Date: Mon, 01 Dec 1997 08:40:43 -0500
From: tombrown@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Thomas F Brown)
Subject: Re: reports on labor market
To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu
Message-id: <199712011340.IAA24627@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>

The micro-macro link is not so easily made. Predicting a
macro-level outcome by aggregating individual actions
is risking the fallacy of composition--incorrectly
concluding that what is true of the part is also
true of the whole.

For example, rising demand for cocoa may make the cocoa
workers more valuable, and thus raise their wages. Or
it might lead to extensive development in the cocoa
industry instead, in which case you would simply have
more cocoa workers being exploited at the same rate.
Or there may be other possibilities. 

The same error could be made with regards to academic
prestige. For example, if many new phds had a greater
preference for working at teaching colleges, does that
necessarily mean that the prestige of the present Top 10
is going to fall accordingly? I don't think there is a 
causal effect at all from the preferences of entry-level
professors on institutional prestige.