Issue 24, Spring 2003

William A. McEachern, Editor

The Evidence File

There were 2,168 jobs advertised in Job Openings for Economists during 2002. Academic positions accounted for 1,487 listings, or 68.6% of the total, and nonacademic positions, 681 listings, or 31.4%. The 2002 total was 10.6% below the 2001 total, with academic listings falling 6.7% and other listings falling 18.6%. Among the 18 fields of specialization listed, the five most requested fields in 2002 (and share of all fields requested) were Mathematical and Quantitative Methods (12.5%), International (10.7%), Microeconomics (10.4%), Industrial Organization (9.7%), and Macroeconomics and Monetary (8.9%). The five least requested fields were General Economics and Teaching (2.1%), Law and Economics (1.7%), Economic Systems (0.6%), Economic History (0.6%) and Methodology and History of Economic Thought (0.3%). The top and bottom five fields were the same the year before, though there was a little shuffling within those ranks. Note that Mathematical and Quantitative Methods, the most popular request in both years, includes Game Theory and Bargaining Theory.

I recently spent several months in Asia and was struck with how sellers signal the freshness of foods. Nearly all poultry, seafood, and reptiles are sold live. Seafood restaurants typically have tanks that keep seafood alive until preparation. Some restaurants even unbundle the meal to ensure freshness and a wider selection. In the seafood district of Hong Kong, for example, customers buy seafood live from a choice of vendors then bring the purchase to any number of restaurants, where it is prepared, often at the table. The most popular way of serving fish in Asia is steamed, the most transparent form of cooking—a lack of freshness cannot be disguised by the steaming, whereas it can be by baking, frying, or grilling. Even more transparent than steaming is serving seafood raw, as with sushi. I'm told that one should avoid ordering teriyaki dishes, where the meat, chicken or seafood is marinated in a spicy soy sauce, since this allows the cook to mask questionable flavor or freshness. Meat sauces, such as Worcestershire, were developed to make old meat more palatable in the days before refrigeration.

Goods continue to get cheaper relative to most services. For example, at Brookstone, by no means a discounter, a Mega Sound Desktop CD System with digital clock, AM/FM digital radio, dual high-powered two-way speakers, and infrared remote sells for only $149. In my region, automobile mechanics charge at least $75 an hour. So for the price of an attractive CD system I could hire a mechanic for maybe two hours. The difference is that the CD system was made in China, while the mechanic works in Connecticut. But information technology workers in Connecticut are not as fortunate as auto mechanics. Major insurers in Hartford have eliminated hundreds of IT positions and outsourced these service jobs to India. The real wages of remaining IT workers have declined. Auto mechanics, but not IT workers, are insulated from international competition, at least so far.

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