The papers of the economic historian Earl J. Hamilton are a sammelsurium of boxes of folders with labels that are broadly chronologically descriptive but essentially useless. A scholar must plow through item by item, folder by folder as though in the attic of your deceased (messy) uncle who had hoarding issues, hoping to find the one or other family jewel between old receipts and magazine articles.
Today in my photos of a small subset of Hamilton’s papers I came across the following memo from Professor Marc Nerlove to his colleagues in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago that tabulates the job offers received by people on the “Placement List” in early 1971. Besides naming the institutions, he provides information on the distribution of salary offers and teaching loads.
This memo is such a random find that I figured I should transcribe and post it immediately before forgetting where I found it.
________________________
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Date March 1, 1971
To All Members [of the Economics Department]
From Marc Nerlove, Chairman Placement Committee
In re: Job Placement
The following institutions have made offers to people on our Placement List
| Bank of Canada
California State College Eastern Michigan University Georgia State University Oberlin College Princeton University The RAND Corporation Southern Methodist University Trasury Board-Govt. of Canada University of Maryland University of Minnesota University of Pennsylvania U. Of Rochester (Graduate School of Management) Vanderbilt Western Ontario |
California Institute of Technology
Clemson University Cleveland State University Federal Reserve Board McMaster University Ohio State University Queen’s University Rutgers S.U.N.Y. at Binghamton University of California, Berkeley University of Massachusetts University of Montreal University of Rochester (Economics Dept) City College of New York University of Toronto Virginia Polytechnic Institute York University |
Salaries offered have been:
$11,000** – 2 offers; $11,100 – 1 offer;
$11,400 – 2 offers; $11,500 – 1 offer;
$12,000 – 4 offers; $12,400 – 1 offer;
$12,500 – 7 offers; $13,000 – 6 offers;
$13,500 – 5 offers; $14,000 – 3 offers;
$14,500 – 2 offers; $15,000 – 2 offers;
$16,000* – 1 offer; $16,242* – 1 offer;
$17, 325* – 1 offer
Teaching loads have been:
4 offers – none;
31 offers – 2 courses per term;
1 offer -3 courses per quarter;
2 offers – 4 courses per quarter
Salaries are for the academic year unless noted.
_____________________
* Eleven months
**One offer was for half-time, eleleven months
Source: Duke University, Rubenstein Library. Earl J. Hamilton Papers. Box 2, Folder “Correspondence 1960’s-1970’s”.
Image Source: Marc Nerlove in Economics at Chicago (Departmental Brochure, 1971-72), p. 29. This copy of the brochure found in the Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman. Box 194, Folder 4.
2 replies on “Chicago. Economics Job Offers, Salaries and Teaching Loads, 1971”
So the average salary offer is about $13K, with min $11K and max $17K. The CPI in 1971 was 40.5 and it was 237 in 2015 so that’s a 6-fold increase in prices. Thus, the average offer in today’s dollars was about $80K, with a low around $65 and a high of roughly $100K. That’s pretty comparable to current Econ asst prof salaries.
The CPI for college tuition and fees went from 60 in 1978 to almost 800 in 2015, that’s more than twice as fast as the overall CPI. So what is driving rocketing college tuition increases? I dunno, but it doesn’t look like salaries did it.
It is not the educational salaries that caused the increase it is much more likely the technical aspect or change in colleges and universities. If we look at the amount of tech available in 1971 versus today and the support staff required to keep it running I think we could, at least in part, explain a sharper increase in educational costs.
I wonder how administrative salaries have changed…