Greg Mankiew’s Career Choices Mike Rappaport

He writes about deciding whether to get a PhD in economics, a law degree, or both:

My case is somewhat abnormal. During my period of experimentation, Ilearned that I was only a middling law student. By contrast, I got myPhD with only two years of residence at MIT. (I turned back the thirdyear of my NSF fellowship to the US taxpayer, but I won’t claim anyaltruistic motive in doing so–I just didn’t need it.) In the fall of1984, I found myself a so-so second-year law student with a PhD undermy belt and a small but growing list of academic publications. Itfinally dawned on me that my comparative advantage was econ, not law.Remembering the irrelevance of sunk costs, I moved across the parkinglot from the Harvard Law School to the Harvard economics department,where I have now been on the faculty for over twenty years.

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