Data on 2,822 Vanderbilt University graduates are used to investigate alumni giving behavior during the eight years after graduation. A two stage model accounting for incidental truncation is used to first estimate the likelihood of making a contribution and second estimate the average gift size...

To ask whether the best-informed consumers of higher education, the faculty, make different choices than other similarly endowed consumers, we compare the pattern of colleges chosen by 5,592 children of college and university faculty with the pattern chosen by the children of non-faculty...

We report early career outcomes of economics Ph.D.s by tracking the U.S. class of 1996-97. We examine employment outcomes, work activities, salaries, and graduates' attitudes toward their jobs. By 2003, all of the respondents were employed, although almost half changed employers during the six...

Information about 586 individuals who matriculated into 27 economics Ph.D. programs in Fall 2002 is used to estimate first and second year attrition rates. After two years, 26.5 percent of the initial cohort had left, equally divided between the first and second years. Attrition varies widely...

We document the types of undergraduate colleges and universities attended by those who earned a doctorate in economics from an American university from 1966 through 2003 and examine relationships between type of undergraduate institution and attrition and time-to-degree in Ph.D. programs. The...

This paper reports results from a survey of the labor market experience of the 2001-02 class of Ph.D. economists. We estimate that 850 economics Ph.D.s were awarded by U.S. universities in 2001-02, down about 100 from five years earlier. Of these, 28 percent were women, and 37 percent U.S....

Simon Rottenberg long ago noted that the nature of sports is such that competitors must be of approximately equal ability if any are to be financially successful. In recent years, sports commentators and fans, Major League Baseball itself, and even some economists have expressed growing concern...

Membership and conference attendance trends of regional economics associations are reported and analyzed. Although membership and conference attendance grow steadily at the American Economic Association, both are stagnant for the regional associations. Membership elasticity for economics...

Random effects estimates using panel data for 42 colleges and universities over 16 years reveal that the economics faculty size of universities offering a Ph.D. in economics is determined primarily by the long-run average number of Ph.D. degrees awarded annually; the number of full-time faculty...

We investigate which of the students who entered economics Ph.D. programs in fall 2002 were more likely to earn a Ph.D. within five years, and which were more likely to have dropped out. Students enrolled in Top-15 ranked programs are less likely to have dropped out, but no more likely than...