According to [this chart](WSJ.com) from the Wall Street Journal (which is based upon Payscale data, which isn’t the most accurate), economics has the highest starting salaries out of college, followed by finance, then business management, and then marketing. By mid-career, the order goes economics, finance, marketing, and then business management.
Georgetown’s Center for Workforce Education did a similar study, but they used American Community Survey data instead - which I tend to think is more accurate since the ACS is a representative slice of the U.S. population. Also, CWE separates out people by their degree - the WSJ chart includes people with graduate degrees and BAs all in the same pot, whereas the CWE analysis separates recent college grads, experienced grads, and grads with grad degrees.Their reported average starting salaries are a bit lower than the WSJ chart’s (and, in terms of the mid-career salary, quite a bit lower). Economics still comes out on top, followed by finance. Business management and marketing have about the same starting salary. By 5+ years out, economics majors still made the most, followed by finance, then marketing and then management.
However, I think that’s likely due to the skills acquired in those majors and the types of jobs those majors tend to gravitate towards. Economics and finance are both heavily quantitative fields, and economics and finance majors with the advanced quant skills can enter quant jobs that are well-compensated positions. Marketing and management are more generalized, but marketing can grow to be more specialized and marketing also has the research component, which may be why marketing majors rise above mid-career.
But here’s something else to consider, which is - are the differences big enough to be the deciding factor in your choice? All four majors report mid-career salaries in the six figures for the WSJ chart. (I think these are overinflated.) By the CWE chart, they are all in the $60-75K range, and for grad degrees they’re all in the $80-100K range. And they’re just averages - it really all depends on what you do. A marketing major may go into marketing at a top tech company whereas a finance major crunches numbers at a nonprofit. A management major can rise to the top at a Fortune 500 company whereas an economics major may languish at middle management at a smaller firm. Or, frankly, that marketing major can decide mid-career they want to be a data scientist instead and get the credentials to make a career change, or may simply acquire additional skills (like programming and statistics) that make him more marketable. The charts can’t account for that; they only measure undergrad major.
The CWE is the only chart that has unemployment by major. For recent college grads, unemployment is worst for economics (10.1%), followed by management (7.8%), marketing (6.8%) and then finance (5.9%). But by 5+ years out of college, they’ve evened themselves out: marketing is 5.9%, economics is only 5.3%, business management is 4.7% and finance is 4.0%. And remember that these are just plain point estimates; there’s probably no real significant difference between an unemployment rate of 4.0% and one of 4.7%.
The answer is, any of those majors can make you marketable as a consultant or executive. People are hired into those roles because of their experience; by the time they get far enough in their careers to be considered for those roles, nobody cares what they majored in in undergrad 15-20+ years ago. (And if you’re talking about strategy or management consulting, the most important thing to do that entry-level is the school you go to. A philosophy major at Harvard has a better chance of joining McK than a business major at UMass-Boston.)
It depends on what you want to be an executive of or who you want to be a consultant to, too.