Finance vs. Econ Salaries, What a Difference One Field Exam Makes!

How much do new assistant professors make at AACSB B-schools? Here are the data for 2005-2006 from AACSB, these are national means for new hires:

1. Finance $111,000
2. Accounting $104,200
3. Marketing $89,300
4. Management $88,900
5. Operations $87,500
6. MIS $87,400
7. Quant $75,100
8. Economics $71,900

It is interesting to me that there is almost a $40,000 difference in starting salaries between economics and finance. Especially after just aquiring lots of information from interviewing 40 finance candidates at the Financial Management Association conference in Salt Lake City for a finance position at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. I asked a lot of candidates about the amount of economics they take in graduate PhD programs in finance, and was surprised to find out that many PhD programs in finance are actually about 50% economics, in terms of the courses they take. Many PhD programs in finance require students to take graduate macro (one or two semesters), graduate micro (one or two semesters), and between 2-4 econometrics classes, and sometimes a class in Math Econ. In fact, many finance PhDs take preliminary examinations in economics. Therefore, in reality, finance PhDs basically get a PhD in economics with a field specialization in finance.

Further, I found it interesting that most finance PhD programs are very small, they only admit a few students per year in many cases, compared to large entering classes in economics PhD programs (25 is typical for econ at UM Ann Arbor), and most finance PhD programs can be completed in 4 years, vs. 5 years for many/most economics programs (another reason to get a PhD in finance vs. economics). The small number or PhDs in finance vs. economics explains a lot of the salary differential.

Maybe more economics PhD programs should offer fields in finance-related fields like financial economics, capital markets, asset pricing, financial markets, futures and options, international finance, etc., so that PhD students in economics could capture that $40,000 additional starting pay if they can penetrate the finance market for academics. Over a 35-year career, that would be additional lifetime income of close to $1.5 million (ignorning discounting), seems like it would be worth it.

It is easy to explain the $29,000 difference in starting salaries between economics and accounting, because they are two fairly different subjects/fields. But how to explain the $40,000 difference in two disciplines that are almost exactly the same? Market inefficiency? Comments welcome on this issue.

My advice for those considering PhDs in economics: Switch to finance if you have any interest in finance-related topics. You will still get to take a full year of PhD-level economics (micro, marco and econometrics), and you just specialize in finance instead of monetary economics and industrial organization (like I did!).