4 ms·

Aren’t salaries determined by the market? Just to be clear, this isn’t snark. I’m curious how salaried are determined.

by pm90 6y ago

sudosysgen 6y ago
They are determined by the market - mostly - so how much you are paid is going to a function of how replaceable you are, and how much more money the company makes with your position filled or empty, notwithstanding dirty tricks that are somewhat rare.
postingpals 6y ago
Salaries are determined by the market, but no one ever mentions how the market determines it... which is usually some combination of scarcity, quality, and, more realistically, how many connections you have, etc. These things give you bargaining power which you can use to negotiate salaries. (This is all very basic stuff but it's more fleshed out than just saying 'the market determines salary'. The market isn't a magical entity, it is run by human behaviour.)
- klodolph 6y ago
  Yes! The market is the name of the system which sets the salary, but the name has no descriptive power. Just like the opening to the article: > I should have loved biology but I found it to be a lifeless recitation of names…
  - fennecfoxen 6y ago
    "The market" is the name of a place where, once upon a time, you would go to buy things, and perhaps sell some things you made; stable and consistent prices would emerge without any particular rules about how prices for things should be set, or any particular enforcers of the price, but by the dynamics of the supply of the good and the demand for the good.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dnautics 6y ago
  it's an oversupply relative to demand: - lots of washout MDs - lots of students who wanted to postpone adulthood by getting a PhD (master's are just not respected anymore) - lots of PhDs who couldn't hack the academic game or got disillusioned by it and are used to low salaries because postdocs exploit the high-stakes attempt to get social cachet of professorships. - few jobs. Biology is a capital-intensive endeavour, so each dollar of VC can do marginally less. - it's hard to tell the wheat from the chaff in the labor market (and there's probably a market of lab lemons, too), so a superstar's earning potential is necessarily hamstrung
  - jonas21 6y ago
    > Biology is a capital-intensive endeavour Or, looking at it another way, software is a uniquely capital-light endeavor. Many people who have been in the industry for a few years have enough savings that they could just quit their job and try whatever crazy idea they have without any external funding. You can't do that in biology, or most other fields for that matter. Part of the reason software companies pay such high salaries is to make this option less attractive.
mauritzio 6y ago
Salary is higher in areas where the source of money creation is. The current source by our economic design is currently in the banking credit area. Then the business type, telling the story that appears to be the most interesting for these kind of guys, gets most credit, with this credit, all saleries are paid (so independent from real market or need, just based on a 'market' of imagined future value, if we would sell it would be..remember finance crises, people lost real jobs because money creation stopped). So it is no wonder that health care workers get less and others a lot more. Its not really earned but shared along story telling lines. One fairy tail is "market". Unless the banking investment guy gets sick, once in a while, he has no interest for biology or health care, but he likes big machines and cars. Its hard to imagine how biology is usefull for him, unless just to make a lot more money to buy more cars and penthouses, why not 'invest' in that directly?. Just my little theory :-D
adrianN 6y ago
"The market" sucks in situations where bargaining power is unequal, the participants don't have all the information and transaction costs are very high.

Aren’t salaries determined by the market? Just to be clear, this isn’t snark. I’m curious how salaried are determined.

by pm90 6y ago

Aren’t salaries determined by the market? Just to be clear, this isn’t snark. I’m curious how salaried are determined.

They are determined by the market - mostly - so how much you are paid is going to a function of how replaceable you are, and how much more money the company makes with your position filled or empty, notwithstanding dirty tricks that are somewhat rare.

postingpals 6y ago

Salaries are determined by the market, but no one ever mentions how the market determines it... which is usually some combination of scarcity, quality, and, more realistically, how many connections you have, etc. These things give you bargaining power which you can use to negotiate salaries. (This is all very basic stuff but it's more fleshed out than just saying 'the market determines salary'. The market isn't a magical entity, it is run by human behaviour.)

klodolph 6y ago
Yes! The market is the name of the system which sets the salary, but the name has no descriptive power. Just like the opening to the article: > I should have loved biology but I found it to be a lifeless recitation of names…
- fennecfoxen 6y ago
  "The market" is the name of a place where, once upon a time, you would go to buy things, and perhaps sell some things you made; stable and consistent prices would emerge without any particular rules about how prices for things should be set, or any particular enforcers of the price, but by the dynamics of the supply of the good and the demand for the good.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dnautics 6y ago
it's an oversupply relative to demand: - lots of washout MDs - lots of students who wanted to postpone adulthood by getting a PhD (master's are just not respected anymore) - lots of PhDs who couldn't hack the academic game or got disillusioned by it and are used to low salaries because postdocs exploit the high-stakes attempt to get social cachet of professorships. - few jobs. Biology is a capital-intensive endeavour, so each dollar of VC can do marginally less. - it's hard to tell the wheat from the chaff in the labor market (and there's probably a market of lab lemons, too), so a superstar's earning potential is necessarily hamstrung
- jonas21 6y ago
  > Biology is a capital-intensive endeavour Or, looking at it another way, software is a uniquely capital-light endeavor. Many people who have been in the industry for a few years have enough savings that they could just quit their job and try whatever crazy idea they have without any external funding. You can't do that in biology, or most other fields for that matter. Part of the reason software companies pay such high salaries is to make this option less attractive.

mauritzio 6y ago

Salary is higher in areas where the source of money creation is. The current source by our economic design is currently in the banking credit area. Then the business type, telling the story that appears to be the most interesting for these kind of guys, gets most credit, with this credit, all saleries are paid (so independent from real market or need, just based on a 'market' of imagined future value, if we would sell it would be..remember finance crises, people lost real jobs because money creation stopped). So it is no wonder that health care workers get less and others a lot more. Its not really earned but shared along story telling lines. One fairy tail is "market". Unless the banking investment guy gets sick, once in a while, he has no interest for biology or health care, but he likes big machines and cars. Its hard to imagine how biology is usefull for him, unless just to make a lot more money to buy more cars and penthouses, why not 'invest' in that directly?. Just my little theory :-D

adrianN 6y ago

"The market" sucks in situations where bargaining power is unequal, the participants don't have all the information and transaction costs are very high.