Doing a PhD

Abhishek had a pretty interesting question on last Friday’s post:

“Is doing a PhD still worth it?”

I don’t know (and deliberately haven’t asked him) what he means by “still”. I am going to interpret that to mean “in recent years”. And my answer is the same as any other economists’ answer: it depends.

What does it depend on, you ask?

1. Don’t do a PhD to learn a topic, or master one. That happens by working on a topic in the real world for many years. It doesn’t happen by studying a topic for many years. Some of the brightest people I know do not have a PhD, and unfortunately, that statement also makes sense the other way round.
2. Do a PhD to get a job. We have this idea, both here in India but also the world over, that only a PhD has the moral authority to teach on a full time basis. I call bullshit on that idea, but it is not an idea that is going to go away anytime soon. So if you want to be employed by a university on a full time basis as a teacher, do the PhD.
   1. If you want to teach in an Indian university, you can get away by getting a PhD from an Indian University.
   2. If you want to teach abroad, I’d strongly recommend getting a PhD from abroad.
3. A PhD is a useful signaling device. If you want a leg-up in your career after a decade of working, or if you want more “cred” in your workplace, at seminars and conferences and what not, then get a PhD. A “Dr.” in front of your name is a wonderful signaling device.
4. It’s got fairly decent “Sharmaji ka beta” powers too. Not, of course, as good as the IIT-IIM badge, but still, it will impress family. The same point at 3., really, but in a non-academic/non-corporate context.
5. Bottomline: it buys you optionality, and if you think your career is going to be remotely associated with academia in one way or the other, it’s probably, still, a good idea. But it is expensive in terms of time, and has recently become more expensive in terms of dancing through hoops.

But if you ask me, I completely agree with the idea that we should just ban PhD degrees.

Along those lines, I have a modest proposal. Eliminate the economics Ph.D, period. Offer everyone three years of graduate economics education, and no more (with a clock reset allowed for pregnancy). Did Smith, Keynes, or Hayek have an economics Ph.D? This way, no one will assume you know what you are talking about, and the underlying message is that economics learning is lifelong.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/09/how-to-reform-the-economics-ph-d.html

It’s never going to happen, because we all love signaling far too much, but hey, one can dream.

And you may also want to read this book, Abhishek.

And on an entirely related note, please, anybody reading this: call me Ashish.