I’m in the midst of writing my job market paper, and as many other tasks it requires skill, knowledge, and perseverance. Once the results of the research are clear and a first draft of the paper is ready, a long process to finish the article begins.
Claudia Sahm writes,
“This post is for job market candidates. You need to spend more time editing your abstract and introduction. It will be worth more than your fourth robustness check. Promise.”
and continues,
“Sadly, it is clear that economics departments and dissertation committees are NOT teaching their doctoral students how to communicate their research.”
“EVERY job market paper I read lacked a well-structured, well-written introduction and abstract. Many of these papers are from top schools and from native English speakers.”
The most common structure for a PhD thesis in economics is to write 3 papers. One of the papers, usually the second one, is called the “job market paper”. This paper is presented on job market conferences during the last academic year of the PhD studies. There is one dedicated job market conference in the US and one in Europe each year. Universities and institutions looking to hire on the academic economics job market are present and invite candidates to interviews, and potential fly-outs for further presentations. If a candidate is successful in each step an offer for a post-doc position or an assistant professorship is possible.