Is there any specific area of expertise in economics they’re looking for, or is it mainly breadth in economics? Are they looking for more than an upper undergraduate background in any specific topic?
I’m also interested in hearing the general survey replies to understand what specifics the movement as a whole is looking for.
Anecdotally, I’m the economist at The Humane League Labs, and I tend to get a broad range of questions about cost-benefit analysis, consumer preferences (and how to change them), market structures, impact analysis, etc. What I actually work on tends to be causal inference, which is a place where economists’ skills could be very helpful for the movement.
I have my PhD, and I know that my education level plus my research interests plus my alignment with the cause were the main factors in my hiring. I believe that high-level undergrads or masters students would be well equipped to answer general cost-benefit analysis and causal inference questions, though more specialized questions like firm competition models and counterfactual analysis using structural models would likely not be covered in their training. I think that there is a lot of work for people with broad backgrounds and interests to do.
I’ve spoken to a few EAA researcher departments who are looking to hire economists, and behavioral and agricultural backgrounds come up most often.
😊 well Thankyou very much for your response and video.
I’d love to speak more with you about this actually and your experience of how your skills have been and good be beneficial to get a better understanding.
As said above unfortunately this was just to understand priority skill gaps so then we can do a deeper dive.
Also anecdotally I’m not sure all organisations would know in detail how someone with your credentials could help them to their full extent.
I would be really interested in speaking to you further if you wouldn’t mind.
@michael Sorry my initial reply didn’t seem to go through on this.
Unfortunately this was just a preliminary study looking to identify which skills were needed by the majority and we didn’t go into greater granularity than prioritising skill sets individuals could have which would benefit both the individual organisations and secondly the animal movement as a whole (the later is where the majority voted for economist skill set) and the inference was for breadth in economics.
It does look like Samara answered in more detail below on how it can be beneficial.
We will be continuing the survey and publishing full results approx 1 month later. From here should economics be a priority skill set we will look to do deeper research and hopefully i will have more details for you. Is there a specific reason for your question and perhaps i can be more helpful in future?
I’ve been considering further studies in economics, including a PhD or just more breadth, specifically for work in animal advocacy. I don’t currently have very much background in economics (2nd-year micro, an essay-based health economics course, and some causal inference from graduate-level statistics courses, but these courses were more conceptual and not very hands-on).
Is there any specific area of expertise in economics they’re looking for, or is it mainly breadth in economics? Are they looking for more than an upper undergraduate background in any specific topic?
I’m thinking cost-effectiveness/benefit analysis, microeconomics, econometrics (including causal inference), behavioural economics, agricultural economics.
Are they looking specifically for PhDs?
I’m also interested in hearing the general survey replies to understand what specifics the movement as a whole is looking for.
Anecdotally, I’m the economist at The Humane League Labs, and I tend to get a broad range of questions about cost-benefit analysis, consumer preferences (and how to change them), market structures, impact analysis, etc. What I actually work on tends to be causal inference, which is a place where economists’ skills could be very helpful for the movement.
I have my PhD, and I know that my education level plus my research interests plus my alignment with the cause were the main factors in my hiring. I believe that high-level undergrads or masters students would be well equipped to answer general cost-benefit analysis and causal inference questions, though more specialized questions like firm competition models and counterfactual analysis using structural models would likely not be covered in their training. I think that there is a lot of work for people with broad backgrounds and interests to do.
I’ve spoken to a few EAA researcher departments who are looking to hire economists, and behavioral and agricultural backgrounds come up most often.
😊 well Thankyou very much for your response and video.
I’d love to speak more with you about this actually and your experience of how your skills have been and good be beneficial to get a better understanding.
As said above unfortunately this was just to understand priority skill gaps so then we can do a deeper dive.
Also anecdotally I’m not sure all organisations would know in detail how someone with your credentials could help them to their full extent.
I would be really interested in speaking to you further if you wouldn’t mind.
I would be happy to speak with your further, especially to further the cause of getting more economists/social scientists hired! I’ll send you a PM.
Thanks for sharing this article and opening this discussion.
@michael Sorry my initial reply didn’t seem to go through on this.
Unfortunately this was just a preliminary study looking to identify which skills were needed by the majority and we didn’t go into greater granularity than prioritising skill sets individuals could have which would benefit both the individual organisations and secondly the animal movement as a whole (the later is where the majority voted for economist skill set) and the inference was for breadth in economics.
It does look like Samara answered in more detail below on how it can be beneficial.
We will be continuing the survey and publishing full results approx 1 month later. From here should economics be a priority skill set we will look to do deeper research and hopefully i will have more details for you. Is there a specific reason for your question and perhaps i can be more helpful in future?
Thanks for the response. :)
I’ve been considering further studies in economics, including a PhD or just more breadth, specifically for work in animal advocacy. I don’t currently have very much background in economics (2nd-year micro, an essay-based health economics course, and some causal inference from graduate-level statistics courses, but these courses were more conceptual and not very hands-on).