A Tale of Two Fields? STEM Career Outcomes

Xuan Jiang, Joseph Staudt and Bruce Weinberg

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: Is the labor market for US researchers experiencing the best or worst of times? This paper analyzes the market for recently minted Ph.D. recipients using supply-and-demand logic and data linking graduate students to their dissertations and W2 tax records. We also construct a new dissertation-industry “relevance” measure, comparing dissertation and patent text and linking patents to assignee firms and industries. We find large disparities across research fields in placement (faculty, postdoc, and industry positions), earnings, and the use of specialized human capital. Thus, it appears to simultaneously be a good time for some fields and a bad time for others.

Keywords: STEM Ph.D.; knowledge; industry placement; ProQuest; dissertation; USPTO; patents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F16 I20 J20 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2023-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma
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https://www2.census.gov/library/working-papers/2023/adrm/ces/CES-WP-23-53.pdf First version, 2023 (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: A Tale of Two Fields? STEM Career Outcomes (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:23-53

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