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For undergraduate students with major interests in the history and/or philosophy of
economics, and uninterested in pursuing careers as "serious mainstream economists",
obtaining a mainsteam-oriented Ph.D. in economics would seem to be the professional
equivalent of becoming a KGB mole in the F.B.I.  Far better to take Roy's suggestion and
do the Ph.D. in another area more closely related to their major interests, if career
satisfaction is their goal.
 
One of my best undergraduates two years back chose the Rice University Ph.D. program in
intellectual history as a program more suited to his interests than the math econ programs
at mainsteam universities.  He just couldn't see
himself spending precious years of his life studying something in which he would be
expected to teach and do research, with only a distant hope of doing research of interest
to him after tenure.
 
On the expected future income question, I certainly hope that Ph.D. students in mainstream
programs, who really are uninterested in doing or teaching mainsteam theory, are not in it
for the money.  If it's money they want, the income prospects are much better for M.B.A.
graduates who rise even to middle management positions with MacDonald's--and they would
have more spare time to study the philosophy and/or history of economics.  Of course, if
they published anything it would be read by few mainsteam economists;
however, it is possible not to care about that. 
 
Sam Bostaph 
 
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