
Why does economists make more money than engineers? - mlxer
Engineering I would say is a lot harder. Tougher to study, hardeer jobs. But economists seem to be paid better. Why is this? Tougher competition for engineering jobs? Why? More engineers are educated or is it because an engineer costs 2-3$/hour in China?
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nostrademons
Do they? I've found that my econ major friends bifurcated into two camps.
Roughly the top 25% of the class found jobs on Wall Street, working at hedge
funds, I-banks, and proprietary trading desks. They make much than engineers,
often in the high six figures or even seven figures.

But the bottom 75% of the econ class - or even people in the top 25% who don't
know how to schmooze and interview well - ended up in typical liberal-artsy
jobs. They're working for government agencies and taking a public-servant
salary. Or they're working as a bank teller instead of a bank trader. Or
they're working as a tax preparer. Or they're working as a high school teacher
or SAT tutor. Or they went back to grad school and are struggling to find any
job at all.

These people make a lot _less_ than a typical engineer. Heck, many of them
don't make all that much more than someone who never went to college.

I think your question is really "Why do people in _finance_ make so much more
than those in software?" And the reason is that there's so much money floating
around there that companies can afford to pay high amounts. I have a friend
who works in reporting at one of the big hedge funds. His day job is to create
pretty charts with Excel and correct typographical errors. His base salary is
about $100K.

But if you're trying to decide between an engineering or hard science degree
vs. an economics degree in college, your average expected payoff is way higher
with a hard science degree, particularly since many of those people end up as
quants on Wall Street anyway.

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skowmunk
1) On an average anything that usually pays better money would require more
hardwork.

2) There are more engineering jobs than jobs for economists, inspite of the
recent layoffs because of the recession. I would feel safe saying that would
remain so far into the future. (The recessions and depressions are an
inevitable part of the economic cycle - they will always be there)

3) I believe the median pay for an engineer would be more than the median pay
for an economist of comparable experience and proficiency(as in skill).

4) I agree with what nostrademons says, and to further go in that direction,
the average pay of the top 1 percentile of economists may probably be higher
than that of the 1 percentile of engineers, but if that percentile to be
considered were to be raised to even just the top 10%, then I would imagine
the average pay of the engineers would be higher than that of the economists.

5) Guess who are hired more at companies like google, microsoft, qualcomm,
apple, etc, engineers or economists?

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skowmunk
btw, in spite of the $2-3/hour engineers in China and India, there are a lot
of engineers being hired in the US, good pay too.

And the well paid economists, get well paid only because they work hard enough
to get into the best colleges and work hard enough to crack the toughest
interviews.

:)

Cheers

