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Why a Harvard Professor Has Mixed Feelings When Students Take Jobs in Finance

Walker New York 2 hours ago APRIL 10, 2015
Professor Mullainathan's article illustrates perfectly why the study and profession of economics has been dubbed the "dismal science." He draws upon highbrow concepts and economic analyses of social and personal values, rent seeking behavior, and other impressive-sounding ideas to interpret what is absolutely obvious: Harvard students are just going for the big bucks.

Harvard, like the other elite schools, inculcates it students, faculty, and administration with the worship of wealth. Harvard celebrates high achievers such as Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Balmer, Bill Gates, Ken Griffin, and other billionaires who can write large checks to the University. Financial success is the yardstick by which their lives are measured. Museums, libraries, concert halls, endowed chairs, research institutes, laboratories and other campus buildings are named after them.

If lepidopterists and entomoligists were compensated at the same levels as economics professors and investment bankers, graduating Harvard seniors would be consumed by a passion for butterflies and dragonflies, and would race to get into the field.


last updated april 2015