Econ Consulting Ranking
So i know there is some ranking on econ consulting here but most of them are outdated (5+ years).
What's the general consensus now?
Cornerstone, NERA, CRA, AG, Compass Lexecon, etc.
I know Cornerstone pays the best and probably has the most PhD recruits, and they have some famous antitrust cases recently (Jetblue). But antitrust usually isn't the bread and butter for Econ consulting.
So what's the consensus now?
Based on the most helpful WSO content, here's the current consensus on the ranking and prestige of economic consulting firms:
Major Firms in Economic Consulting:
Additional Notable Firms:
Key Points:
This list reflects the firms that are currently considered top-tier in the economic consulting space, with Cornerstone Research being particularly notable for its compensation and recruitment of PhDs.
Sources: Economic Consulting Q&A - Past experience at major firms, 2023 Consulting Tier List, Economic Consulting Q&A - Past experience at major firms, 2023 Consulting Tier List, My View on the Current Top 10 Strategy Consulting Firms
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Huh? Antitrust absolutely is the bread and butter of econ consulting. It's like the biggest or second biggest practice at all of those firms.
The consensus hasn't changed from before. CR / CRA / AG / NERA are still the biggest players and strong at multiple core practices, they'll get many big name cases. Compass is still top tier at antitrust. There's other smaller firms with strong practices like Brattle (energy), Bates White (antitrust), Berkeley Research (finance), Keystone (tech). AlixPartners and A&M also do some econ work.
There's differences in work style between each firm but prestige (whatever that means for econ consulting) is pretty much equal within those groups.
Sorry I wasn’t clear. I meant high profile court case like JetBlue (happen maybe handful of time a year in a good year?).
but I also thought finance/ securities/ip breaches are more common practice ?
There's lots of high profile antitrust cases each year. There's too many M&A reviews or litigations for each major firm to not get a share. I mean just this year off the top of my head you have all the Big Tech cases, Microsoft / Activision, Visa, AA / Jetblue, Kroger / Albertsons, NAR / Realpage, Ticketmaster, NCAA ... these are just some of the most famous litigations this year.
For each of these there's a very high chance that an econ consulting firm (and often several) is going to be involved somehow. And then you have all the antitrust cases in industries and companies that your average Joe won't care about or even know about, but that doesn't mean they're not high profile.
The largest antitrust cases also take a very long time from start to finish so even if "a handful" were true, it's not the meaningful metric. The Google antitrust cases are years in the making. Finance / securities might have "more" cases, but a single 10b5 securities case for some widget company brings in a lot less revenue and involves much fewer people than the AA / Jetblue litigation.
Antitrust + securities / finance are the largest practices. Then probably some mix of transfer pricing / IP / energy.
Don't work in it, but I've heard pretty mid things about econ consulting. Working hours seem pretty rough, pay is significantly worse than finance and most economists don't dream of antitrust and helping monopolists...
This is wrong. Econ consulting has much better work life balance than finance and pretty comparable pay if you divide by the hours. Finance doesn't usually sponsor grad schools, but top econ consulting firms sponsor MBAs, MScs, and JDs. Also econ consulting is not all economists working on antitrust cases -- econ consulting covers any legal, policymaking, or regulatory matters you imagine can happen in business/government settings.
Do you happen to know which firms sponsor and which ones doesn't? (I know Cornerstone does but I haven't received any info for other firms)
Honestly you should ask this to one of your Econ professors, specifically someone who teaches/does research on a lot of antitrust issues. He may actually have experience in the space.
Two of my closest professors
One hates econ consulting he thinks they are a bunch of PhD who are not really contributing to the society
One testified for a firm so he's def biased
LOL
Best for pay: AG & Cornerstone
Best reputation: Cornerstone
Best grad school placement: Cornerstone
Best office: AG (All Analysts at AG have their own office)
Best culture, diversity, and WLB: AG
Most high profile clients: Shared among all firms, and a client might be working with multiple firms at the same time
Oldest: NERA and CRA
AG pays 90k I am not sure how it's best for pay tbh
AG pays 96.2k base, 17.5k sign-on bonus, and up to ~24k performance bonus for Analysts. This is only sightly below Cornerstone, which has higher base but lower bonuses.
Any insights on CRA pay and MBA exits?
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