We haven’t yet put much thought into whether to do phds later on in your career.
One point is that because you’ll have less time to utilise the qualification, the overall returns will be lower. e.g. if you graduate from a phd age 25, then you have 40 years to use the career capital. If you graduate from one age 35, then you only have 30 years, so the return will be about 75% as large. Whether or not this means it’s not worth it, I’m not sure.
My other guess is that the more qualifications you have, the more diminishing the returns are. However, there is a boost from having a phd vs. a masters.
Two other thoughts:
1) Are you finding yourself constrained by the lack of an economics phd? What positions would you most like to take? Do these require phds? If not, consider just going into them directly.
2) Just a thought, you may be putting too much weight on ‘career capital as qualifications’. You can also get career capital by just working on important projects, notching up achievements and through that building your network.
Hi there,
We haven’t yet put much thought into whether to do phds later on in your career.
One point is that because you’ll have less time to utilise the qualification, the overall returns will be lower. e.g. if you graduate from a phd age 25, then you have 40 years to use the career capital. If you graduate from one age 35, then you only have 30 years, so the return will be about 75% as large. Whether or not this means it’s not worth it, I’m not sure.
My other guess is that the more qualifications you have, the more diminishing the returns are. However, there is a boost from having a phd vs. a masters.
Two other thoughts:
1) Are you finding yourself constrained by the lack of an economics phd? What positions would you most like to take? Do these require phds? If not, consider just going into them directly.
2) Just a thought, you may be putting too much weight on ‘career capital as qualifications’. You can also get career capital by just working on important projects, notching up achievements and through that building your network.