The impacts of same and opposite gender alumni speakers on interest in economics

2024/09/03 by Arpita Patnaik, Gwyn Pauley, Joanna Venator +1
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Higher Education Research Studies #Innovations in Educational Methods #Labor market dynamics and wage inequality

paper · doi:10.1016/j.econedurev.2024.102579

openalex publication_date 2024/09/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/26

Abstract

This paper evaluates the impact of a series of male and female alumni speaker interventions in introductory microeconomics courses on student interest in economics. Using student-level transcript data, we estimate the effect of speakers in models which use untreated lectures as control groups, including professor and semester-year fixed effects and student-level covariates. Alumni speakers increase intermediate economics course take-up by 1.7–2.1 percentage points (9–12%). Students are more responsive to same-gender speakers, with male speakers increasing men’s course take-up by 36–38% and female speakers increasing women’s course take-up by 37–40% implying that the effect of alumni speakers is strongly gendered.

Citations

• The Impact of Teacher–Student Gender Matches
• Do Faculty Serve as Role Models? The Impact of Instructor Gender on Female Students
• The role of grade sensitivity in explaining the gender imbalance in undergraduate economics
• Dealing with limited overlap in estimation of average treatment effects
• Efficient Estimation of Average Treatment Effects Using the Estimated Propensity Score
• The Effect of Same-Gender or Same-Race Role Models on Occupation Choice