Recent Trends in Undergraduate Economics Degrees

Siegfried, John J.; Scott, Charles E.

doi:10.2307/1182942

Cited by 23 publications

(23 citation statements)

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“…The significance of this result must be tempered by the fact that there were only two liberal arts institutions in the New Jersey sample used in this study. This result is consistent with the contention of others that the decline in economics graduates is related to the decreasing interest in business education in the 1990s [Siegfried and Scott, 1994;Siegfried, 1995;Willis and Pieper, 1996;Brasfield, Harrison, McCoy, and Milkman, 1996].…”

Section: Aej June 2003 Vol 31 Nosupporting

confidence: 92%

“…Several authors suggest that whether an institution is public or private and whether it is liberal arts or comprehensive may influence the decision to major in economics [Siegfried and Scott, 1994;Siegfried, 1995;1997;1998]. Hence, two dllmruy variables were included in the model to account for the influence of qualitative factors on the decision to major in economics.…”

Section: Qualitative Factors Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Trends in U.S. economics majors: Why the decline in the 1990s?

Skoorka

Condon

2003

Atlantic Economic Journal

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This paper identifies factors that are important in explaining recent trends in un-The ProblemThe number of bachelor's degrees granted in economics decreased in the United States during the 1990s, with a possible reversal of that trend in the late 1990s [Siegfried, 1997;. It is therefore important to identify the salient factors that influence these trends, so that we may conjecture the root causes of them, and then identify what remedial measures can be taken, if appropriate. Although a large body of literature discusses this decrease at the national level, this literature focuses mainly on the need to upgrade teaching skills and methods in an effort to increase student interest in the study of economics [Becket, 1997;Colander, 2000]. No studies attempt to explain the decrease in economics degrees in terms of the impacts of the business cycle and of demographics on the number of degrees granted. The authors suspect that perhaps these factors are important. This paper is organized as follows. The second section justifies the use of New Jersey data in the study. The third section presents the model and discusses each of the independent variables. The fourth section discusses the empirical implementation and the fifth section discusses the results. The sixth section discusses the importance of controlling for wages and employment, and the seventh section presents conclusions.

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Section: Aej June 2003 Vol 31 Nosupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Qualitative Factors Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trends in U.S. economics majors: Why the decline in the 1990s?

Skoorka

Condon

2003

Atlantic Economic Journal

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“…Although over half of women students enroll in the introductory course, only 10 percent go on to major in economics. This percentage has been falling for over 10 years (Siegfried and Scott, 1994).…”

Section: Learning Stylesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discovering Diversity in Introductory Economics

Bartlett

1996

Journal of Economic Perspectives

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A bout one million students each year take a course in introductory economics, which means that a great deal of diversity already exists in introductory economics courses. Even a seemingly homogeneous group of students within a single class will come from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds and have varied abilities, skills and diverse interests. These students can serve as a valuable source of information about the impact of race and gender on economic events. Their personal stories can supplement the data from published sources. Incorporating race and gender will provide more realism in describing and explaining economic life; it should also encourage a more varied group of students to investigate economics courses.Peggy McIntosh (1983McIntosh ( , 1990) was one of the first to offer a model of how to integrate race and gender into the content of any discipline, including economics. At the outset, economics, like any other discipline, is universal in time and place. Considerations of race and gender are irrelevant since the analysis applies to every human being. Many introductory economics textbooks and courses operate at this first stage.Feiner and Morgan (1987) found that women were mentioned less than 1 percent of the time in 21 leading introductory textbooks. When they were mentioned, the texts tended to put them in special chapters on "women's issues" or "special topics" like discrimination or poverty. In a reexamination of 16 of these texts, Feiner (1993) found that while five textbooks had increased their coverage, three textbooks had decreased their coverage. Ferber (1995) reviewed nine leading textbooks to find that the influx of married women into the labor force-one of

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“…Some found that role models were not an important factor in whether women choose to major in economics (Ehrenberg, Goldhaber and Brewer, 1995;Robb and Robb, 1999;Swope and Schmitt, 2006) while others reached the opposite conclusion (Rask andBailey, 2002, Rothstein 1995). 7 In any case, however, the bottom line is that women do not perform as well in their economics courses as they do in others (Jensen and Owen, International Review of Economics Education 14 30-32 per cent (Siegfried and Scott, 1994;Siegfried, 2008). 2 Similarly unbalanced percentages have been found in other countries.…”

Section: From the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Political Orientation and the Decision to Major in Economics: Some Preliminary Observations

Bartlett¹,

Ferber²,

Green³

2009

International Review of Economics Education

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Studies find that students major in economics for a variety of reasons. None, however, have examined students' political orientations as a possible factor in their choice of majors. Economics, as compared to other social sciences, tends to produce conservative policy recommendations.This pilot study explores whether more conservative students are attracted to economics. Our study found that men with conservative political leanings are more likely to major in economics and that male students in economics are more conservative than female students. Political orientation, however, does not appear to be a significant factor in the choice of a major for women.

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Recent Trends in Undergraduate Economics Degrees

Cited by 23 publications

References 1 publication

Trends in U.S. economics majors: Why the decline in the 1990s?

Trends in U.S. economics majors: Why the decline in the 1990s?

Discovering Diversity in Introductory Economics

Political Orientation and the Decision to Major in Economics: Some Preliminary Observations

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