Economist
An economist in the United States earned a median salary of roughly $83,000 in 2008. The top ten percent took home more than $147,040 that year. There were about 15,000 non-academic economists across the country. Their reach extends well beyond paychecks. Economists hold their own major prize: the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. They also shape the tools governments use to make decisions. How did a discipline with ancient roots come to claim such singular authority in modern life? And what happens when that authority runs up against its own limits?
Aristotle's Oeconomica and Xenophon's Oeconomicus stand among the earliest surviving texts on economic life. Both addressed themes like the division of labour, though in rudimentary form. Their authors were philosophers with wide interests, not specialists in any recognized discipline.
In the seventeenth century, as early modern economic thought developed, its leading contributors remained generalists. Richard Cantillon described what later became known as the Cantillon effect. David Hume, writing on economics alongside philosophy and law, anticipated the quantity theory of money. Neither man would have called himself a professional economist.
Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was among the first major works devoted entirely to economics. It helped establish economics as a distinct field within the social sciences. Smith's tradition gave rise to the classical school, including David Ricardo and Jean-Baptiste Say. It also prompted a reaction: Marxism, rooted in the writings of Karl Marx.
Jean-Baptiste Say became France's first chair in economics at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers in the early nineteenth century. By the century's end, most economists linked to the neoclassical school were academics trained in mathematics. The polymath scholar had given way to the specialist.
John Maynard Keynes, Paul Samuelson, and Milton Friedman drove the major intellectual shifts of the twentieth century. Samuelson's neoclassical synthesis absorbed Keynesian ideas into the mainstream. Friedman's monetarism pushed back and shaped the emergence of new classical economics. When the 2008 financial crisis triggered the Great Recession, some macroeconomists and financial economists questioned the prevailing orthodoxy. A Keynesian resurgence followed among certain policymakers.
Ragnar Frisch coined the term econometrics in 1926, formalizing statistical method as a core tool of economic analysis. That formalization laid the groundwork for the quantitative rigor that would come to define the profession in the decades ahead.
Unlike engineering, law, or medicine, the economist profession carries no legally required educational standard or license in most countries. Anyone may use the title. Brazil is the striking exception. Law No. 1,411, enacted on the 13th of August, 1951, reserves the professional designation exclusively for holders of a Brazilian Bachelor of Economics degree. No comparable requirement exists in the United States or the United Kingdom.
In the United States, nearly 135 colleges and universities award around 900 new economics Ph.D.s every year. As of January 2013, PayScale data showed all Ph.D. economists earning in a range from $61,000 to $160,000 annually. Corporate Ph.D. economists earned between $71,000 and $207,000. Economics full professors fell in the range of $89,000 to $137,000. The private sector consistently outpays both the federal government and academia.
In the United Kingdom, the largest single professional grouping of economists is the Government Economic Service, which counted more than 3,500 members. Among graduates from British economics programs, including Newcastle University and the London School of Economics, nearly 80 percent found employment within six months. Their destinations spanned regional, national, and international organisations across many sectors.
Within many organisations, the Economic Analyst is a formalized designation with defined duties. Analysts conduct research, prepare reports, and formulate strategies to address economic problems. They collect and process data using econometric methods and statistical techniques, producing forecasts and advice grounded in observed trends and economic principles.
The U.S. federal government sets its own threshold for the designation. A hire qualifies if their degree included at least 21 semester hours in economics and three hours in statistics, accounting, or calculus.
Economists earn significantly higher salaries than other social scientists, both in academia and on the wider labour market. This material advantage is one marker of the discipline's unusual position. The profession also occupies a role in shaping public policy that no other social science enjoys. Together these features create what observers describe as a self-reinforcing dynamic of confidence and perceived legitimacy, which scholars have called disciplinary insularity.
One explanation for that insularity lies in the direction economics took after the Second World War. The discipline set aside its moral and discursive dimensions and moved toward the formalism of natural sciences like physics. By grounding itself in mathematics and abstract models, it separated itself from other social sciences at the level of both method and epistemology. Economists sought to derive human behaviour from theory rather than observation.
At the end of the twentieth century, an empirical revolution pushed economists toward topics traditionally associated with sociology. Yet the insularity persisted. Economists continue to cite each other overwhelmingly, whereas other social sciences exchange citations more freely and also cite economists. In a Bourdieusian analysis, economists function as a dominant group within the social sciences. Interdisciplinary work tends to hold little professional value within the discipline.
A disciplinary elite of prestigious departments and leading journals sits at the top of economics' internal hierarchy. This elite defines the methods and standards regarded as correct. Those standards then diffuse downward, shaping hiring norms and the job market. The economics job market is among the most organized and standardized of any social science.
From the post-war period onward, leading economics journals showed intense mathematization alongside sharply declining citations to sociology, political science, and law. From the 1980s to the 2000s, a second shift followed. Finance citations rose to become one of the principal branches of reference within economics, as pure mathematics retreated as the primary external anchor.
That shift toward finance also brought business schools into the center of the profession's intellectual life. The discipline's center of gravity was moving toward commerce and the private sector.
Economists appear, to policymakers and to the general public, as the experts who genuinely understand the economy. They occupy key positions in central banks, ministries of finance, international organisations, and advisory councils. Yet many economists feel their actual influence is highly constrained. In high-stakes debates over currency crises, climate policy, or welfare reform, partisan conflicts often prevail. Expert advice may be sidelined even when economists broadly agree among themselves.
Three distinct channels carry the influence economists do exercise. First, the professional authority of economics makes it the natural point of reference whenever the economy is at stake. Second, economists hold strategic positions inside governments and international organisations, so that in some domains they are not merely advisers but direct decision-makers. Third, and perhaps most pervasively, economics shapes the cognitive infrastructure of policymaking itself.
Devices like GDP, unemployment rates, cost-benefit analysis, and auction rules do not simply measure conditions. They narrow the range of options that appear reasonable and make certain trade-offs visible while hiding others. This gives rise to a form of technocracy: key choices are framed as technical and delegated to experts. The underlying assumptions are often normative and contestable. Economists tend to be most influential in ill-defined or technical issues and in the early stages of agenda-setting. When conflicts become highly politicized, their influence recedes.
The rising presence of academic economists in policymaking reflects a broader governance trend that scholars call the scientization of policy advice. Decision-makers increasingly turn to academic experts and commission reports grounded in economic research, rather than solely to bureaucratic experience or stakeholder input. Citation analysis of commission reports confirms that other knowledge sources remain. National policy documents, central bank studies, and applied research from public agencies appear alongside international academic journals.
A concrete illustration of how economic influence can extend beyond macroeconomic questions comes from Chile under Pinochet. Economists trained in the Chicago tradition and known as the Chicago Boys reshaped not only macroeconomic policy but also higher education. Their reforms drove the rapid expansion of private schools. Programs concentrated in commercially valued fields such as law, engineering, accountancy, and commerce, while humanities were marginalized. Reforms framed as technical modernization embedded market principles into the fabric of public institutions.
Scholars describe a fix-it culture throughout the profession: a confidence in the ability to diagnose malfunctions and propose solutions. That confidence leaves economists particularly exposed when crises reveal the limits of their models. The growing centrality of finance to the discipline may also have contributed to shifts in economists' broader political stances, drawing their interests closer to those of the private sector.
Economics draws its practitioners disproportionately from male and relatively affluent backgrounds, a pattern that distinguishes it from many other social sciences. This demographic skew matters given the profession's reach into decisions that affect people across very different circumstances.
On average, economists place themselves somewhat left of centre politically, in keeping with much of the academic world. But they are, on average, less interventionist than colleagues in other disciplines. They appear to have a particular orientation toward individual self-interest. Whether economics training produces this orientation, or whether individuals predisposed to it are simply more likely to enter the field, remains difficult to determine.
On questions like paying organ donors or using carbon taxes to address environmental harm, economists tend to favour market-based mechanisms. The broader public frequently resists these positions. This gap between professional consensus and popular intuition is not random. Economists' internal frameworks generate answers that are internally coherent but often diverge sharply from widely shared intuitions about fairness.
Positioned at the heart of decision-making structures, economists simultaneously hold substantial material advantages over most of those affected by their advice. Their relative material comfort widens the social distance between the profession and other groups. This matters because their discipline is closely linked to public administrations, large organisations, and the policies that shape people's economic lives.
B. R. Ambedkar, the Indian scholar, jurist, and social reformer, presented guidelines to the Hilton Young Commission. Those guidelines shaped the conceptualization of the Reserve Bank of India, drawing on his book The Problem of the Rupee. That commission was also known as the Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance. Ambedkar's contribution to it placed an economist's analysis at the institutional foundation of one of the world's major central banks.
Common questions
What does an economist do?
Economists study data and statistics to identify trends in economic activity, then use that analysis to forecast conditions, prepare reports, and advise on policy. They work across settings including academia, government, banking, finance, accountancy, commerce, and non-profit organisations. In the private sector, economists often advise fund managers, risk managers, and corporate analysts on investment strategy and capital budgeting.
When did economics become a recognized professional discipline?
Economics became increasingly professionalized over the nineteenth century. Jean-Baptiste Say held France's first chair in economics at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers in the early 1800s. By the century's end, most economists were academics trained in mathematics rather than broad philosophers writing across multiple fields.
What is the Nobel Prize for economists formally called?
The prize is formally called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Jan Tinbergen and Ragnar Frisch shared the first award in 1969. It is often referred to informally as the Nobel Prize in Economics.
How much do economists earn in the United States?
As of 2008, the median salary for non-academic economists in the United States was roughly $83,000, with the top ten percent earning more than $147,040. By January 2013, PayScale data placed corporate Ph.D. economists in a range from $71,000 to $207,000. The private sector consistently pays more than the federal government or academia.
Which country legally restricts who can call themselves an economist?
Brazil legally regulates the economist title through Law No. 1,411, enacted on the 13th of August, 1951. The law reserves the professional designation exclusively for those holding a Bachelor of Economics degree from a Brazilian institution. Most other countries impose no comparable educational requirement or license.
Why do economists have more influence than other social scientists?
Economists earn significantly higher salaries than other social scientists, hold their own major prize, and play a direct role in shaping public policy that no other social science enjoys. Their post-war embrace of mathematical formalism gave the discipline a scientific credibility that made it especially influential with decision-makers. They also occupy strategic positions inside central banks, ministries of finance, and international organisations, sometimes serving not just as advisers but as direct decision-makers.
All sources
36 references cited across the entry
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