Economists are Actually Smart.
I just came across this chart on a blog called Carpe Diem, by Mark Perry, a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan. Using GRE scores from 2002, it shows that economists have the 4th highest scores, bested only by those in the fields of physics, math, and computer science.
Now, if only one of us knew what was going on with the financial crisis.
NM
November 7th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
I’m actually surprised the score is that low for the quantitative portion of the GRE for economists. It seems everywhere I look to apply for grad school scoring 700 on the quantitative part is almost mandatory. However, I do realize it’s an average.
November 8th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
I never really thought about this before but this does actually seems very logical. Think about it, money often determines if a country is stable or not and if no one understood how money worked we would always be in an economic crisis which means money is alot more complicated than most people think. So as a nation we very lucky to have people who understand economics so there is a chance that the economy can return to its former glory.
November 9th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Two things I find interesting. Quantitative and Analytical scores are very correlated. The outlier there is that engineers have way betters quantitative scores than analytical scores.
Second, economics beats business by about a 100 points in each. Interesting, no?
–CT
November 9th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I think business is skewed for the gre; most applicants take the gmat when applying for graduate school in business.
Also, I don’t think as much emphasis is put on the quantitative portion for business as economics.
November 11th, 2008 at 10:27 am
I can’t believe the psychology field is so low on the charts. I would think that people in that field would have a higher analytical score than a 561.
November 11th, 2008 at 10:38 am
I don’t think the economics field scoring high was such a big surprise. I think we are in this financial situation because economist didn’t estimate how large the impact of the war, terrorism, natural disasters did to us. They probably had some kind of idea and statistics on what to expect but anything can happen and change the data in a huge way. Nobody expected teh 9/11 terrorists attack on the World Trade Center, estimated how much damage hurricane Katrina would do, or even how much money would be spent on the war on terrorism.
November 11th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Phi,
Maybe we are in this mess because people were not listening? We keep raising minimum wage, placing tarrifs on foreign products, etc. and economists keep telling everyone this is nuts. Political interests do not always favor what economists suggest. SNAFU.
MC
November 14th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Very Interesting…
Perhaps a couple of 4th ranked Economists could run for Parish Pres and School Board Pres next term. Then maybe my children could get a fair shake! Clearly based on this chart their teachers and politicians are not quite up to par! Who would have thunk it?