There was a discussion on Facebook a few years ago about whether you can be a scholar but not be in academia. One person was claiming that you can’t.
My Exhibit A that says you can is Phil Magness.
Phil got his Ph.D. in Public Policy at George Mason University in 2010. Since then he has spent most of his time at think tanks rather than academia. He has been full-time in academia for only 1 of the last 13 years and that was not a tenure-track job. For 10 of the last 13 years, he has been a full-time employee of think tanks: the Institute of Humane Studies from 2010 to 2017 and the American Institute for Economic Research from 2018 to the present.
I won’t list all his academic publications. I’ll list only those in top journals.
“The Mainstreaming of Marx: Measuring the Effect of the Russian Revolution on Karl Marx’s Influence” Co-authored with Michael Makovi. Journal of Political Economy (June 2023)
“How pronounced is the U-curve? Revisiting income inequality in the United States, 1917-1960” Co-authored with Vincent Geloso, Philip Schlosser, and John Moore. The Economic Journal (March 2022)
“The Great Overestimation: Tax Data and Inequality Measurements in the United States, 1913-1943.” Co-authored with Vincent Geloso. Economic Inquiry (April 2020).
“The anti-discriminatory tradition in Virginia school public choice theory.” Public Choice. (March 2020).
“James M. Buchanan and the Political Economy of Desegregation,” Co-authored with Art Carden and Vincent Geloso. Southern Economic Journal (January 2019).
Now it is true, as those who know Phil well know, that he does not do this by working a 40-hour week or even a 50-hour week. My guess from being around him is that he works an approximately 75-hour week. That way he can do the responsibilities that come with his job at a think tank, only some of which involve writing for academia journals.
But the point is that it can be done. Is Phil a genius? I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. What he has is a lot of smarts, a LOT of passion, and a willingness to work very hard.
My guess is that because of all the hoops academic departments make you jump though nowadays, the disadvantage of working in a think tank, though still there, has diminished.
[Editor’s Note: Look for a new Liberty Matters forum at the Online Library of Liberty on New Histories of Capitalism headlined by Magness this fall.]
READER COMMENTS
nobody.really
Aug 18 2023 at 8:37am
Summary: Good news, econ/policy students–you can build an academic life outside academia! You just have to work 75 hrs/week. Which, admittedly, isn’t great–but when you compare it to the hell-hole that is academia, it doesn’t sound so bad.
On second thought, maybe we shouldn’t use this post as part of our department’s recruiting efforts. (In case you were wondering why people call economics “the dismal science”….)
Jon Murphy
Aug 18 2023 at 8:47am
To be in the top echelons in any field requires more than a 40-hour week. 40 hours is not a lot of time, and certainly not enough to master something well enough to be in the upper echelons.
But, of course, success is defined in many ways. Benefits (and costs) are subjective, after all. I recall my 1st year in the GMU Ph.D. econ program and Pete Boettke was part of a panel discussing life in academia. I’m not going to quote word-for-word because it was 7 years ago, but he said something to the effect of: to be successful in academia, you have to work 100-hour weeks. The late Steve Horwitz was also on that panel and he pointed out that diminishing marginal returns set in and that there are many people who are successful along other margins in academia while working many fewer hours.
So, the point is: do not be too glib in dismissing David’s message here.
Todd Kreider
Aug 23 2023 at 2:51pm
Almost no successful academic has worked close to 100 hours a week except for very brief periods. 14 hour days every day of the week for years? Surveys by economists show that when people report longer than 30 or so hours of work a week, those reporting 40, 50 and 60+ exaggerate actual hours work by an increasingly large percent.
David Henderson
Aug 18 2023 at 10:30am
You write:
I know you’re being facetious, but in case you really are wondering why economics was called the dismal science, here’s the right answer. And, as I told my students, if you remember this answer you can upstate most prominent economists at cocktail parties. Because most prominent economists who think they know will tell that it has to do with Malthus’s grim thoughts about population.
No. It’s not that.
Here’s the whole story.
And here’s my short version, which I used in Chapter 1 of my book The Joy of Freedom: An Economist’s Odyssey: Economics is a dismal science, wrote Carlyle, because the free-market economists of his time, who dominated economics in the nineteenth century, strongly opposed slavery.
nobody.really
Aug 18 2023 at 1:25pm
WOW–nice work.
Now I just need to wrangle an invite to the Econ Dept’s cocktail parties….
Mark Brady
Aug 18 2023 at 1:49pm
It’s not the whole story.
Robert Dixon, Carlyle, Malthus and Sismondi: the origins of Carlyle’s dismal view of political economy,” History of Economics Review, 44 (summer 2006): 32-38.
“While it is correct to say that Carlyle first applied the exact phrase ‘dismal science’ to political economy in his 1849 article on plantation labour in the West Indies, I argue that Carlyle came to the view that political economy was ‘dismal’ well before that time. Indeed, his negative attitude can be seen quite clearly in his earlier published reactions to the writings of Malthus (and Sismondi, amongst others) on population growth and its consequences and also to the perceived ‘materialistic’ nature of the subject matter of political economy.”
Monte
Aug 18 2023 at 11:36am
Without question. In fact, there have been a multitude of scholars outside of academia (autodidacts) that fit the bill. One that immediately comes to mind in the field of economics is Henry Hazlitt:
David Henderson
Aug 18 2023 at 7:33pm
Good point about Hazlitt, whom, by the way, I knew.
Two points to add.
First, his main accomplishments were well over 60 years ago. Actually, of course, that was when academics were not tasked with administrivia and with re-education. So that actually makes him accomplishments even more impressive.
Second, he was never published in high-level, mainstream academic publications.
Bill P
Aug 19 2023 at 9:45am
I’m confused by your second point regarding Hazlitt. Are you suggesting that only certain journals can/should be the arbiter of distinguishing between scholarship and drivel? Or even between scholarship and insightful fluff?
I’d suggest that the last several years – especially in “high-level, mainstream” medical journals have been profoundly inept at identifying drivel.
While I truly appreciate the depth of research found in Magness’ work, I would find it difficult to accept a definition of “scholar” which failed to include an individual delivering the insights that Hazlitt did.
David Henderson
Aug 19 2023 at 11:21am
You write:
Sorry for the confusion. No, I’m not suggesting that. I’m simply pointing out that Hazlitt and Magness differ in that respect. Like you, I gather, I’m not a big fan of mainstream journals. What I’m pointing out here is that even those who do think that mainstream journals are the arbiter will have to admit that Phil has more than cleared the bar.
You write:
I would too. A relevant story here. In Jason Riley’s book on Thomas Sowell, he tells the story of Tom being in a group of professors at UCLA meeting to discuss whether to give tenure to an assistant professor who had written a few academic articles and two first-rate textbooks. Tom found it odd that his colleagues dismissed the textbooks. I was pretty sure I knew who the assistant professor was. I had TAed for an intro macro class he had taught and had learned almost as much from that class as I had learned in my graduate macro class. I contacted that person and asked him if he thought was Tom was referring to him. Given the timing, we both concluded that it had to be him. Like Tom, I thought this person deserved tenure for his excellent textbooks. Tom’s colleagues, some of whom were my mentors, disagreed.
Monte
Aug 19 2023 at 2:53pm
I’m not certain, but I think Oxford Academic Political Science Quarterly qualifies as a “high level, mainstream academic publication”, doesn’t it?
A New Constitution Now, by Henry Hazlitt (Volume 58, Issue 1 , March 1943)
David Henderson
Aug 19 2023 at 4:33pm
Yes, but the article is by V. O. Key, Jr., not Hazlitt. It’s a book review of Hazlitt’s book. It’s good to see that a serious academic took the book seriously. Key was well-known and would have been even better known had he not died so young.
Mark Brady
Aug 19 2023 at 6:22pm
I’ve now read the review. “[Hazlitt’s] main theme is the superiority of cabinet government over the presidential system. While Mr. Hazlitt has performed a meritorious service in stimulating consideration of a basic constitutional issue, it cannot be said that he has carried the discussion appreciably beyond the point where it rested thirty or forty years ago.”
Perhaps one of the bloggers at EconLog should post on the topic, and we can contribute to a lively discussion.
David Seltzer
Aug 18 2023 at 11:55am
David: Excellent post! It seems one can seldom reach their potential without extreme effort, no matter their course of pursuit. The supremely talented Muhammed Ali understood that the will to win meant nothing without the will to train. He had 108 amateur fights before turning pro and 61 professional fights. One has to consider the thousands of hours sparring. Hundreds of miles of road work as well as the hundreds of hours of film study. Angelo Dundee had to stop Ali from skipping rope for more than an hour. All that effort showed up in the three great Ali- Frazier bouts.
John hare
Aug 18 2023 at 1:15pm
I guess I would be an outlier here. Exactly how do you define a scholar, and why would you want to be one?
I have made some apparently original observations in a couple of fields that were said to be advanced by people in those fields. Not top tier by any means, but clearly finding solutions outside the accepted orthodox.
Ilia Murtazashvili
Aug 18 2023 at 5:48pm
Phil is great. It is also a great post since at research universities, we still work a lot but a lot of those hours each week on on very unproductive activities and this is increasing as more of the growth of universities is in administration. It is nice to see Phil doing good work. Scholars publish scholarly work. It’s nice that we don’t need to be at a university to do this, and with all the technology to link up with people doing interesting work, one can do scholarship from just about anywhere, with just about anyone. Plus, being able to work with scholars not located in universities is nice – different perspectives, and they often have more time to focus on research since we often get bogged down with teaching and service. Win-win, for sure.
Michael Scott Jackson
Aug 20 2023 at 1:51am
Phil is a great scholar, and as a thinktank-er is able to espouse less orthodox views than likely would be tolerated. I myself graduated from the same program in the top 5% of the class, but due to my advaced age, 43, I really never got an honest hearing from research universities. I even had one dean tell me outright that “no one wants to hire a 40 year old because they’re afraid that in a few years, after the newness wears off, you’ll look at your age peers and feel discontent because of their higher salaries”. Isn’t that what the market is about? That I could leave your U. for another U. that offers me a better deal, and really, does that ever enter your thinking with a 20something who has much less to loose by jumping ship?
The beauty of being a scholar is that you get to study what is interesting to you, not in how little more much you work, and that you largely get to decide what that is. Something you don’t get really in any other sphere of influence.
steve
Aug 20 2023 at 11:35am
I have never thought there was much difference between think tanks and academia except that think tanks dont have teaching requirements and they are more explicit about their ideological bent sometimes. There are also people writing for foundations that get published quite a bit, at least in health care. I think of those as being different than think tanks but maybe they are not?
75 hours sounds like a normal work week to me, at least before your mid 60s when it does get a bit harder.
Steve
Todd K
Aug 23 2023 at 2:38pm
“75 hours sounds like a normal work week to me, at least before your mid 60s when it does get a bit harder.”
Studies have shown that almost nobody works 75 hours a week or even 55 hours a week and that hours beyond 50 a week aren’t productive hours.
Manfred
Aug 21 2023 at 10:04am
Another name that comes to mind is Alice Rivlin. I think she spent most of her professional life in several government organizations, and the Brookings Institution. She did make a name for herself, and was a constant panelist in AEA meetings.
Todd K
Aug 23 2023 at 2:30pm
scholar: 1. A specialist in a specific branch of study, especially the humanities. 2. A distinguished academic.
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