Economics Job Market

I first learned about it -- the economics job market which happens during the annual meeting of AEA, the American Economic Association -- from this post by Noah Smith, and I found the whole thing fascinating [I am always interested in disciplinary subcultures -- like the importance of conference papers in Computer Science, or the alphabetical listing of authors in certain disciplines].

But you must listen to this fantastic Planet Money (on NPR) story what this job market does, and how it goes about it -- from the point of view of one of the job applicants (a truly brave soul -- right through the podcast, I was seriously rooting for him!) and of several employers. Absolutely fabulous!

* * *

Hat tip to Econ Nobel Prize winner Alvin Roth, who is also interviewed in the Planet Money story.

Just in case you are feeling good about your work life ...

... here's a remedy: El Empleo / The Employment by Santiago Grasso [Link via Marc Bousquet and CommonDreams.Org]:

And just in case that wasn't enough ...

You're welcome!

Links ...

1. Over at Babbage, the S&T blog at The Economist: Physics Anniversaries: How Professor Maxwell Changed the World:

   [Maxwell] showed that nature ought not to be taken at face value, and that she can be cajoled into revealing her hidden charms so long as the entreaties are whispered in mathematical verse.

2. Jennifer Rohn in Nature: Give Post-Docs a Career, Not Empty Promises [via e-mail from Pradeepkumar.]

   The scientific enterprise is run on what economists call the 'tournament' model, with practitioners pitted against one another in bitter pursuit of a very rare prize. Given that cheap and disposable trainees — PhD students and postdocs — fuel the entire scientific research enterprise, it is not surprising that few inside the system seem interested in change. A system complicit in this sort of exploitation is at best indifferent and at worst cruel. I have no doubt that most lab heads want the best for their many apprentices, but at the system level, the practice continues.

3. Jef Akst in The Scientist: I Hate Your Paper -- "Many say the peer review system is broken. Here’s how some journals are trying to fix it." [Via e-mail from Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam.]

   Problem #1
   Reviewers are biased by personal motives

   Solution: Eliminate anonymous peer review ( Biology Direct, BMJ, BMC); run open peer review alongside traditional review (Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics); judge a paper based only on scientific soundness, not impact or scope (PLoS ONE).

Being Indian: An update

Remember this post in which I urged you to vote for 'Being Indian' as the Documentary of the Year over at BBC? Thanks in part to our votes, it won the poll, and will be broadcast several times on the last two days of this month.

The program schedule for this documentary is here.

Being Indian

Via Rosa Vasanth's blog (in Tamil), I heard about Being Indian, a documentary that traces the lives of four kids. It has been shortlisted for BBC's "Best Documentary of the Year" contest, and as of now, is at second position. Voting closes on 4 December; the best six films will be broadcast in late December.

One of the episodes in the film is about Biru Malik, a Dalit child (you can watch a 15 second snippet on the BBC site). Like Vasanth, I too urge you to vote for this film, which could help the Dalits and other oppressed classes in our society by getting their cause some international visibility.

Please spread the word.

E-mail etiquette

After publishing this primer (I linked to it yesterday), Eszter Hargittai says this in her post on Crooked Timber:

Of course, one problem is that the people who are most likely to write pathetic notes are the least likely to read an article of this sort. But at least for those who care, perhaps this can offer some helpful pointers.

Later in the comments, she adds:

My main motivation for writing the piece was the numerous ridiculous inquiries I get all the time. I plan on creating a “Contact me” page where I will link to this piece so people who write to me know what they need to include for me to be able to assist them. I am happy to help people out, but with the best of intentions, some of the emails are either impossible to answer meaningfully or would require a ton of work on my part. [Bold emphasis added]

This is a great idea for anyone who has to deal with lots and lots of such e-mail. I'm not there yet, as I'm able to deal with the e-mails I receive without going -- or getting -- mad. But when I do get there, I know what to do.

I guess I will probably never get to a stage that Neal Stephenson has reached [link via a comment on Hargittai's post]. For those who don't wish to click through: he defends the idea that not responding to e-mails and letters is not only in his interest, but it is also in the interest of his readers/correspondents.

Etiquette in electronic communication

An academic's occupational hazards include having to wade through a lot of unsolicited e-mails from people one doesn't know; in my case, quite a big chunk of these mails is from undergraduate students seeking summer internships. I find most of them are poorly written (I wouldn't blame them; as an undergrad, I was quite pathetic too in this department), and I have seen so many of them in a strange language which, I later learned, is called SMS/Orkut.

I have often wished they had access to advice on how to communicate with others (i.e., how to make a 'cold call') in a professional way -- particularly when they seek some help/favour from the person they are writing to. Please don't get me wrong here; I'm not arguing here for letters in stilted prose that start with 'respected sir' and end with 'your obedient servant' (though I do like obedient servants who are respectful to their masters). I will be happy with something that's even 10 % compliant with Eszter Hargittai's advice.

You might want to read a counterexample that violates so many of Hargittai's rules.

A sociological study of IT workers

I started to write a post on a recent sociological study of employees in IT and IT-enabled services industry in Bangalore. I have decided to post it over at How the Other Half Lives. Comments are welcome there.

Faculty salaries ...

When it comes to the perception that faculty salaries are too low, China seems to be no different.

Link via Mark Thoma, a reputed pre-processor for economic news.

People don't eat GDP figures!

Madhukar Shukla says there are two ways of looking at the recent trends in India's workforce/employment scene, and points to a misplaced emphasis in government policy on 'employment generation':

Much of our policy, interventions and thrust is focused on the assumption that the "employment/job-creation" solution lies in "big business" (creation of SEZs, FDIs into sectors, incentives to big private sector players, etc.).

Without underestimating the contribution of the "big" private corporate in the organised sector to growth of economy/GDP, etc., the fact still remains that the big, private players merely contributes to 2.5% of India's employment. Even if this sector grows by 30%/annum over the next 5 years, it will actually contibute to less than 1% growth to the employment!!

He hastens to add here parenthetically:

([N]ow before someone pounces on this statement, please let me clarify: "real" people in a society do not eat GDP figures or "feel-good" statistics - they need a gainful employment) [bold emphasis in the original]

Loot for work programs?

After Brinda Karat, it is now the turn of Jean Dreze to rant about how poorly our state governments are running the Food for Work programs, which are an important part of India's War on Poverty. If Karat fumes about how the program treats women, Dreze fumes about the rampant corruption in its implementation.

While we are on corruption, it was interesting that Transparency International actually put a number on the level of corruption: about 20,000 crore (200 billion) rupees, or a little less than 1 percent of our GDP.

Isn't this figure too low by a factor of at least five? Or, ten?

EGA, once again.

Via Mall Road's Shivam Vij : Amy Waldman has a report in the New York Times on the much diluted (some would say 'sabotaged') Employment Guarantee Act, about which I have written before.

Read Waldman's report before it goes behind the NYTimes firewall in a week. It quotes both proponents and opponents of EGA; first off the block are the opinions against EGA:

'Where energy and policy should go is how to accelerate the growth, and not be distracted by these old slogans that really made sense 40 years ago,' said Surjit S. Bhalla, an economist who opposes the employment law.

"The finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, made a similar argument in an interview, saying that while an employment guarantee could 'keep the pot boiling once a day,' it would not end poverty. That could be done, he said, only through 7 to 8 percent annual growth and 'real jobs.'"

Then come arguments for EGA:

Mr. Dreze says that even if the poverty-reduction figures are valid, which many economists dispute, the economy would have to grow at a much faster rate than even the most optimistic estimates if it were to truly improve the lot of the poor.

"The way we're going now it is going to take forever to get people to an acceptable living standard," he said.

Even 1 percent of gross domestic product - the expected price tag for the employment law - was a small price to pay for easing hunger, stemming seasonal migration and reducing child labor, he argued.

Thankfully, in spite of the "he said, she said" tone of this first part, Waldman's report does a credible job of describing how things are on the ground. Nothing new to anyone who has been following this issue, though.

Interestingly, Waldman's report discusses both EGA and the mid-day meal scheme (MMS), which has been mandated by the Supreme Court to cover the entire country. She has checked out how the latter works, and needless to say, she has good things and bad things to say about it ("he said, she said" all over again!). What are the good things? "A study by the Center for Social Equity in New Delhi said the program had especially helped retain girls, who are often the first denied schooling in poor families; improved child nutrition; and encouraged mixing among castes".

I too drew a parallel between EGA and MMS in my earlier post in January. The point I made then remains valid today: "I have not seen good arguments against the scheme, only some rants about how it will not work, how our politicians cannot be trusted with it, how we cannot afford it, etc."

Sigh!

Employment Guarantee Act

The Employment Guarantee Act (EGA) that the present UPA government has tabled in the Parliament has been the subject of a number of comments, op-ed pieces, blog posts. Let me try to get them in one place here.

First, the links:

M.K. Venu has an op-ed in Economic Times about the bankruptcy of some of the arguments against the Employment Guarantee Act (EGA). Let me just say that I agree with pretty much everything he says.

Another op-ed in Economic Times (20 December 2004) recounts some nice arguments for EGA.

Amit Bhaduri, in an op-ed in the Hindu (27 December 2004), points out an interesting link between EGS and the right to information bill that has also been tabled in Parliament: since EGS-related work will have to be carried out by local bodies (Panchayats), the local people should have full access to what is done and to how the money is spent. Therefore, EGS itself would be rendered rather meaningless if the locals are not supported by a strong right-to-information bill. Bhaduri chides the government for not being bold and going far with both the EGS bill and the RTI bill; he feels that both are badly watered down. T.S. Srinivasan (Yale University) has responded; Prabhat Patnaik (Jawaharlal Nehru University) has written an op-ed questioning some of Srinivasan's views.

What do I think?

My initial reaction was: though it is a good scheme, can we afford it? First, let us start with some (necessarily approximate) numbers: EGA will require (about 5 crore families x 100 days x 100 Rupees per day per family) Rs. 50,000 crores (Rs. 500 billion, or about 10 billion dollars, or about 2 percent of our GDP). Admittedly, his amount is staggering; if we further consider the possibility that 5 crore might be an underestimate of the actual number of needy (really poor) families, it is truly forbidding. My initial worries about whether we can afford such a massive expenditure appeared valid.

Here is how this large amount comes down to a more reasonable figure: (a) we could club all the previous schemes for poverty alleviation, and bring them under the EGA umbrella, we probably are going to save Rs. 15,000 crores. (b) the cash component of EGA is only 60 percent of the expenditure (with foodgrains contributing the rest). Both these considerations bring the "really new" (read additional) spending down to Rs. 21,000 crores, or just under 1 percent of GDP.

There are the usual questions: will this money actually be put to good use, will our politicians play ball in a fair manner (or are they already smacking their lips at the prospect of appropriating all this money?), are there better uses for this money, etc. If we still want to rein in our fiscal deficit, where should we try to get the additional revenue from? They are all good questions, and I hope economists and other social scientists who are grappling with them will find the right (or optimal) answers.

From a humanitarian angle alone, it is clear that EGA has its merits. Its potential benefits are truly immense: so many poor families are helped, so many children will not need to go to work, so much of foodgrains (that are otherwise rotting or eaten by rats) will be put to good use, and so on. In addition, so much of rural infrastructure will get a boost (rural roads, irrigation facilities, sanitation facilities, etc). Migration from rural regions to urban centers will come down. etc, etc.

I have not seen good arguments against the scheme, only some rants about how it will not work, how our politicians cannot be trusted with it, how we cannot afford it, etc. Atanu Dey even "[goes] out on a limb and predict that if ever this EGA is implemented, it will actually increase the level of poverty and the number of poor in India". However, he hasn't (so far, at least) given any economic / political arguments to show that his dire predictions have a greater likelihood of coming true.

Even to a conservative economist, it must be clear that EGA rests not (entirely) on economics, but on politics. Given the political driving force behind it, conservatives are probably better off by conceding this one to the lefties, and put up a fight at two levels: one is a fight in which they trade EGA for something that is very dear to them (such as, (a) getting rid of subsidies for kerosene and LPG, and in one stroke, getting rid of administrative pricing of oil and oil products completely, (b) reforms of the power sector, (c) privatization of PSU's, etc.), and the other is a more serious fight to create a good system of delivering on EGA's promises with as little a wastage as possible. For example, which level of government is best suited for implementing EGA? What are the ways in which EGA programs can be made self-selecting (i.e., only those whom EGA is meant to help will actually come forward to work under EGA)?

One final thought: many of the arguments about EGA were trotted out when the (rather limited, or should I say "targeted") mid-day meal scheme that existed in Tamil Nadu in the seventies was expanded to a near-universal status by the then Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran. Tamil Nadu is not exactly a heavenly place now, but much of the progress (particularly in educating its girl children) it has made in terms of development indicators has been attributed to that one program.

Update (23 Jan 2005): Rajiv Dawan supports a scheme that guarantees employment to the rural folk. He argues, quite convincingly too, that the current Bill dilutes this goal in many ways. He concludes the article with this:

National guarantees for the poor cost money, for which the poor agree to work on public projects at minimal wages. If designed properly, the NEG Bill will be a landmark. Otherwise, at the next election, the UPA Government will learn the consequences of making false promises to the voting poor.