“They” said it, not me. I have a somewhat more nuanced take, but I’m here to report the news, that’s all:
Carroll, Thomas, Djeto Assane, and Jared Busker. “Why it Pays to Major in Economics.” The Journal of Economic Education 45, no. 3 (2014): 251-261.
Abstract: In this article, the authors use a large, recent, and accessible data set to examine the effect of economics major on individual earnings. They find a significant positive earnings gain for economics majors relative to other majors, and this advantage increases with the level of education. Their findings are consistent with Black, Sanders, and Taylor (2003), documenting that about two-thirds of the bachelor’s degree premium for economics majors can be attributed to the type of job economics majors perform, and about one-third is a premium that economics majors earn over other workers within the same job.
Does this phenomenon surprise anybody, WC? I assume we are not talking about a comparison with physics and chemistry majors.