From my March 2017 expedition to the Johns Hopkins University archives’ collection of material from the Department of Political Economy, I came across one of those documents that help to provide an empirical baseline for the history of the market for economics professors. It is worth savouring the sets of tables one by one. In all, this so-called “cartel” summary with information collected from 29 departments in October 1965 consists of eight sets of tables.
On the last page of this summary for full-professor salaries can be found the name of the presumable compiler of the tables: Francis M. Boddy, Graduate School, University of Minnesota. It is dated December 21, 1965.
Two documents later in the same folder I found the list of 30 members of the Chairmen’s Group, dated December 13, 1965. With 29 responses to the salary questionnaire from which the “cartel” data have been assembled, it leaves only to guess which department did not report back to the “cartel”. I do believe that the ironic self-designation of cartel is not entirely contrary to functional fact here.
The salary distributions across the participating departments for associate professors, assistant professors, and for the starting salaries for newly minted Ph.D. hires have been posted in the meantime. Also there is a table of the anticipated (as of December 1965) range of salaries to hire freshly completed PhD’s for the coming academic year, 1966-67.
Using the BLS web CPI Inflation calculator, one can inflate nominal levels (say for December 1965, the date of the report) to April 2017 using a factor of 7.69.
___________________________________
About Francis M. Boddy
Boddy, Francis M, 1115 Bus. Admin., West Bank, Dept. of Econs., U. of Minn., Minneapolis, MN 55455. Phone: Office (612)373-3583;Home (612)926-1063. Fields: 020, 610. Birth Yr: 1906. Degrees: B.B.A., U. of Minn., 1930; M.A., U. of Minn., 1936; Ph.D., U. of Minn., 1939. Prin. Cur. Position: Prof. Emer. Of Econs., U. of Minn. At Twin Cities. 1975-. Concurrent/Past Positions: Acting Exec. Secy., Bd. Of Investment, State of Minn., 1978-79; Assoc. Dean of Grad. Sch. U. of Minn., 1961-73.
Source: “Biographical Listing of Members.” The American Economic Review 71, no. 6 (1981): p. 67.
___________________________________
Research Hint:
Boddy’s data go back to 1957/58
“I have, over the past six years, conducted an informal survey of some 30 of the leading departments of economics in the country, defined largely as being those departments which have been major producers of Ph.D.’s in economics.”
Source: Boddy, Francis M. “The Demand for Economists.” The American Economic Review 52, no. 2 (1962): 503-08.
Also of interest from about the same time is the AER Supplement:
Tolles, N. Arnold, and Emanuel Melichar. “Studies of the Structure of Economists’ Salaries and Income” The American Economic Review 58, no. 5 (1968):
___________________________________
MEMBERS OF THE CHAIRMEN’S GROUP, 1965-66
December 13, 1965
- Professor Gerard Debreu
University of California
Berkeley, California 94720
- Dean R. M. Cyert
Carnegie Institute of Technology
Pittsburgh 13, Pennsylvania
- Professor Arnold C. Harberger
University of Chicago
1126 East 59th Street
Chicago 37, Illinois
- Professor Carl McGuire
University of Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
- Professor William Vickrey
Columbia University
New York 27, New York
- Professor Douglas F. Dowd
Acting Chairman
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
(Professor Frank H. Golay, the Chairman, is on leave in 1965-66.)
- Professor Robert S. Smith
Duke University
Durham, North Carolina
- Professor John Dunlop
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
- Professor John F. Due
University of Illinois
Urbana, Illinois 61803
- Professor George Wilson
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana 47405
- Professor Karl A. Fox
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa 50010
- Professor Carl F. Christ
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland
- Professor Robert F. Lanzilotti
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan
- Professor Warren L. Smith
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Professor E. Cary Brown
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge 39, Massachusetts
- Professor Emanuel Stein
New York University
New York 3, New York
- Professor John Turnbull
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Professor Ralph W. Pfouts
university of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
- Professor Robert Eisner
Northwestern University
Evanston, Illinois
- Professor Paul G. Craig
Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio
- Professor Irving B. Kravis
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia 4, Pennsylvania
- Professor Richard A. Lester
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey
- Dean Emanuel T. Weiler
Purdue University
Lafayette, Indiana
- Professor Lionel McKenzie
University of Rochester
Rochester 20, New York
- Professor Edward S. Shaw
Stanford University
Stanford, California
- Professor Carey Thompson
University of Texas
Austin, Texas
- Professor James W. McKie
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, Tennessee
- Professor Alexandre Kafka
Acting Chairman
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
(Professor Warren Nutter, the Chairman, is on leave in 1965-66.)
- Professor David B. Johnson
University of Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
- Professor Raymond Powell
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut
Source: Johns Hopkins University. The Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy, Series 5, Box 6, Folder 2 “Statistical Information”.
___________________________________
CARTEL
SUMMARY of the October-1965 Questionnaire to Departments of Economics in the United States
SUMMARY of the salary (1965-66 and 1964-65 academic years, 9-10 month basis) and other data of 29 (out of 29) Departments of Economics. N = Number of Departments reporting.
TABLE 1c
PROFESSORS 1965-66, 1964-65
(1)
Median Salaries
All Professors
|
MID-POINT
OF RANGE
|
1965-66 |
1964-65
|
|
Over 20,249
|
2 |
1 |
| 20,000 |
4 |
0
|
|
19,500
|
0 |
1 |
| 19,000 |
3 |
1
|
|
18,500
|
2 |
3 |
| 18,000 |
2 |
1
|
|
17,500
|
3 |
1 |
| 17,000 |
2 |
4
|
|
16,500
|
2 |
4 |
| 16,000 |
1 |
4
|
|
15,500
|
2 |
0 |
| 15,000 |
2 |
1
|
|
14,500
|
0 |
2 |
| 14,000 |
3 |
1
|
|
13,500
|
0 |
1 |
| 13,000 |
1 |
4
|
|
N=
|
29 |
29 |
| Median |
$17,500 |
$16,500
|
|
Mean
|
$17,377 |
$16,319
|
TABLE 1c
PROFESSORS 1965-66, 1964-65
(2)
Average Salaries
“Superior Professors”
(Top 1/3)
|
MID-POINT
OF RANGE
|
1965-66 |
1964-65
|
|
Over 23,749
|
3 |
1 |
| 23,500 |
2 |
0
|
|
23,000
|
0 |
0 |
| 22,500 |
3 |
0
|
|
22,000
|
1 |
2 |
| 21,500 |
4 |
3
|
|
21,000
|
1 |
2 |
| 20,500 |
4 |
2
|
|
20,000
|
0 |
3 |
| 19,500 |
2 |
2
|
|
19,000
|
2 |
4 |
| 18,500 |
1 |
0
|
|
18,000
|
3 |
1 |
| 17,500 |
1 |
2
|
|
17,000
|
0 |
0 |
| 16,500 |
2 |
1
|
|
16,000
|
0 |
4 |
| 15,500 |
0 |
1
|
|
15,000
|
0 |
0 |
| 14,500 |
0 |
1
|
|
14,000
|
0 |
0 |
| N= |
29 |
29
|
|
Median
|
$20,600 |
$19,500 |
| Mean |
$20,677 |
$19,093
|
TABLE 1c
PROFESSORS 1965-66, 1964-65
(3)
Average Salaries
“Average Professors”
(Lower 2/3)
|
MID-POINT
OF RANGE
|
1965-66 |
1964-65
|
|
Over 18,749
|
4 |
2 |
| 18,500 |
0 |
1
|
|
18,000
|
3 |
1 |
| 17,500 |
1 |
1
|
|
17,000
|
3 |
1 |
| 16,500 |
3 |
2
|
|
16,000
|
5 |
8 |
| 15,500 |
1 |
4
|
|
15,000
|
2 |
1 |
| 14,500 |
1 |
1
|
|
14,000
|
2 |
0 |
| 13,500 |
2
|
2
|
|
13,000
|
1 |
4 |
| 12,500 |
1 |
0
|
|
12,000
|
0 |
1 |
| 11,500 |
0 |
0
|
|
N=
|
29 |
29 |
| Median |
$16,100 |
$15,390
|
|
Mean
|
$16,192 |
$15,119
|
Source: Johns Hopkins University. The Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy, Series 5, Box 6, Folder 2 “Statistical Information”.
Image: From left to right: Monopolies, Uncle Sam, Trusts.
Taylor, Charles Jay, Artist. In the hands of his philanthropic friends / C.J. Taylor. , 1897. N.Y.: Published in Puck, March 10, 1897. . Retrieved from the Library of Congress, . (Accessed May 12, 2017). https://www.loc.gov/item/2012647652/
