Economics is among the most popular undergraduate majors. However, even at the best research universities and liberal arts colleges men outnumber women by two to one, and overall there are about 2.5 males to every female economics major. The Undergraduate Women in Economics (UWE) Challenge was...

This paper investigates which attributes of a Carnegie PhD-level institution predict the share of its undergraduate BA recipients that will earn a PhD. Four broad PhD fields are studied: humanities, physical sciences, natural sciences, and social sciences. We use restricted-access,...

We compare student academic performance in traditional twice-a-week and compressed once-a-week lecture formats in introductory microeconomics between one semester in which students were randomly assigned into the formats and another semester when students were allowed to choose their format. In...

This study investigates how being exposed to a field of study influences students' major choices. We exploit a natural experiment at a Swiss university where all first-year students face largely the same curriculum before they choose a major. An important component of the first-year curriculum...

In the 1970s, the American Economic Association (AEA) was one of several professional associations to launch a summer program with the goal of increasing racial and ethnic diversity in its profession. In this paper we estimate the effectiveness of the AEA's program which, to the best of our...

We test whether students in a hybrid format of introductory microeconomics, which met once per week, performed as well as students in a traditional lecture format of the same class, which met twice per week. We randomized 725 students at a large, urban public university into the two formats, and...

One potential method to increase the success of female graduate students in economics may be to encourage mentoring relationships between these students and female faculty members. Increased hiring of female faculty is viewed as one way to promote such mentoring relationships, perhaps because of...

We describe how one can use multivariate regression models and data collected by the National Research Council as part of its recent ranking of doctoral programs (Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States: Continuity and Change) to analyze how measures of program size, faculty seniority,...

Although women are underrepresented in the field of economics, many see little need for intervention, arguing that women are inherently less interested in economics, or are less willing or able to get the math skills skills needed to do well in the subject. At the same time, others support...

We document wide and persistent variation in women's representation and success across graduate programs in economics. Using new data on early career outcomes for recent graduates, including first job placement, publications and promotion, we compare (anonymized) departments on outcomes for...