That's not really relevant. Ariely was an economics professor in the business school at MIT. He then got an offer as a chaired professor at Duke (certainly with a big raise). Economics professors at top schools have very high salaries relative to most fields, but chaired professors with big media profiles get way more than that.

If you want to see what I'm talking about, here's the data for the first full professor of economics at Michigan that popped into my head. His salary last year was $466K:

https://www.umsalary.info/index.php?FName=&LName=shapiro&Yea...

That's normal for the elite schools. There were rumors 10 years ago that Chicago made a 7-figure offer (denied by the department head at the time).

Edit: To be clear, this is what wealthy schools pay. Salaries fall quickly once you exit the top 15 or 20.