Data and Code for: Info.Econ: Increasing Diversity among Economics Majors

Only 30 percent of senior majors in the top economics departments in the US were women in 1993 and this percentage increased to just 35 percent by 2017 (Lundberg and Sterns 2019), despite the fact that almost 60 percent of bachelor degrees were awarded to women in 2017. Similarly, African Americans and Hispanics account for 5 and 11 percent, respectively, of bachelor degrees awarded in economics nationally. Building on existing research (Bayer 2019; Frick et al. 2018; Li 2018), we consider whether an information campaign, which we branded “Info.Econ”, increases diversity in undergraduate economics courses. To do so, we conduct a randomized control trial among undergraduate students in introductory economics classes at Michigan State University, where the share of women and underrepresented minority students are even lower than national averages. Our first treatment is a series of short videos that provide information about what economics is, who studies economics, and what one can do with an economics degree, with each video featuring diverse MSU undergraduates, alumni, and faculty. As a second arm of the treatment, we provide post-course information on the grade distributions in our introductory courses. We find little impact of the interventions on average, but we find some evidence that first-generation students are more likely to say they plan to major in economics and enroll in additional economics courses from the video treatment. Estimates for URM on majoring are similar but imprecisely estimated.