Richard Freeman, Labor Markets in Action: Essays in Empirical Economics, Harvard University Press, 1990.
Chapter 1: Supply and Salary Adjustments to the Changing Market for Physicists
"At the height of the employment crisis for physicists described in Chapter 1, the chairman of the physics department at Chicago asked me to present my analysis to his department, which I did. When I finished the presentation, the chairman shook his head, frowning deeply. Oh, Millie. Had I made some analytic blunder? A mistake in modeling? Where was my laugh machine when I really needed it? 'You've got us all wrong,' the chairman said gravely. 'You don't understand what motivates people to study physics. We study for the love of knowledge, not for salaries and jobs.' 'But...,' I was prepared to give the Chapter 3 arguments about market incentives operating on some people on the margin, when the students - facing the worst employment prospects for graduating physicists in decades - answered for me with a resounding chorus of boos and hisses. Case closed."
Reproduced with permission of the author.