Signaling with the CFA

A reader just sent me this email about signaling with the CFA.  Reprinted anonymously with his permission.

Dear Professor Caplan,

I’ve greatly enjoyed reading your EconLog posts and The Case Against Education, and I have a story about signaling from the world of professional certification that might interest you.  Specifically, it relates to the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) program.

Although I never studied economics or finance in college, I’ve just started working as a quantitative ana...