There is a gender imbalance in undergraduate economics departments with most departments educating a strong majority of young men. This imbalance has led many economists to ponder the question of why relatively few women choose to take courses and major in economics. Our hypothesis is that the...

Address for correspondence : Associate Professor Kevin N. Rask, Department of Economics, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY 13346 USA. The author is grateful to Jill Tiefenthaler, Norman Rask, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments, to Carolyn Edwards, Larry Hudson, and Robert Lowe for...

There is widespread concern, both in the private and public sectors, about perceived declines in U.S. college graduates in STEM fields. In our sample, the proportion of science majors has remained steady over the sample period; however, the number entering our college intending to major in STEM...

This paper uses data on roommates from two different selective institutions to investigate the effect of peers on first-year performance, with a specific focus on the underlying mechanism. We compare measures of academic ability across student sub-groups by race, income, and gender, and across...

The gap between men's and women's choice of college majors has not changed over the past two decades. One aspect of the debate surrounding their choice is the presence or absence of women and minority faculty role models who could attract female and minority students to a particular major. The...