former graduate students. Chicago’s economics department has faculty members who earned Ph.D.’s at the Universities of Maryland and Minnesota. It also has nine professors with Chicago Ph.D.’s. Neither Neal, nor other department chairs had an idea as to why economics was different than other disciplines.

Wu guessed that it might be easier for institutions to evaluate potential economics professors, as opposed to other subjects, based on where they got their Ph.D. “In economics, things start early. If you have an aptitude in math, you’ll have success,” said Wu, who earned his Ph.D. at Princeton University. “In other fields, there might be more room for development, for late bloomers.”

Why, then, did mathematics and chemistry departments at research institutions hire the smallest percentage of faculty members from top 10 departments of any of the disciplines studied? “In math and sciences, there might be more competition from foreign programs,” Wu said. His survey included only the top domestic programs, so faculty members with Ph.D.’s from abroad may have affected the data.

But Paul Goerss, chair of the mathematics department at Northwestern University, had another idea. “In math, there’s sort of a worldwide agreement of what good math is,” Goerss said. Because of that, he thinks that mathematics departments can easily evaluate the work of candidates without relying on their institutional background.

Second to economics in hiring from the top graduate schools was history. The top 25 research institutions hired almost 60 percent of faculty members from top 10 programs, and three-quarters from top 20 programs. Peter Caldwell, chair of the history department at Rice University, thinks some of that might have to do with the “community effect” in good graduate departments.

“When you’re surrounded by a large, active graduate population, you’re constantly trying to present your work in an interesting way, and learning from the department’s cumulative experience” he said. “We look closely at writing samples and personal statements, and knowing how to present yourself and your work can have a big impact.”

Caldwell added that, because a prospective faculty member has a specialty distinct from current faculty members, they really need to be able to make foreign territory seem exciting. Caldwell has been on about a half-dozen search committees. He said the committees did not rely heavily on institutional background, but still often ended up hiring from top programs. The danger with staffing prestigious departments with talent from a small circle, he said, “is that small number of professors will set the agenda for history.”

At top liberal arts colleges, the hiring situation was pretty similar in the humanities, less so in math and chemistry, and disparate in the social sciences. Liberal arts colleges had nearly 25 percent fewer sociology professors with Ph.D.’s from top 10 graduate programs. That came as a surprise to sociology chairs at liberal arts colleges. “I don’t have the foggiest idea,” said Jerome Himmelstein, the chair at Amherst College. He said the entire faculty of his department is from top 20 graduate programs. Himmelstein said he would have thought the biggest gap would have been in physical sciences, where wealthy research universities might be more likely to set up the expensive labs that leading researchers need. “In sociology and English, you just need a computer and a desk,” he said.

In English, in fact, liberal arts and research institutions most closely resembled each other. Christanne Miller, who was the English chair at Pomona College until recently, thought that maybe the emphasis on teaching at liberal arts colleges is attractive to many of the brightest English Ph.D.’s, but could not guess why the same wouldn’t be true for sociology.

Percentage of Faculty at Top 25 Research Institutions With Doctorates From Top Graduate Programs

Percentage of Faculty at Top 25 Liberal Arts Colleges With Doctorates From Top Graduate Programs

— David Epstein

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