Economics Assistant Professor

An Economics Assistant Professor is a researcher first, a teacher second, and a departmental citizen third — in that order at most research universities, even if the workload distribution on any given week doesn't reflect those priorities. The tenure decision, which comes after six years, is based primarily on the research record, and the early career is organized around producing that record while meeting teaching and service obligations.

The research schedule is self-directed but highly pressured. Unlike fields where professors publish regularly on a steady schedule, economics has a production structure in which papers take 2–5 years from inception to publication — including the research period, multiple rounds of revision, several rounds of referee reports, and eventual publication in a journal that may have had the paper for 18 months. An assistant professor who entered in year one needs publications appearing or accepted by year five to build a credible tenure case. Starting papers early, maintaining an active pipeline, and choosing research questions that are achievable within the tenure clock are the tactical decisions that structure the early career.

Teaching load at research universities is typically two courses per semester — lower than most academic disciplines, which reflects the research-intensive nature of economics positions and the premium the market places on research productivity. At liberal arts colleges and teaching-focused institutions, loads of three or four courses per semester are standard, and research expectations are correspondingly lower but still present for tenure.

The department seminar is the central research community institution. Every week, a speaker presents a working paper — an unfinished, in-progress piece of research — and the audience asks questions, often pointed ones. Presenting at seminars and workshops builds reputation and gets feedback that improves papers before journal submission. Actively attending and engaging at others' seminars is part of departmental citizenship and professional development.

Graduate student mentorship is a growing part of the role as assistant professors gain seniority. Serving on dissertation committees, providing feedback on graduate student papers, and supporting students through the job market is work that isn't counted in teaching load but is genuinely important for both the graduate program and the field.

Education:

• PhD in Economics (required) from an APA-accredited or internationally recognized economics program
• PhD program rank substantially affects job placement outcomes — candidates from top-20 programs are competitive for research university positions; candidates from lower-ranked programs are more competitive at teaching-focused institutions
• Completion of the dissertation and evidence of working papers in circulation before the job market

Research profile:

• A strong job market paper — typically a single-authored or co-authored paper that demonstrates independent research capability and represents the candidate's primary research area
• A pipeline of secondary papers at various stages of development
• Clear field identity: labor, development, public, macro, micro theory, IO, finance, environmental, health — field specialization drives fit with departments' hiring needs
• Publication record (even one publication) is a significant positive signal

Teaching qualifications:

• Graduate teaching experience — teaching assistant in principles and field courses
• Evidence of teaching effectiveness: evaluations, syllabi, course materials
• For liberal arts and comprehensive university positions, breadth across economics subfields beyond the primary specialty

Technical skills:

• Econometrics: regression analysis, causal inference methods (IV, RD, DID, synthetic control), panel data
• Statistical software: Stata, R, Python — field dependent
• Data access and management for large administrative datasets (Census, CMS, administrative records)
• LaTeX for academic paper production

Professional community engagement:

• Presentation experience at NBER, ASSA, field conferences
• Referee experience for journals in the field
• Co-authorship with faculty advisors and peers that demonstrates collaborative research capacity

Academic economics positions are competitive, well-compensated relative to other academic disciplines, and increasingly subject to a bifurcation between the small number of research-intensive positions and the larger number of teaching-focused appointments.

The number of PhD economists graduating annually has grown while the number of tenure-track positions at research universities has remained relatively flat. The result is a long right tail of candidates who spend two or three years in postdoctoral positions, visiting appointments, or non-tenure-track research positions before securing a tenure-track appointment — or who leave academia for private sector, government, or policy positions that pay more and require less geographic flexibility.

Economics PhDs have exceptional outside options compared to most academic disciplines. The Federal Reserve system, the World Bank and IMF, consulting firms, financial institutions, tech companies' research divisions, and policy organizations all hire economists with PhD training at salaries that compete with or exceed academic compensation. Many PhD economists who enter tenure-track positions do so alongside active consulting practices or government affiliations that supplement academic salaries significantly.

The research tools available to empirical economists have expanded substantially with the digitization of administrative data. Economists with expertise in machine learning, text analysis, and large-scale causal inference with administrative data are in high demand from both academic and non-academic employers. The data science skill overlap between academic economics and industry research has never been larger.

For candidates who value research independence, academic life offers genuine intellectual freedom and the ability to choose research questions based on their own judgment rather than employer priorities. The tenure system, despite its pressures, provides long-term job security that few other careers match. For those who achieve tenured positions at research universities, the career is stable, intellectually rich, and reasonably compensated — though the path to tenure is genuinely difficult and not guaranteed.

Dear Search Committee,

I'm writing to apply for the Assistant Professor position in Labor Economics at [University]. I am completing my PhD in Economics at [University] under the supervision of [Advisor Name], with a dissertation examining the employment effects of state-level minimum wage policy variation using a difference-in-differences design with stacked cohorts.

My job market paper, "Minimum Wage Increases and Employment Dynamics in Small and Medium Enterprises," uses matched employer-employee data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages linked to small business financial filings to examine how minimum wage effects differ by firm size and financial leverage. I find that highly leveraged small firms reduce employment significantly in response to minimum wage increases, while firms with strong balance sheets absorb the cost with minimal employment adjustment — a result that helps explain the heterogeneity in prior estimates in the literature. The paper has been presented at the NBER Summer Institute and is under review at the Journal of Labor Economics.

I have a second paper examining the effect of state unemployment insurance benefit generosity on job search duration, using administrative UI records from three states, and a third project in progress on the effect of childcare subsidy eligibility on maternal labor force participation. I teach Intermediate Microeconomics and a labor economics field seminar and have strong teaching evaluations from both courses.

I am particularly drawn to [University] because of [specific faculty, research cluster, or program feature]. My research connects to [faculty member]'s work on [relevant topic], and I believe there is meaningful scope for collaboration.

I would welcome the opportunity to present my research to your department.

[Your Name]