The Individual Career, Fortune, and the Economy

Here in New York, at least among the law-students and yuppies with whom I hang, the state of the economy is constantly on the tongues and minds of all. Some of this is, of course, because we are people interested in world events, and economic news is some of the most important news there is, because it affects so many lives. But it's also addressed as a question of self-interest: people are concerned about the economy's effects on their careers. I recently rediscovered an interesting New York Times article on this subject, which provided some links to some research on the topic.
Three studies indicate that students who graduate into a bad economy can harmed in the long-term as a result of beginning their careers with lower-paying jobs. The first (for which only the abstract is available), by Alec Levenson, found that a 3-4 year recession before age 25 had no statistical effect on white men, but did affect the employment rates and hours worked for black men, black women, and white women. This suggests that those whose position in the work force is most tenous are most at risk in a poor economy.
A second study (PDF) indicates that those who graduate in a bust make about 10% less than those who gradudate in a boom. The gap between the graduates closes slowly, lasting around eight years. Interestingly, those who graduate in bad economies move around more, and this contributes about 30% of the eventual rise in their incomes. Switching jobs, sectors, and locations is good for a career, which makes sense, because, being risk averse, most people would not take these risks of unless there was a proportionally larger benefit to doing so. Finally, the most "advantaged" (highest earning capacity) workers are hurt less and recover more quickly than those who make the least.
A third study, by Paul Oyer, that focused on MBAs was more pessimistic in one way, but revealing in others. It found that MBAs who graduated in a bull market were much more likely to take investment banking jobs over other opportunities, and were therefore significantly wealthier in lifetime earnings. So there's the rub: if we measure success/happiness by income, graduating in a bad economy is a Bad Thing.
But maybe there are positive effects to graduating in a bad economy. I-Banking, while lucrative, requires long hours and constant stress, perhaps leading to unhappiness. Some even argue (I think incorrectly) that investment banking serves no useful purpose. So while we could say that those graduates who don't go into investment banking are worse off, we might actually find that they are happier or more fulfilled working in other fields. While classical economics assumes us that more choice is always better, and thus that having the opportunity to work for an investment banking firm is better than not having it, more recent research has shown that sometimes we are better off when more immediately appealing but less inherently valuable choices are restricted.
So how should we, as young people, students, people at the beginning of our careers, think about the economy? We should not hesitate to follow it as an interesting and meaningful world event. But its effect on our well-being is not clear, for more reasons than I can list. A salesman who is forced into a government position because of a poor economy might find himself happier and more fulfilled later in life, because the choice to work harder and longer and make more money is not available to him, allowing him build firmer relationships with family and friends. The idea that we can't know the economy's effect on our own lives would seem to endorse taking a more stoic, come-what-will attitude. Or we could take the other route: Oyer, the author of the MBA study, recommends that those interested in careers in finance place a large short on financial markets before they enter school to ameliorate their risk. Finance-bots would do well to follow his advice.