CSWEP: Related Literature

Annotated Bibliography on Research Related to Women in the Economics Profession

Compiled by:
Donna K. Ginther, University of Kansas, Department of Economics
Janet Stefanov, Vanderbilt University

Abrevaya, J., & Hamermesh, D. (2012). Charity and Favoritism in the Field: Are Female Economists Nicer to Each Other? The Review of Economics and Statistics, 94(1), 202-207.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/41349169

Using a very large sample of matched author-referee pairs, we examine how the gender of referees and authors affects the former’s recommendations. Relying on changing matches of authors and referees, we find no evidence of gender differences among referees in charitableness toward authors; nor do we find any effect of the interaction between the referees’ and authors’ gender. With substantial research showing gender differences in fairness, the results suggest that an ethos of objectivity can overcome tendencies toward same-group favoritism/opposite-group discrimination.

Addis, Elisabetta & Villa, Paola (2003). The Editorial Boards of Italian Economics Journals: Women, Gender, and Social Networking. Feminist Economics, 9(1), 75-91. https://doi.org/10.1080/1354570032000057062

In Italy, women's advancement in economics has been curtailed by the structure of editorial boards of Italian economics journals. In this paper, we examine the presence of men and women economists on the editorial boards of thirty-six Italian economics journals published since 1970 and analyze the gender distribution across different kinds of boards, roles, and fields. Because boards are hierarchically ordered, women work mostly in the lower positions, and the increase in women's participation has led only to more "editorial secretaries." Since men and women tend to have different scientific interests and men's standards of academic value prevail, women economists cannot build publication records as strong as those of their male colleagues, which, in turn, affects women's hiring, promotion, and wages, as well as the shape of the discipline.

Aerni, April Laskey, Bartlett, Robin L., Lewis, Margaret, Mcgoldrick, KimMarie, & Shackelford, Jean (1999). Toward A Feminist Pedagogy In Economics. Feminist Economics, 5(1), 29-44. https://doi.org/10.1080/135457099338139

Feminist economists have used feminist thought to analyze and revise the discipline of economics. This paper extends these analyses to the teaching of economics in college and suggests that feminist teaching methods might serve economists well in transforming the economics classroom to one that is more hospitable to wider audiences. The approach explored proceeds from the intersections of two avenues for incorporating more inclusive teaching methods. In the McIntosh tradition, stages for making course contents more inclusive are presented along with a discussion of how to develop inclusive classroom learning environments. The interaction of contents and methods and the implications of feminist thought for the teaching of economics are explored.

Agan, Amanda, Bo Cowgill, and Laura Katherine Gee. 2020. Do Workers Comply with Salary History Bans? A Survey on Voluntary Disclosure, Adverse Selection, and Unraveling. AEA Papers and Proceedings,110, 215-19. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/pandp.20201123

Salary history bans forbid employers from asking job candidates to disclose their salaries. However, applicants can still volunteer this information. Our theoretical model predicts that the effect of these laws varies by how workers comply. Our survey of Americans in the labor force finds candidates fall into three compliance types: 25 percent always disclose their salary whether asked or not, 17 percent never disclose, and 58 percent comply with the ban. Importantly, compliance type varies by demographics (e.g. always-disclosers are more male, compliers are more female), and workers are more likely to disclose as others do the same, which suggests unraveling.

Ahlstrom, Laura J., and Carlos J. Asarta. 2019. "The Gender Gap in Undergraduate Economics Course Persistence and Degree Selection." AEA Papers and Proceedings, 109: 255-60. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/pandp.20191103

This study examines male and female course persistence and choice of economics degree via a combination of student, instructor, and structural characteristics. We find that students of both genders who declare economics as their major are more likely to take additional economics courses than their non-major peers. Additionally, students' economics grades are a significant determinant of course persistence and degree selection, but men and women respond somewhat differently to their absolute and relative grades. Finally, men's economics degree selection is significantly correlated with their math abilities, while women's economics degree selection is correlated with both their math and verbal aptitudes.

Anderson, David & Tressler, John (2011). Ranking Economics Departments In Terms of Residual Productivity: New Zealand Economics Department, 2000-2006. Australian Economic Papers. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8454.2011.00418.x

This paper considers a new approach for ranking the research productivity of academic departments. Our approach provides rankings in terms of residual research output after controlling for the key characteristics of each department’s academic staff. More specifically, we estimate residual research output rankings for all of New Zealand’s economics departments based on their publication performance over the 2000 to 2006 period. We do so after taking into account the following characteristics of each department’s academic staff: gender, experience, seniority, academic credentials, and academic rank. The paper concludes with a comparison of rankings generated by the residual research approach with those generated by traditional approaches to research rankings.

Antecol, Heather, Bedard, Kelly, & Stearn, Jenna (2018). Equal but Inequitable: Who Benefits from Gender-Neutral Tenure Clock Stopping Policies? American Economic Review, 108 (9), 2420-41. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.20160613

Many skilled professional occupations are characterized by an early period of intensive skill accumulation and career establishment. Examples include law firm associates, surgical residents, and untenured faculty at research-intensive universities. High female exit rates are sometimes blamed on the inability of new mothers to survive the sustained negative productivity shock associated with childbearing and early childrearing in these environments. Gender-neutral family policies have been adopted in some professions in an attempt to "level the playing field." The gender-neutral tenure clock stopping policies adopted by the majority of research-intensive universities in the United States in recent decades are an excellent example. But to date, there is no empirical evidence showing that these policies help women. Using a unique data set on the universe of assistant professor hires at top-50 economics departments from 1980-2005, we show that the adoption of gender-neutral tenure clock stopping policies substantially reduced female tenure rates while substantially increasing male tenure rates. However, these policies do not reduce the probability that either men or women eventually earn tenure in the profession.

Avilova, Tatyana and Goldin, Claudia (2018). What Can UWE Do for Economics? NBER Working Paper No. w24189. https://www.nber.org/papers/w24189.pdf

Men outnumber women as undergraduate economics majors by three to one nationwide. Even at the best research universities and liberal arts colleges men outnumber women by two to one or more. The Undergraduate Women in Economics Challenge was begun in 2015 as an RCT with 20 treatment schools and at least 30 control schools to evaluate whether better course information, mentoring, encouragement, career counseling, and more relevant instructional content could move the needle. Although the RCT is still in the field, results from several within treatment-school randomized trials demonstrate that uncomplicated and inexpensive interventions can substantially increase the interest of women to major in economics.

Babcock, Linda, Recalde, Maria P., Vesterlund, Lise, and Weingart, Laurie (2017). Gender Differences in Accepting and Receiving Requests for Tasks with Low Promotability. American Economic Review, 107 (3),714-47. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.20141734

Gender differences in task allocations may sustain vertical gender segregation in labor markets. We examine the allocation of a task that everyone prefers be completed by someone else (writing a report, serving on a committee, etc.) and find evidence that women, more than men, volunteer, are asked to volunteer, and accept requests to volunteer for such tasks. Beliefs that women, more than men, say yes to tasks with low promotability appear as an important driver of these differences. If women hold tasks that are less promotable than those held by men, then women will progress more slowly in organizations.

Bagues, Manuel, Sylos-Labini, Mauro, & Natalia Zinovyeva, Natalia (2014). Do gender quotas pass the test? Evidence from academic evaluations in Italy. LEM Papers Series 2014/14, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM). https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2457487

This papers studies how the presence of women in academic committees affects the chances of success of male and female candidates. We exploit evidence from Italy, where candidates to Full and Associate Professor positions are required to qualify in a nation-wide evaluation known as Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale. In 2013, this evaluation was conducted in 184 academic disciplines and they involved around 70,000 applications and one thousand evaluators who were selected through a lottery. We estimate the causal effect of committees' gender composition on candidates' chances of success exploiting the random assignment of evaluators to committees. In a five-member committee, each additional female evaluator decreases by 2 percentage points the success rate of female candidates relative to male candidates. Information from 274,000 individual evaluation reports shows that, in mixed-gender committees, male and female evaluators are equally biased against female candidates, suggesting that the presence of women in the committee affects the voting behavior of male evaluators.

Bagues, M., Sylos-Labini, M. & Zinovyeva, N.  (2015). Does the gender composition of scientific committees matter? IZA Discussion Paper No. 9199. http://ftp.iza.org/dp9199.pdf

An increasing number of countries are introducing gender quotas in scientific committees. We analyze how a larger presence of female evaluators affects committee decision-making using information on 100,000 applications to associate and full professorships in all academic disciplines in two countries, Italy and Spain. These applications were assessed by 8,000 evaluators who were selected through a random draw. A larger number of women in evaluation committees does not increase either the quantity or the quality of female candidates who qualify. If anything, when evaluators' are not familiar with candidates' research area, gender-mixed committees tend to be less favorable towards female candidates than all-male committees, with the exception of evaluations to full professorships in Spain. Data from 300,000 individual voting reports suggests that men become less favorable towards female candidates as soon as a woman joins the committee.

Bansak, C. & Starr, M. (2010). Gender Differences in Predispositions towards Economics. Eastern Economic Journal, 36, 33. https://doi.org/10.1057/eej.2008.50

Research has found that women tend to have more negative predispositions towards studying economics than men, which contributes to their underrepresentation in the field. This paper uses survey data on principles students at a large state university to investigate causes of this difference. We find that students widely view economics as a business-oriented field that prioritizes math skills and making money — a combination that is a turnoff for women, but not so much men. Thus, emphasizing uses of economics for social welfare analysis, while de-emphasizing its business applications, may help to rebalance predispositions at the outset of the principles class.

Barbezat, Debra A. (2006). Gender Differences in Research Patterns Among PhD Economists. The Journal of Economic Education, 37(3), 359-375. 10.3200/JECE.37.3.359-375

This study is based on a 1996 survey of PhD economists working in the academic and nonacademic sectors since 1989. Despite a raw gender difference in all types of research output, the male dummy variable proves statistically significant in predicting only one publication measure. In a full sample and faculty subsample, number of years since receipt of PhD, publication in a refereed journal as a graduate student, and the total number of presentations made in professional forums were consistently, positively related to research productivity. The importance of other independent variables varies by research output. Typically unavailable variables such as workload, time use, submissions data, and family circumstances are also examined.

Bartlett, R. (1998). CSWEP: 25 Years at a Time. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 12(4), 177-183. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2646901

The history and achievements of the American Economic Association's (AEA) Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP) over the past twenty-five years are reviewed. A picture of women's standing in the economics profession in 1972 is drawn with statistics on the number of women on economics faculties, on prestigious editorial boards, and on the AEA program at its national meeting. While 1997 statistics reveal considerable progress for women in the profession, several questions and challenges for the next twenty-five years are outlined with suggestions as to how CSWEP hopes to address them.

Bartlett, Robin, L. (1999). Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. American Economic Review, 89(2), 492-498. https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=692

The representation of women in the economics profession has increased dramatically since CSWEP was established. For example, women’s share of Ph.D.’s awarded in economics more than tripled between 1972 and 2003, from 7.6 to 27.9 percent.1 Similarly, women have dramatically increased their representation among faculty. In 1972 women were only 8.8 percent of assistant professors, 3.7 percent of associate professors and 2.4 percent of full professors— comprising, overall, less than five percent of faculty members in these ranks. By 2004, their representation among assistant professors had tripled to 26.5 percent; gains at the higher ranks were proportionately even larger as women’s share of associate professors increased to 20.5 percent and of full professors to 8.5 percent—with women comprising 15.0 percent of all faculty in these ranks.

Bayer, Amanda, & Rouse, Cecilia Elena (2016). Diversity in the Economics Profession: A New Attack on an Old Problem. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 30 (4), 221-242. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.30.4.221

The economics profession includes disproportionately few women and members of historically underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups, relative both to the overall population and to other academic disciplines. This underrepresentation within the field of economics is present at the undergraduate level, continues into the ranks of the academy, and is barely improving over time. It likely hampers the discipline, constraining the range of issues addressed and limiting our collective ability to understand familiar issues from new and innovative perspectives. In this paper, we first present data on the numbers of women and underrepresented minority groups in the profession. We then offer an overview of current research on the reasons for the underrepresentation, highlighting evidence that may be less familiar to economists. We argue that implicit attitudes and institutional practices may be contributing to the underrepresentation of women and minorities at all stages of the pipeline, calling for new types of research and initiatives to attack the problem. We then review evidence on how diversity affects productivity and propose remedial interventions as well as findings on effectiveness. We identify several promising practices, programs, and areas for future research.

Bender, Keith A., Heywood, John S. (2006). Job Satisfaction of the Highly Educated: The Role of Gender, Academic Tenure, and Earnings. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 53(2), 253-279. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9485.2006.00379.x

The determinants of job satisfaction are estimated for PhD‐level scientists in the United States across academic and nonacademic sectors. In initial estimates, female scientists report lower job satisfaction than males in academia but higher job satisfaction than males in the nonacademic sector. While academic scientists with tenure have substantially greater job satisfaction than nonacademic scientists, we show that the magnitude of this influence varies by gender. After correcting for the lower evaluation placed by females both on earnings and on tenure, female academic scientists actually match nonacademic scientists in reporting greater job satisfaction than men.

Beneito, P., Boscá, J. E. , Ferri, J., & García, M. (2018). Women Across Subfields in Economics: Relative Performance and Beliefs. Working Paper. http://documentos.fedea.net/pubs/dt/2018/dt2018-06.pdf

The relative scarcity of female students enrolling in economics has become entrenched over the last decade. We provide evidence of gender differences in performance and in preferences across subfields of the discipline and explore students’ beliefs about the profession and their opinions on different subjects. The areas where women stand out relative to men are those that seem to be least well known to our students. We work on three fronts. First, using web scraping and machine learning techniques, we document the relative presence of women across subfields in recent AEA annual meetings. Macroeconomics and finance register the greatest scarcity of women. Second, using administrative records for economics students in a large public university in Spain from 2010 to 2014, we find that women outperform men in microeconomics, while men outperform women in macroeconomics, more evidently in the upper tail of the grades distribution. Finally, data gathered through a self-statement survey given to economics majors reveal that (i) they hold a macroeconomics-biased view of the economics profession; (ii) they exhibit gender differences in their perceptions of the interest and difficulty inherent in different subfields (macro vs. microeconomics); and (iii) their interests and performance are influenced differently by their male and female peers in macro and microeconomics subjects. Taken together, these three pieces of evidence provide a plausible explanation as to why women are relatively less attracted than men to economics, and suggest lines of action to redress the imbalance.

Bergmann, Barbara R. (1998). Two Cheers for CSWEP?. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 12 (4),185-189. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.12.4.185

The achievements (or lack thereof) of the AEA's Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP) are compared to those of analogous committees in three of our sister disciplines. In psychology, sociology, and history, committees of women professionals advocated and facilitated radical changes in the disciplines' treatment of issues involving gender. They also fought effectively for a far bigger role for women professionals in their disciplines. In the economics profession, the treatment of women's issues and the marginalization of women professionals remain problematic, despite the quarter century of CSWEP's existence.

Bertrand, Marianne. 2020. Gender in the Twenty-First Century. AEA Papers and Proceedings, 110, 1-24. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/pdf/doi/10.1257/pandp.20201126

In a moment when rising inequalities are fuel- ing populist anger and fears about the future of democratic institutions, the gender angle to the inequality narrative undeniably provides one of the greatest causes for optimism. Across the world, gender gaps in education and labor force participation are on the decline. In the devel- oped world, which will be my focus for much of this lecture, the gender gap in average full-time labor market earnings continues to contract, with women, albeit slowly, improving their rep- resentation in the upper echelons of the income distribution.

Bhattacharjee, Subhra, Herriges, Joseph A., & L. Kling, Catherine L. The Status of Women in Environmental Economics. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 1(2), 212–227. https://doi.org/10.1093/reep/rem017

This article examines the status of women in the environmental economics profession in terms of their representation and impact. Three indicators are used to gauge the status of women in the profession. They are the representation of women in academia in the United States and Canada, the publication profiles of female environmental economists, and the representation of women in the roles of leadership within the professional association and lead journal of the profession. In a survey of schools with graduate programs in environmental economics, we find that female environmental economists are better represented in the faculty of non-economics departments than in those of economics departments. A study of the publication profiles of women in the profession's main journal, the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, indicates that women publish fewer articles on average than their male counterparts, and their papers receive fewer citations on average. Women are well represented in the leadership of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and also in editorial positions at the Journal of Environment Economics and Management.

Blackaby, D. & Frank, J. (2000). Ethnic and Other Minority Representation in UK Academic Economics. The Economic Journal, 110(464), F293-F311. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2566130

Using a survey questionnaire of academic economists in the United Kingdom, we examine the representation of ethnic and other minorities. We find that nearly 12% of UK‐employed academic economists are of ethnic minority origin. However, only 1% of the sample are UK‐born ethnic minority. Controlling for individual and workplace characteristics, there is no significant ethnic minority effect on academic rank. However, there is a significant negative earnings effect. Further, 41% of ethnic minority economists feel that they have suffered workplace discrimination.

Blackaby, D., Booth, A., & Frank, J. (2005). Outside Offers and the Gender Pay Gap: Empirical Evidence from the UK Academic Labor Market. The Economic Journal, 115(501), F81-F107. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3590464

Using a unique data source on academic economist labor market experiences, we explore gender, pay and promotions. In addition to earnings and productivity measures, we have information on outside offers and perceptions of discrimination. We find both a gender promotions gap and a within‐rank gender pay gap. A driving factor may be outside offers: men receive more outside offers than women of comparable characteristics, and gain higher pay increases in response. This may arise due to discrimination. We find that perceptions of discrimination and also outside job applications correlate with an individual receiving earnings below that expected, given their characteristics.

Blank, Rebecca M. (1991). The Effects of Double-Blind versus Single-Blind Reviewing: Experimental Evidence from The American Economic Review. American Economic Review, American Economic Association, 81(5), 1041-1067.https://www.jstor.org/stable/2006906

The results from a randomized experiment conducted at the American Economic Review on the effects of double-blind versus single-blind peer reviewing on acceptance rates and referee rating indicate that acceptance rates are lower and referees are more critical when the reviewer is unaware of the author's identity. These patterns are not significantly different between female and male authors. Authors at top-ranked universities and at colleges and low-ranked universities are largely unaffected by the different reviewing practices, but the authors at near-top-ranked universities and at nonacademic institutions have lower acceptance rates under double-blind reviewing.

Blau, Francine D., Currie, Janet M., Croson, Rachel T.A., and Ginther, Donna K. (2010). Can Mentoring Help Female Assistant Professors? Interim Results From a Randomized Trial. NBER Working Paper 15707. https://www.nber.org/papers/w15707.pdf

While much has been written about the potential benefits of mentoring in academia, very little research documents its effectiveness. We present data from a randomized controlled trial of a mentoring program for female economists organized by the Committee for the Status of Women in the Economics Profession and sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the American Economics Association. To our knowledge, this is the first randomized trial of a mentoring program in academia. We evaluate the performance of three cohorts of participants and randomly-assigned controls from 2004, 2006, and 2008. This paper presents an interim assessment of the program's effects. Our results suggest that mentoring works. After five years the 2004 treatment group averaged .4 more NSF or NIH grants and 3 additional publications, and were 25 percentage points more likely to have a top-tier publication. There are significant but smaller effects at three years post-treatment for the 2004 and 2006 cohorts combined. While it is too early to assess the ultimate effects of mentoring on the academic careers of program participants, the results suggest that this type of mentoring may be one way to help women advance in the Economics profession and, by extension, in other male-dominated academic fields.

Bollinger, Chris, Hoyt, Gail & McGoldrick, KimMarie (2006). Chicks Don't Dig It: Gender, Attitude and Performance in Principles of Economics Classes. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=931670

Women are less likely to major in economics than men. While this simple fact is well documented, the cause of this difference is still up for debate. Most previous research has focused on identifying causes through skill differences and pedagogical practices. Heretofore neglected is the role of students' attitudes towards economics. This work establishes that women and men have no performance differences in principles of economics courses, but that attitudes differ significantly. Furthermore, the finding that women have a significantly more negative attitude towards economics prior to taking the principles course is compounded by the results that indicate a polarization of attitudes after taking the course. In other words, women have more negative attitudes and men have more positive attitudes towards economics after taking the course. Women can do economics, but are less inclined to like it.

Booth, Alison L., Burton, Jonathan, & Mumford, Karen (2001). The Position of Women in UK Academic Economics. The Economic Journal, 110(464), F312–F333. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0297.00541

This paper reports the results of the Royal Economic Society Women's Committee 1998 survey on the gender balance in UK academic economics. In 1998, female representation was 4% of professors, 11% of senior lecturers or readers, 17% of permanent lecturers, 28% of fixed term lecturers, and 33% of PhD/research students. The main growth in female representation since 1996 has been in fixed term lectureships and in PhD/research students (a 5 percentage point increase for each). We suggest reasons for the low representation of women in academic economics, and also argue that it is a cause for concern.

Boschini, A. and Sjogren, A. (2007). Is team formation gender neutral? Evidence from coauthorship patterns. Journal of Labor Economics, 25(2), 325–65. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/510764

We model team formation as a random matching process influenced by agents’ preferences for team size and gender composition. We then test if the coauthorship pattern in articles published during 1991-2002 in three top economics journals is gender neutral, exploiting variation in female presence across subfields. Controlling for author, team, and field characteristics, we find that the gender gap in the propensity to coauthor with a woman increases in the presence of women in the subfield. We also find that women single author significantly more than men. These findings allow us to reject gender neutrality in team formation in economics.

Bosquet, Clement, Combes, Pierre-Philippe, & Garcia-Peñalosa, Cecilia (2013). Gender and Competition: Evidence from Academic Promotions in France. CESifo Working Paper Series 4507, CESifo Group Munich. https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp4507.pdf

Differences in promotion across genders are still prevalent in many occupations. Recent work based on experimental evidence indicates that women participate less in or exert lower effort during contests. We exploit the unique features of the promotion system for French academics to look at women’s attitudes towards competition in an actual labour market. Using data for academic economists over the period 1991-2008 we find that, conditional on entering the competition, there is no difference in promotions across the genders, which is difficult to reconcile with either discrimination or a poorer performance of women in contests. In contrast, women have a substantially lower probability than men to enter the promotion contest. Our data does not support that this gap is due to differences in costs or preferences concerning department prestige, indicating that women are less willing than men to take part in contests.

Boustan, Leah & Andrew Langan (2019). Variation in Women's Success across PhD Programs in Economics. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33 (1), 23-42. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.33.1.23

We document wide and persistent variation in women's representation and success across graduate programs in economics. Using new data on early career outcomes for recent graduates, including first job placement, publications, and promotion, we rank (anonymized) departments on outcomes for women relative to men graduating from the same program. We then conduct interviews with faculty and former students from five programs with better and worse relative outcomes. We find that departments with better outcomes for women also hire more women faculty, facilitate advisor-student contact, provide collegial research seminars, and are notable for senior faculty with awareness of gender issues. We offer our qualitative evidence as the first step in learning about "what works" in expanding women's representation in economics.

Bransch, Felix & Kvasnicka, Michael (2017). Male Gatekeepers Gender Bias in the Publishing Process? IZA Discussion Papers 11089, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA). http://ftp.iza.org/dp11089.pdf

Using data on articles published in the top-five economic journals in the period 1991 to 2010, we explore whether the gender composition of editorial boards is related to the publishing success of female authors and to the quality of articles that get published. Our results show that female editors reduce, rather than increase, the share of articles that are (co-)authored by females. We also find evidence that female editors benefit article quality at low levels of representation on editorial boards, but harm article quality at higher levels. Several robustness checks corroborate these findings. Our results are broadly consistent with existing evidence on the behavior of gender-mixed hiring committees and of relevance for gender equality policy.

Bratsberg, Bernt, Fagan, James F. Jr., & Warren, John T. (2010). Does Raiding Explain the Negative Returns to Faculty Seniority? Economic Inquiry, 48(3), 704-721. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2009.00220.x

We track faculty for 30 years at five PhD-granting departments of economics. Two-thirds of faculty who take alternative employment move downward; less than one-quarter moves upward. We find a substantial penalty for seniority, even after richly controlling for faculty productivity, and the penalty is little changed when we allow wages and returns to seniority to differ by mobility status. Faculty who end up moving to better or comparable positions were penalized as severely for seniority while they were in our sample as faculty who stay. These results are incompatible with the raiding hypothesis. Faculty from top 10 programs are also punished for seniority but to a lesser degree than other faculty, which could reflect reduced monopsony power against such faculty if they are more marketable. All results persist when we control for prospective publications and allow lower returns for older publications. Match-quality bias has dissipated in the post-internet period, which may be the consequence of greater availability of information.

Broder, Ivy (1993). Professional Achievements and Gender Differences among Academic Economics. Economic Inquiry, 31(1), 116-127. https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=737

This paper tests for gender differences in remuneration and professional achievement among academic economists using data on grants and grant applications to the National Science Foundation. A simultaneous equations model is used to examine the determinants of salary, rank, department affiliation and research output. In addition to confirming some long‐standing folklore about the composition of faculty in research‐oriented institutions, significant gender differences were found among older cohorts. Although the signs of the gender coefficients are consistent with a discrimination hypothesis for the sample of assistant professors, the results were not statistically significant.

Broder, I. (1993). Review of NSF Economics Proposals: Gender and Institutional Patterns. The American Economic Review, 83(4), 964-970. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2117588

Based on reviews of grant proposals to the National Science Foundation (NSF), this study presents evidence of significant differences in the reviewing of female and male authors by male and female referees. Even when author quality is controlled by comparing ratings on the same paper, female reviewers rate female-authored papers lower than do their male colleagues. This result still holds when controlling for institutional affiliation and experience of reviewer are also included. This indicates that there is a significant downward bias in the ratings by female reviewers and of female proposals, independent of paper quality and reviewer background.

Buchmueller, Thomas C., Dominitz, Jeff, & Hansen, W. Lee (1999). Graduate training and the early career productivity of Ph.D. economists. Economics of Education Review, 18(1), 65-77. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0272-7757(98)00019-3

This paper estimates the relationships among the attributes of graduate economics programs and the occupational choices and publishing proficiency of recent Ph.D.s. The estimates indicate that research experience in graduate school (e.g. working as a research assistant, submitting and publishing articles) is positively associated with subsequent publishing proficiency. Other variables included in the analysis include graduate school ranking, graduate school faculty size and its publishing proficiency, and individual demographic characteristics and academic experiences.

Buckles, Kasey (2019). Fixing the Leaky Pipeline: Strategies for Making Economics Work for Women at Every Stage. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33 (1), 43-60. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.33.1.43

While women comprise over half of all undergraduate students in the United States, they account for less than one-third of economics majors. From there, the proportion of women at each stage of the academic tenure track continues to decrease, creating a "leaky pipeline." In this paper, I provide a toolkit of interventions that could be implemented by individuals, organizations, or academic units who are working to attract and retain women students and faculty at each stage of this pipeline. I focus on smaller-scale, targeted interventions that have been evaluated in a way that allows for the credible estimation of causal effects.

Buser, Whitney, Jill Hayter, and Emily C. Marshall. 2019. Gender Bias and Temporal Effects in Standard Evaluations of Teaching. AEA Papers and Proceedings, 109, 261-65. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/pandp.20191104

This study investigates whether gender differences in SET vary over the course of a semester, particularly in response to feedback from the instructor. We survey principles of economics courses at multiple institutions three times during the semester to analyze whether the evaluations of male and female instructors change throughout the term, specifically after the first exam is returned. Results indicate a negative effect on evaluations for female instructors relative to male instructors associated with returning grades. This work shows the importance of understanding the dynamics of changes in evaluations within a course over the semester.

Cainelli, G., Maggioni, M., Uberti, T., & de Felice, A. (2012). Co-authorship and productivity among Italian economists. Applied Economics Letters, 19, 1609–13.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504851.2011.646063

The world of scientific research has undergone dramatic changes in recent decades. These changes, which likely originated in the ‘hard sciences’ realm, rapidly extended to the social sciences and, in particular, to economics, often seen as bridging these two areas. Increased specialization and extensive collaboration are common behaviors in the scientific community, as well as in the evaluation of scientific research based on bibliometric indicators. This article aims to analyze the effect of co-authorships on the scientific productivity of Italian economists. The empirical analysis is based on an original database using two independent data sources: the Econlit database of the American Economic Association and the official database of the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research. Using econometric methods, we explain the productivity of individual Italian economists in terms of ‘attributional’ variables (such as age, gender, academic position, tenure, scientific sub-discipline and geographical location) and ‘relational’ variables (such as the propensity to cooperate and the international reach of the individual co-authorship network).

Cainelli, Giulio, Maggioni, Mario, Uberti, Erika, & De Felice, Annunziata (2012). The strength of strong ties: Co-authorship and productivity among Italian economists. Applied Economics Letters, 19(16), 1609-1613. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2011.646063

Increased specialization and extensive collaboration are common behaviors in the scientific community, as well as the evaluation of scientific research based on bibliometric indicators. This paper aims to analyze the effect of collaboration (co-authorship) on the scientific output of Italian economists. We use Social Network Analysis to investigate the structure of co-authorship, and econometric methodologies to explain the productivity of individual Italian economists, in terms of attributional variables (such as age, gender, academic position, tenure, scientific sub-discipline, geographical location, etc.), & relational variables (such as propensity to cooperate and the stability of cooperation patterns) and positional variables (such as betweenness and closeness centrality indexes and clustering coefficients).

Card, David, DellaVigna, Stefano, Funk Patricia, and Iriberri, Nagore (2019). Are the Referees and Editors in Economics Gender Neutral? NBER Working Paper 25967.  https://www.nber.org/papers/w25967

We study the role of gender in the evaluation of economic research using submissions to four leading journals. We find that referee gender has no effect on the relative assessment of female- versus male-authored papers, suggesting that any differential biases of male referees are negligible. To determine whether referees as a whole impose different standards for female authors, we compare citations for female and male-authored papers, holding constant referee evaluations and other characteristics. We find that female-authored papers receive about 25% more citations than observably similar male-authored papers. Editors largely follow the referees, resulting in a 6 percentage point lower probability of a revise and resubmit verdict for female-authored papers relative to a citation-maximizing benchmark. In their desk rejection decisions, editors treat female authors more favorably, though they still impose a higher bar than would be implied by citation-maximization. We find no differences in the informativeness of female versus male referees, or in the weight that editors place on the recommendations of female versus male referees. We also find no differences in editorial delays for female versus male-authored papers.

Carlsson, F., Löfgren, Å, & Sterner, T. (2012). Discrimination in Scientific Review: A Natural Field Experiment on Blind versus Non-Blind Reviews. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 114(2), 500-519. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41679518

Using papers submitted to an international conference on economics held in Sweden in 2008, we analyze how gender, as well as other characteristics of the authors and reviewers, affects the grading of these papers by the reviewers. Correcting for other variables, including the country and research field, as well as the academic level of the author, we focus on the difference in grades between blind and non‐blind review treatments. We find that non‐blind reviewing has little effect, and there is no significant evidence of gender discrimination. Furthermore, we do not find any significant difference between the average grading by female and male reviewers.

Catanese, A. (1991). Faculty Role Models and Diversifying the Gender and Racial Mix of Undergraduate Economics Majors. The Journal of Economic Education, 22(3), 276-284. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1183114

The sex, race, and undergraduate composition of newly minted Ph. D. s in economics is analyzed. Liberal arts colleges are shown to yield a disproportionate number of female economists while economists of color tend to come from comprehensive universities.

Cawley, John, Morrisey, Michael A., & Simon, Kosali L. (2015). The Earnings and Consulting Income of U.S. Health Economists: Results from the 2012 Survey of the American Society of Health Economists. American Journal of Health Economics, 1(2), 255-274.  https://doi.org/10.1162/AJHE_a_00014 

This paper presents data from the first-ever survey of members of the American Society of Health Economists (ASHEcon) that was conducted in 2012. We present summary statistics of health economist earnings by rank and type of employer, and estimate log earnings models as a function of education, experience, type of employer, and research productivity. The results indicate that (1) academic salaries for health economists have risen in real terms since the previous survey in 2005; (2) we find no statistically significant evidence of disparities in academic salaries between men and women, or between whites and nonwhites; (3) there is a salary premium associated with earning a PhD at one of the top economics departments; and (4) we cannot reject the null hypothesis of no difference in salary by type of employer. We also report on the extent of consulting activities, and provide the first published data on the hourly consulting rates charged by health economists.

Ceci, Stephen J., Ginther, Donna K., Kahn, Shulamit, & Williams, Wendy M. (2014). Women in Academic Science: A Changing Landscape. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 15(3), 75-141. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100614541236

Much has been written in the past two decades about women in academic science careers, but this literature is contradictory. Many analyses have revealed a level playing field, with men and women faring equally, whereas other analyses have suggested numerous areas in which the playing field is not level. The only widely-agreed-upon conclusion is that women are underrepresented in college majors, graduate school programs, and the professoriate in those fields that are the most mathematically intensive, such as geoscience, engineering, economics, mathematics/computer science, and the physical sciences. In other scientific fields (psychology, life science, social science), women are found in much higher percentages. In this monograph, we undertake extensive life-course analyses comparing the trajectories of women and men in math-intensive fields with those of their counterparts in non-math-intensive fields in which women are close to parity with or even exceed the number of men. We begin by examining early-childhood differences in spatial processing and follow this through quantitative performance in middle childhood and adolescence, including high school coursework. We then focus on the transition of the sexes from high school to college major, then to graduate school, and, finally, to careers in academic science. The results of our myriad analyses reveal that early sex differences in spatial and mathematical reasoning need not stem from biological bases, that the gap between average female and male math ability is narrowing (suggesting strong environmental influences), and that sex differences in math ability at the right tail show variation over time and across nationalities, ethnicities, and other factors, indicating that the ratio of males to females at the right tail can and does change. We find that gender differences in attitudes toward and expectations about math careers and ability (controlling for actual ability) are evident by kindergarten and increase thereafter, leading to lower female propensities to major in math-intensive subjects in college but higher female propensities to major in non-math-intensive sciences, with overall science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors at 50% female for more than a decade. Post-college, although men with majors in math-intensive subjects have historically chosen and completed PhDs in these fields more often than women, the gap has recently narrowed by two thirds; among non-math-intensive STEM majors, women are more likely than men to go into health and other people-related occupations instead of pursuing PhDs. Importantly, of those who obtain doctorates in math-intensive fields, men and women entering the professoriate have equivalent access to tenure-track academic jobs in science, and they persist and are remunerated at comparable rates-with some caveats that we discuss. The transition from graduate programs to assistant professorships shows more pipeline leakage in the fields in which women are already very prevalent (psychology, life science, social science) than in the math-intensive fields in which they are underrepresented but in which the number of females holding assistant professorships is at least commensurate with (if not greater than) that of males. That is, invitations to interview for tenure-track positions in math-intensive fields-as well as actual employment offers-reveal that female PhD applicants fare at least as well as their male counterparts in math-intensive fields. Along these same lines, our analyses reveal that manuscript reviewing and grant funding are gender neutral: Male and female authors and principal investigators are equally likely to have their manuscripts accepted by journal editors and their grants funded, with only very occasional exceptions. There are no compelling sex differences in hours worked or average citations per publication, but there is an overall male advantage in productivity. We attempt to reconcile these results amid the disparate claims made regarding their causes, examining sex differences in citations, hours worked, and interests. We conclude by suggesting that although in the past, gender discrimination was an important cause of women's underrepresentation in scientific academic careers, this claim has continued to be invoked after it has ceased being a valid cause of women's underrepresentation in math-intensive fields. Consequently, current barriers to women's full participation in mathematically intensive academic science fields are rooted in pre-college factors and the subsequent likelihood of majoring in these fields, and future research should focus on these barriers rather than misdirecting attention toward historical barriers that no longer account for women's underrepresentation in academic science.

Chari, Anusha & Goldsmith-Pinkham, Paul (2017). Gender Representation in Economics Across Topics and Time: Evidence from the NBER Summer Institute. NBER Working Papers.  https://www.nber.org/papers/w23953.pdf

We document the representation of female economists on the conference programs at the NBER Summer Institute from 2001-2016. Over the period from 2013-2016, women made up 20.6 percent of all authors on scheduled papers. However, there was large dispersion across programs, with the share of female authors ranging from 7.3 percent to 47.7 percent. While the average share of women rose slightly from 18.5% since 2001-2004, a persistent gap between finance, macroeconomics and microeconomics subfields remains, with women consisting of 14.4 percent of authors in finance, 16.3 percent of authors in macroeconomics, and 25.9 percent of authors in microeconomics. We examine three channels potentially affecting female representation. First, using anonymized data on submissions, we show that the rate of paper acceptance for women is statistically indistinguishable to that of men. Second, we find that the share of female authors is comparable to the share of women amongst all tenure-track professors, but is ten percentage points lower than the share of women among assistant professors. Finally, within conference program, we find that when a woman organizes the program, the share of female authors and discussants is higher.

Chen, Jihui Susan & Liu, Qihong, & Billger, Sherrilyn M. (2012). Where Do New Ph.D. Economists Go? Evidence from Recent Initial Job Placements. IZA Discussion Papers 6990, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA). http://ftp.iza.org/dp6990.pdf

We use data from the 2007-2008 Ph.D. economist job market to investigate initial job placement in terms of job location, job type, and job rank. Our results suggest gender differences in all three dimensions of job placement. Relative to their male counterparts, female candidates are less (more) likely to be placed into academic (government or private sector) jobs and, on average, are placed into worse ranked jobs. Foreign female candidates are also more likely than foreign males to stay in the U.S. When foreign students are placed outside the U.S., they are more likely to be in academia than in government or private sector, while the opposite holds when foreign students are placed in the U.S., which is largely consistent with a stylized theory model. Our results also reveal various country/region heterogeneities in the type, location, and rank of job placements.

Christina Jonung & Ann-Charlotte StÃ¥hlberg (2008). Reaching the Top? On Gender Balance in the Economics Profession. Econ Journal Watch, 5(2), 174-192. https://econjwatch.org/File+download/212/2008-05-jonungstahlberg-invest_apparatus.pdf?mimetype=pdf

Despite an increasing number of women entering the economics profession during recent decades, it is still dominated by men. This paper summarizes the situation in academic economics in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, the United States, and Sweden (substantial appendices, not previously available in English, detail the situation in Sweden). Women constitute about a third of the PhD graduates in each country, but their share of the economics full professors is still between 5 and 9 percent. Compared to other academic fields, economics has the greatest gender discrepancy in career attainment. We discuss various reasons for the under-representation of women, and call for continued efforts to increase the presence of women.

Combes, Pierre-Philippe, Linnemer, Laurent, & Visser, Michael (2008). Publish or peer-rich? The role of skills and networks in hiring economics professors. Labour Economics, 15(3), 423-441. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2007.04.003

This paper analyzes the determinants of success at the concours d'agrégation en sciences économiques. This is a centralized hiring procedure through which professors of economics are selected in France. Using detailed data from all concours held between 1984 and 2003, we focus on the role of the candidates' publication records (number and quality of articles) and networks (defined as professional links between candidates and the jury members who take the recruitment decisions). Both sets of variables have statistically significant effects on the likelihood of getting hired. The effect of network connections is important in the sense that a substantial improvement of the publication record is needed to compensate for not being linked to the jury.

Conley, J., Onder, A., & Torgler, B. (2016). Are all economics graduate cohorts created equal? Gender, job openings, and research productivity. Scientometrics, 108(2), 937–58. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11192-016-1987-1

Using life cycle publication data of 9368 economics PhD graduates from 127 U.S. institutions between 1987 and 1996, we compare research productivities of male and female graduates, and how these correlate with macroeconomic conditions prior to starting graduate studies and with availability of academic jobs at the time of graduation. We find that availability of academic jobs is positively correlated with research productivity for both male and female graduates. Unfavorable employment conditions prior to starting graduate education are negatively correlated with female graduates’ research productivity and positively correlated with male graduates’ research productivity.

CSWEP (1973). Combatting Role Prejudice and Sex Discrimination: Findings of the American Economic Association Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. American Economic Review, 63(5), 1049–61. https://www.aeaweb.org/about-aea/committees/cswep/about/history

The Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession was formed in response to a grassroots motion from the floor of the December 1971 Executive Committee Meeting of the American Economic Association.  A group calling itself the Women’s Caucus and spurred by a belief that the economics profession should be open to women as well as men, brought a series of resolutions before the Committee intended to foster equal opportunities for women in economics, including equitable early career encouragement, mentoring and job market assistance, hiring, wages and benefits, and promotion and tenure opportunities.

Davis, Joe, Huston, John, & Patterson, Debra (2001). The Scholarly Output of Economists: A Description of Publishing Patterns. Atlantic Economic Journal, 29(3), 341-349. http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF02300554

This paper analyzes the research productivity of a cohort of economists over the 15 years following receipt of their doctorate degrees, contrasting their results in publishing articles, books, and textbooks after controlling for the individual characteristics of the economists in the sample. Specifically, this paper considers the quality of graduate school, the type of employment, the general area of dissertation research, and the gender of each individual in the cohort. Primary conclusions indicate that scholarly journals are the most important research outlet, and that book production is a complementary activity to output in scholarly journals. Moreover, publishing success is closely related to the quality of the graduate school attended as well as the type of employer. According to this research, women do not face a statistically significant disadvantage to publishing. Finally, the analysis documents that midway through the 15-year time span covered by this study, output begins to decline, reflecting the post-tenure drop-off in research productivity.

Davis, Joe C. & Patterson, Debra Moore (2001). Determinants of Variations in Journal Publication Rates of Economists. The American Economist, 45(1), 86-91. https://doi.org/10.1177/056943450104500109

We track a cohort of economists over a 16-year period following receipt of the Ph.D. Using a multivariate model, we assess the influence on publishing success before and after tenure of graduate school attended, dissertation topic, type of employer, gender, and co-authorship.

Dolado, Juan Jose, Fernández, Felgueroso, Florentino, José, & Almunia Candela, Miguel (2005).  Do Men and Women-Economists Choose the Same Research Fields? Evidence from Top-50 Departments. IZA Discussion Paper No. 1859. https://ssrn.com/abstract=866886

This paper describes the gender distribution of research fields chosen by the faculty members in the top fifty Economics departments, according to the rankings available on the Econphd.net website. We document that women are unevenly distributed across fields and test some behavioral implications from theories underlying such disparities. Our main findings are that the probability that a woman chooses a given field is positively related to the share of women in that field (path-dependence), and that the share of women in a field at a given department increases with the sizes of the department and field, while it decreases with their average quality. However, these patterns seem to be changing for younger female faculty members. Further, by using Ph.D. cohorts, we document how gender segregation across fields has evolved over the last four decades.

Donald, Stephen, G., and Hamermesh, Daniel S. (2006). What is Discrimination? Gender in the American Economic Association, 1935-2004. American Economic Review, 96 (4), 1283-1292. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.96.4.1283

We illustrate problems of measuring discrimination using elections to AEA offices. With a new econometric technique, we find female candidates have a much better than random chance of victory. This advantage is either reverse discrimination or reflects beliefs that women are more productive. The former interpretation could be explained by an unchanging median voter whose preferences were not satisfied by suppliers of candidates; but there was a structural change in voting behavior in the mid-1970s. The results suggest it is generally impossible to claim differences in rewards, for different groups measure the extent of discrimination or even its direction.

Duncan, Kevin, Doshi, Kokila, & Yandell, Dirk (2000). Job Search Strategies and Outcomes for Academic Economists: A Middle-Market View. Eastern Economic Journal, 26(3), 345-361. http://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/eej/Archive/Volume26/V26N3P345_361.pdf

The job market for academic economists is examined with data from a sample of applicants for a position at a middle-tier university. Search methods and outcomes are reported, and regression results for an accepted salary equation are presented. A recursive system of equations is also estimated to examine the effects of gender, degree quality and networking on the outcomes of the various stages in the job search process.

Dynan, K., & Rouse, C. (1997). The Underrepresentation of Women in Economics: A Study of Undergraduate Economics Students. The Journal of Economic Education, 28(4), 350-368. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1183419

Although women are underrepresented in the field of economics, many see little need for intervention, arguing that women are inherently less interested in economics, or are less willing or able to get the math skills needed to do well in the subject. At the same time, others support active efforts to increase the number of women in the field, citing other possible causes of their current underrepresentation. These people argue, for example, that women are deterred from entering the field because of a lack of female role models, or that women are discouraged by an unappealing classroom environment. This study assesses these hypotheses by examining factors that influence undergraduate students' decisions to become economics majors using a survey of students in the introductory economics course at Harvard University as well as data on an entire class of students from Harvard's registrar. We find that although women in the introductory economics course at Harvard tend to begin the course with a weaker math background than men, math background does not explain much of the gender difference in students' decisions about majoring in economics. The class environment and the presence or absence of role models also do not explain much of the gender gap. On the other hand, women do less well in economics relative to other courses than men do, and controlling for this difference in relative performance significantly diminishes the estimated gender gap. An economically large but statistically insignificant difference between sexes in the probability of majoring in economics remains, however, which may be due to differing tastes or information about the nature of economics.

Emerson, Tisha L. N., McGoldrick, KimMarie and Siegfried, John J. (2018). The Gender Gap in Economics Degrees: An Investigation of the Role Model and Quantitative Requirements Hypotheses: Gender Gap in Economic Degrees. Southern Economic Journal, 84(3), 898-911. https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12247

Using a panel of 159 institutions over 10 years, we investigate the role model effect of women faculty and quantitative requirements on the female proportion of undergraduate economics majors. We find no evidence that female faculty attract female students. Calculus, however, does matter. A one semester calculus requirement is associated with more female majors at institutions offering business degrees and liberal arts colleges. A second semester calculus requirement deters women from majoring in economics at Ph.D.–granting universities, but is associated with more female majors at liberal arts colleges. Econometrics requirements are unrelated to the gender gap in economics majors.

Emerson, Tisha L. N., McGoldrick, Kim-Marie, & Mumford, Kevin J. (2012). Women and the Choice to Study Economics. The Journal of Economic Education, 43(4), 349-362. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220485.2012.714306    

Underrepresentation of women in economics is documented in many studies. Investigation of its sources at the undergraduate level is examined through students’ decisions to persist in economics, either beyond an introductory course or in their major choices. The authors add to the literature by analyzing students’ decisions to take their first introductory economics course, an intermediate theory course, and ultimately major in economics, using the Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development. Results indicate that a smaller percentage of women take economics at all levels—introductory courses, theory courses, and majoring in economics. Even after controlling for aptitude, demographic characteristics, prior interest, course performance, environment, and course timing, persistent gender differences in the likelihood of partaking in economic education beyond the introductory course decision endure.

Ferber, M. (1984). Suggestions for Improving the Classroom Climate for Women in the Introductory Economics Course: A Review Article. The Journal of Economic Education, 15(2), 160-168. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1182057

This article is basically a review of "Sex and Gender in the Social Sciences: Reassessing the Introductory Course". Ferber suggests that if instructors were more even-handed in their treatment of various subjects (and especially those most relevant to women) both female and male students would benefit, both immediately and later in the work place. She also suggests that better communication between students and instructors and the observance of correct amenities in their relationships would improve the self-image and confidence of female students.

Ferber, Marianne A. (1986). Citations: Are They an Objective Measure of Scholarly Merit? Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 11(2), 381-389. https://doi.org/10.1086/494230

Increasingly, scholars recognize that reputation influences bargaining power in the academic marketplace. Jonathan R. Cole was one of the first to explore such issues systematically. He emphasized other researchers’ citations of an author’s work as a key indicator of that author’s stature in the profession. Since then, Daniel S. Hamermesh, George E. Johnson, and Burton A. Weisbrod have shown that the number of times a scholar’s work is cited significantly influences his or her salary. As Gaye Tuchman suggests, the question that needs to be answered is whether citations are an objective measure of merit—especially when one compares the citations of men and women.

Ferber, Marianne A. & Brün, Michael (2011). The Gender Gap in Citations: Does It Persist?  Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, 17(1), 151-158. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13545701.2010.541857

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, several researchers showed the importance, in the United States, of the number of times scholars' publications are cited for determining their bargaining power in academia. Not surprisingly, the question was soon raised whether citations are a good measure of scholarly merit. Are women at a disadvantage in male-dominated fields, such as economics? Studies had shown that authors tended to cite a larger proportion of publications by authors of the same gender. This paper examines whether women's disadvantage in garnering citations has been reduced by the increasing representation of women in economics and finds that this has been the case in both labor economics and economics in general, albeit not to the same degree.

Ferber, Marianne A. & Teiman, Michelle (1980). Are Women Economists at a Disadvantage in Publishing Journal Articles?, Eastern Economic Journal, 6, 3(4), 189-193. https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eej:eeconj:v:6:y:1980:i:3-4:p:189-193.

Many researchers have found that highly educated women are rewarded less than men with comparable characteristics and achievements. Most of these, as well as some other studies, have also found that women do not have the same characteristics and achievements. They obtain their terminal degrees somewhat later, are less likely to obtain the highest degree available in a field, they tend to have accumulated less experience per unit of time since their terminal degree, they are likely to have published less, etc. This note attempts to make a small contribution to our knowledge of this subject by focusing on one subgroup, namely economists, and one type of credentials, namely publications in scholarly journals.

Forget, Evelyn L. (2011).  American Women and the Economics Profession in the Twentieth century.  Œconomia, 1(1), 19-30. https://journals.openedition.org/oeconomia/1807?lang=en#quotation

The history of American women economists in the economics profession during the 20th century can be divided into four phases. Before 1918, women represented a distinct minority within the profession but published monographs and professional journal articles, received PhDs in economics from leading graduate schools, appeared at professional gatherings and built careers as economists. In the interwar years, women became less visible in the economics profession as women interested in social issues began to drift to related fields such as social work and home economics. Academic employment of women declined, as did the proportion of economics doctorates awarded to women, but women working on economic problems increasingly found employment in state and federal government agencies. Between 1950 and 1970, women began to return to economics and once again found academic employment alongside male colleagues although they fought against social pressures for professional recognition and career awards. Finally, by the 1970s, women began to enter in profession in ever larger numbers, building careers in the field as social barriers to career advancement fell away.

Formby, John P. & Hoover, Gary (2002). Salary Determinants of Entry-Level Academic Economists and the Characteristics of Those Hired on the Tenure Track. Eastern Economic Journal, 28(4), 509-522. http://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/eej/Archive/Volume28/V28N4P509_522.pdf

This paper examines the entry-level labor market for academic economists and investigates the determinants of market salaries. The focus is on the effects of tenure and nontenure track jobs and departmental ranking that are based upon faculty research productivity. The results reveal that the market works differently depending upon whether the hiring department is ranked in terms of research productivity. Being hired on the tenure track significantly influences academic salaries in both ranked and unranked departments. The paper also analyzes the impact of observable characteristics of individuals and hiring departments on the probability of being hired into tenure track positions.

Foster, Lucia, Manzella, Julia, McEntarfer, Erika, and Danielle H. Sandler. 2020. Employment and Earnings for Federal Government Economists: Empirical Evidence by Gender and Race. AEA Papers and Proceedings, 110, 210-14. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/pandp.20201122

We contribute to the literature on diversity in the economics profession, which has mostly focused on academia, by providing a first look at the employment and earnings of federal government economists by gender and race. Combining micro-level data on federal workers with information on their earnings in federal and private sector jobs, we examine the share of federal government economists by race and gender, earnings differences by race and gender, and whether earning gaps differ during their federal government tenure.

Gibbons, Jean D., Fielden, John S., & Fish, Mary. (1988). The strange case of the female Ph.D. economists. Business Horizons, 31, 73-77. https://doi.org/10.1016/0007-6813(88)90057-2

There are times when objective inquiry becomes so impossible that the scientists must emulate the detective and theorize rather than conclude. Here the topic under study proved immune to analysis by common statistical survey practices. So the authors had no choice but to cast aside their calculators, clap on their deerstalkers, and speculate, conjecture, and theorize.

Ginther, Donna K. (2006). The Economics of Gender Differences in Employment Outcomes in Academia. National Academy of Sciences (US) Committee on Maximizing the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK23781/

This paper summarizes research that examines the relationship between hiring, promotion, and salary for tenure track science and social science faculty using data from the Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR). Gender differences in hiring and promotion can be explained by observable characteristics. However, gender differences in salaries persist at the full professor rank. In particular, women in science and social science are less likely to have tenure track jobs within five years of the doctorate when compared with men. However, when controls for marital status and children are included in the analysis, the research finds that unmarried women are significantly more likely to have tenure track jobs than unmarried men. Marriage provides a significant advantage for men relative to women. Presence of children, especially young children, significantly disadvantages women while having no impact on men in obtaining tenure track jobs. The research also finds no significant gender differences in the probability of obtaining tenure in life science, physical science, and engineering. These results also hold for promotion to full professor. However, significant gender promotion differences are evident in the social sciences, in particular, economics. Finally, the research finds large gender differences in salaries are partially explained by academic rank. However, gender salary differences for full professors, on the order of 13% in the sciences, are not fully explained by observable characteristics.

Ginther, Donna K., Currie, Janet M., Blau, Francine D., and Croson, Rachel T. A. . 2020. Can Mentoring Help Female Assistant Professors in Economics? An Evaluation by Randomized Trial. AEA Papers and Proceedings, 110, 205-09. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/pandp.20201121

Women continue to be underrepresented in academic ranks in the economics profession. The Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession of the American Economic Association established the CeMENT mentoring workshop to support women in research careers. The program was designed as a randomized controlled trial. This study evaluates differences between the treatment and control groups in career outcomes. Results indicate that relative to women in the control group, treated women are more likely to stay in academia and more likely to have received tenure in an institution ranked in the top 30 or 50 in economics in the world.

Ginther, Donna, K., and Kahn, Shulamit (2004). Women in Economics: Moving Up or Falling Off the Academic Career Ladder? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18(3), 193-214.https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/0895330042162386

The percentage of economics doctorates awarded to women has increased over the past twenty years. This article considers whether women Ph.D. economists have increased their representation in academia, particularly at higher tenured ranks. Our study draws upon several empirical approaches and multiple data sets for the 1990s. We find that when compared with other academic disciplines, women in economics are less likely to get tenure and take longer to achieve it. Although gender differences in productivity and the effect of children on promotion partly explain women's lesser chances of receiving tenure in economics, a significant portion of the gender promotion gap remains unexplained by observable characteristics.

Ginther, Donna K. and Shulamit Kahn (2014). Academic Women’s Careers in the Social Sciences:  Progress, Pitfalls and Plateaus. The Economics of Economists: Institutional Setting, Individual Incentives, and Future Prospects, 285-315. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.504.3138&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Many studies have shown that women are under-represented in tenured ranks in the sciences. We evaluate whether gender differences in the likelihood of obtaining a tenure track job, promotion to tenure, and promotion to full professor explain these facts using the 1973-2001 Survey of Doctorate Recipients. We find that women are less likely to take tenure track positions in science, but the gender gap is entirely explained by fertility decisions. We find that in science overall, there is no gender difference in promotion to tenure or full professor after controlling for demographic, family, employer and productivity covariates and that in many cases, there is no gender difference in promotion to tenure or full professor even without controlling for covariates. However, family characteristics have different impacts on women's and men's promotion probabilities. Acknowledgements: We also thank the National Science Foundation for granting a site license to use the data and Kelly Kang of the NSF for providing technical documentation. Serena Huang provided research assistance. Ginther acknowledges financial support from NSF grant SES-0353703. The use of NSF data does not imply NSF endorsement of the research, research methods, or conclusions contained in this report.

Ginther, Donna K., Kahn, Shulamit, & McCloskey, Jessica (2016). Gender and academics.  The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Online, Palgrave Macmillan. http://www.dictionaryofeconomics.com/article?id=pde2016_G000220 

Although women have reached parity and surpassed men in the attainment of bachelor’s degrees (Goldin et al. J Econ Perspect 20(4): 133–156, 2006; Ceci et al. Psychol Sci Public Interest 15(3): 75–141, 2014), their representation within academic departments and disciplines depends on the field and rank. Here, we review the literature about women in academia, focusing on the evidence from the economics literature, but supplementing it with notable studies from other disciplines. We also examine the special case of the economics profession, where – surprisingly – women’s progress has stagnated.

    We start by describing the representation of women in science academia and its antecedents in higher education. Since, in mathematics-intensive sciences, the under-representation has its roots prior to the doctorate, we briefly summarize what is known about gender differences related to mathematics and science at earlier ages. In particular, we examine the impact of role models, bias and stereotype threat in explaining the differences. We then transition to research on gender differences in academic career outcomes, considering issues related to work–life balance and bias in the academic hiring process, in academic productivity, in promotion and in salaries. Finally, we discuss how policies influence the representation of women in academia.

Goldin, Claudia (2015). Gender and the Undergraduate Economics Major: Notes on the Undergraduate Economics Major at a Highly Selective Liberal Arts College. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/goldin/files/claudia_gender_paper.pdf

Differences in the male and female rates of majoring in economics are large and do not appear to be narrowing. It should be said at the outset that economics continues to be a highly popular major in most universities and colleges. Around 10 to 20 percent of all male undergraduates major in economics among the top-ranked 100 universities and top 100 liberal arts colleges without an undergraduate business major. At Adams almost one in five male students majors in the field. The emphasis in this note is on the relative popularity of economics among female undergraduates.

Gordon, N., Morton, T., & Braden, I. (1974). Faculty Salaries: Is There Discrimination by Sex, Race, and Discipline? The American Economic Review, 64(3), 419-427. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1808892

Many variables which affect salary, such as age, education, and race, have been studied in detail. Less is known about salary profiles and differentials related to sex. This study uses data on all full-time academic employees of a large urban university. It controls for age, race, years at the university, education, rank, and department. We investigate the relationship between salary and the explanatory variables for men and women separately as well as for all employees together, where sex is an additional independent variable. Regression analyses yield unambiguous results; about three-fourths of the variation in salary across employees is explained. The salary profile for women differs from that for men primarily in the effects of race, age, and department. Salary increments between ranks are similar. However, on average, a woman faculty member earns 11 percent less than would be predicted for a man with her characteristics. Blacks earn 13 percent more than comparable whites. A medical school faculty member with an M.D. earns 93 percent more than an otherwise comparable Ph.D. in the social sciences.

Grossbard, Shoshana, Yilmazer, Tansel, & Zhang, Lingrui (2018). The Gender Gap in Citations: Lessons from Demographic Economics Journals. Working Paper. https://econresearch.uchicago.edu/sites/econresearch.uchicago.edu/files/Grossbard_Yilmazer_Zhang_2018_gender-gap-citations.pdf

This paper investigates gender differentials in citations of articles published in two journals specialized in Demographic Economics, a field that has traditionally attracted relatively large numbers of women researchers. In contrast to findings based on citations of top economics journals, we find a gender gap in citations favoring women among articles published in the Journal of Population Economics (JPOP) or the Review of Economics of the Household (REHO) between 2003 and 2014. If the corresponding author is male, having at least one female co-author boosts citations. Across subfields of demographic economics, citations of female authors increase as female representation in the subfield increases. The gender gap in citations favoring women is not found for authors with limited experience past graduate school, which supports an explanation for the gender gap based on authors’ prior experience with economics journals of higher rank.

Gunther, Isabel, Grosse, Melanie, & Klasen, Stephan (2016). How to Attract an Audience at a Conference: Paper, Person, or Place? German Economic Review, 18(4), 468-491.  https://doi.org/10.1111/geer.12113

We analyze the drivers of audience size and the number of questions asked in parallel sessions at the annual conference of the German Economics Association. We find that the location of the presentation is at least as important for the number of academics attending a talk as the combined effect of the person presenting and the paper presented. Being a presenter in a late morning session on the second day of a conference, close to the place where coffee is served, significantly increases the size of the audience. When it comes to asking questions, location becomes less important, but smaller rooms lead to more questions being asked. Younger researchers and very senior researchers attract more questions and comments. There are also interesting gender effects. Women attend research sessions more diligently than men, but seem to ask fewer questions than men. Men are less likely to attend presentations on health, education, welfare and development economics than women. Our findings suggest that strategic scheduling of sessions could ensure better participation at conferences. Moreover, different behaviors of men and women at conferences might also contribute to the lack of women in senior scientist positions.

Hale, Galina & Regev, Tali (2014). Gender ratios at top PhD programs in economics. Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, 41(C), 55-70. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775714000375?via%3Dihub

Analyzing university faculty and graduate students data for ten of the top U.S. economics departments between 1987 and 2007, we find persistent differences in the gender compositions of both faculty and graduate students across departments. There is a positive correlation between the share of female faculty and the share of women in the PhD class graduating six years later. Using instrumental variable analysis, we find robust evidence that this relation is causal. These results contribute to our understanding of the persistent under-representation of women in economics, as well as for the persistent segregation of women in the labor force.

Hamermesh, Daniel S. (2013). Six Decades of Top Economics Publishing: Who and How? Journal of Economic Literature 51(1), 162–72. https://www.nber.org/papers/w18635.pdf

Presenting data on all full-length articles published in the three top general economics journals for one year in each of the 1960s through 2010s, I analyze how patterns of co-authorship, age structure and methodology have changed, and what the possible causes of these changes may have been. The entire distribution of number of authors has shifted steadily rightward. In the last two decades the fraction of older authors has almost quadrupled. The top journals are now publishing many fewer papers that represent pure theory, regardless of sub-field, somewhat less empirical work based on publicly available data sets, and many more empirical studies based on data assembled for the study by the author(s) or on laboratory or field experiments.

Hansen, Lee W., Weisbrod, Burton A., & Strauss, Robert P. (1978). Modeling the Earnings and Research Productivity of Academic Economists. Journal of Political Economy, 86(4), 729-741. https://doi.org/10.1086/260707

This paper focuses on the differences that arise from employing a multi-equation system rather than the single-equation model used in previous research to explain variations in earnings of academic economists.

Harter, Cynthia L., Becker, William E., & Watts, Michael (2011). Time Allocations and Reward Structures for US Academic Economists from 1995–2005: Evidence from Three National Surveys. International Review of Economics Education, 10(2), 6-27. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1477-3880(15)30031-1

Using survey data collected in 1995, 2000 and 2005 from US academic economists, in which respondents were asked to indicate what percentage of their work time they allocate to research, teaching and service activities, and also how their departments and schools weight research, teaching and service in determining annual raises and making promotion and tenure decisions, we find these economists were allocating more time to teaching even though perceived departmental and school incentives provided a clear premium for research. The overall samples did not show major changes in their allocation of time from 1995–2005, but there were different responses at different types of schools, with increased time spent on research by faculty at doctoral schools while at masters′ and baccalaureate schools more time was devoted to teaching. We use regression analysis to investigate factors that affect how different faculty members allocate their time between teaching and research. In addition to Carnegie school classifications and related school characteristics, faculty members′ gender and rank were significant predictors of how economists allocate their time. Male economists, particularly among assistant professors at research universities, spent less time on teaching and more time on research than female economists.

Heath, J. (1989). An Econometric Model of the Role of Gender in Economic Education. The American Economic Review, 79(2), 226-230. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1827761

The existing empirical evidence on the role of gender in economic education has resulted in a variety of findings. Two-thirds of the studies that examined students' level of understanding, or stock of knowledge, report significant gender differences, with men outperforming women on measures of economic knowledge (John Siegfried, 1979). These gender effects do not appear in analyses of economic learning or knowledge using elementary (Donald Davison and John Kilgore, 1971; William Walstad, 1979) or junior high students (Michael MacDowell et al., 1977; Stephen Buckles and Vera Freeman, 1984). However, the evidence suggests that by the time students reach high school, significant gender differences exist in both the learning and understanding of economic knowledge (Robert Highsmith, 1974; Daniel Thornton and George Vredeveld, 1977; M. E. Moyer and D. W. Paden, 1968).

Hengel, Erin (2019). Gender Differences in Citations at Top Economics Journals. Working Paper. http://www.erinhengel.com/research/

This paper examines gender differences in citations for articles published in top-five economics journals. On average, male-authored papers are cited more than female-authored papers. Yet this finding is driven by a small number of highly cited papers, most of which were written by men—many of whom are Nobel prize winners—over 30 years ago. After controlling for time, author prominence and including either fixed effects for 91 superstar economists or all Nobel prize winners, I find female-authored papers are actually cited more. Moreover, when skewness in the distribution of citations is adjusted using the inverse hyperbolic sine function, female-authored papers are always cited more. I additionally estimate the marginal impact of co-authoring with more women for male authors, only. Using a fixed effects framework, I find that men earn 13 log points more citations when they increase the share of female co-authors on a paper by 50 percent. I conclude by roughly applying a theoretical framework developed in Hengel (2018) to identify the cause behind higher citations in female-authored papers. The results demonstrate suggestive evidence that women’s higher citations are driven by factors outside their control.

Hengel, Erin (2017). Publishing While Female: Are Women Held to Higher Standards? Evidence from Peer Review. Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1753, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge. http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/research-files/repec/cam/pdf/cwpe1753.pdf

I use readability scores to test if referees and/or editors apply higher standards to women’s writing in academic peer review. I find: (i) female-authored papers are 1–6 percent better written than equivalent papers by men; (ii) the gap is two times higher in published articles than in earlier, draft versions of the same papers; (iii) women’s writing gradually improves but men’s does not—meaning the readability gap grows over authors’ careers. In a dynamic model of an author’s decision-making process, I show that tougher editorial standards and/or biased referee assignment are uniquely consistent with this pattern of choices. A conservative causal estimate derived from the model suggests senior female economists write at least 9 percent more clearly than they otherwise would. These findings indicate that higher standards burden women with an added time tax and probably contribute to academia’s “Publishing Paradox” Consistent with this hypothesis, I find female-authored papers spend six months longer in peer review. More generally, tougher standards impose a quantity/quality tradeoff that characterises many instances of female output. They could resolve persistently lower—otherwise unexplained—female productivity in many high-skill occupations.

Hilmer, C., & Hilmer, M. (2010). Are There Gender Differences in the Job Mobility Patterns of Academic Economists? The American Economic Review, 100(2), 353-357. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27805018

Labor economic theory posits that job mobil ity should affect worker salaries. The degree to which this holds for academic faculty has received considerable attention. Prior empirical studies have estimated log wage regressions that control for both years of total work experience and years of seniority at the current institution in an effort to determine whether negative returns to seniority exist in academic labor markets. We add to this literature by examining two unique datasets that allow us to examine gender differences in both job mobility patterns and the resulting salary effects for academic economists.

Hilmer, C. & Hilmer, M. (2007). Women Helping Women, Men Helping Women? Same-Gender Mentoring, Initial Job Placements, and Early Career Publishing Success for Economics PhDs. The American Economic Review, 97(2), 422-426. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30034488

We examine the differential impact of each of the four possible mentorship configurations (female student–female advisor, female student–male advisor, male student–female advisor, and male student–male advisor) on both initial job placements and early-career research productivity. In addition, the richness of our data allows us to address a number of issues related to the supply of potential female advisors through our access to information on both the reputation of the student’s PhD program and the relative research productivity of his or her dissertation advisor.

Hilmer, Michael J., Ransom, Michael R., & Christiana E. Hilmer, Christiana E. (2015). Fame and the fortune of academic economists: How the market rewards influential research in economics.  Southern Economic Journal, 82(2), 430-452. https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12037

We analyze the pay and position of 1009 faculty members who teach in doctoral-granting economics departments at 53 large public universities in the United States. Using the Web of Science, we have identified the journal articles published by these scholars and the number of times each of these articles has been subsequently cited in published research articles. We find that research influence, as measured by various measures of total citations, is a remarkably strong predictor of the salary and the prestige of the department in which professors are employed. We also examine the effect of coauthorship. Surprisingly, we find no salary penalty for sharing authorship; however, in terms of prestige of employing department, coauthorship is fully discounted.

Joecks, J., Pull, K. & Backes-Gellner, U. (2014). Childbearing and (female) research productivity: a personnel economics perspective on the leaky pipeline. Journal of Business Economics, 84(4), 517-530. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-013-0676-2

Despite the fact that childbearing is time-consuming (i.e., associated with a negative resource effect), we descriptively find female researchers with children in business and economics to be more productive than female researchers without children. Hence, female researchers with children either manage to overcompensate the negative resource effect associated with childbearing by working harder (positive incentive effect), or only the most productive female researchers decide to go for a career in academia and have children at the same time (positive self-selection effect). Our first descriptive evidence on the timing of parenthood among more than 400 researchers in business and economics from Austria, Germany and the German-speaking part of Switzerland hints at the latter being the case: only the most productive female researchers with children dare to self-select (or are selected) into an academic career. Our results have important policy implications when it comes to reducing the “leaky pipeline” in academia.

Jonung, Christina & Stahlberg, Ann-Charlotte (2009). Does Economics Have a Gender? Econ Journal Watch, 6(1), 60-72. https://econjwatch.org/File+download/240/2009-01-jonung-invest_apparatus.pdf?mimetype=pdf

We address the issues raised by commentators on our paper in the symposium “Why few women in economics.” The commentators suggest that economics is gendered, a male subject reflecting basic differences in men’s and women’s life preferences and abilities. We find that, while less schooling in mathematics historically may be related to the relative scarcity of women in economics and the natural sciences, today women’s and men’s mathematical skills are rapidly approaching each other. Experimental economics have found gender differences in preferences in risk taking, competitiveness, and social preferences which may deter women from entering academic fields with an overwhelming majority of men. In addition, the internal academic culture may have developed to adjust to a traditional male lifestyle. Adding everything up, women economists may find their comparative advantage to lie outside the universities.

Jonung, Christina & Ann-Charlotte StÃ¥hlberg (2008). Reaching the Top? On Gender Balance in the Economics Profession. Econ Journal Watch, 5(2), 174-192. https://econjwatch.org/File+download/212/2008-05-jonungstahlberg-invest_apparatus.pdf?mimetype=pdf

Despite an increasing number of women entering the economics profession during recent decades, it is still dominated by men. This paper summarizes the situation in academic economics in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, the United States, and Sweden (substantial appendices, not previously available in English, detail the situation in Sweden). Women constitute about a third of the PhD graduates in each country, but their share of the economics full professors is still between 5 and 9 percent. Compared to other academic fields, economics has the greatest gender discrepancy in career attainment. We discuss various reasons for the under-representation of women, and call for continued efforts to increase the presence of women.

Kahn, Shulamit (1993). Gender Differences in Academic Career Paths of Economists. American Economic Review, 83(2), 52-56. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2117639

This paper considers women's progress among Ph.D. academics in the field of economics and management. This kind of analysis can be extremely useful to gauge the progress or lack of progress within our own field. If differences are found between men and women of similar backgrounds, this is not necessarily evidence that employer discrimination exists. Gender differences might arise because women and men, faced with the same options and opportunities, have made different choices or investments in their careers; or gender differences might arise because of discrimination at some other level, for instance among journal editors or funding sources.

Kahn, S. (2012). Gender differences in academic promotion and mobility at a major Australian University. Economic Record, 88, 407. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2012.00828.x

This paper analyses gender differences in faculty promotion and mobility at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) using personnel records for 1999–2010. It finds female lecturers less likely than men to be promoted or to leave UNSW and female associate professors more likely to be promoted. These results are consistent with a flipping statistical discrimination model. Leave‐taking did not account for gender differences. Instead, taking maternity leave indicates higher likelihood of staying at UNSW and being promoted. The paper finds that gender differences narrowed over time but not always as predicted by gender‐related policy changes.

Kahn, Shulamit (1995). Women in the Economics Profession. Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 9(4), 193-205. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.9.4.193

This paper summarizes this recent research. Before beginning, a few words of warning are appropriate. The entire population of female economists is sufficiently small that studies that limit this population in any way—by sampling, by limiting to specific cohorts, by limiting to people working in higher prestige jobs, and so on— end up with scanty numbers of observations. As a result, the usual caveats that statistical insignificance may be due to lack of power take on a special meaning in this literature. My approach in this paper is to identify the career situations and junctures where men and women with similar abilities and backgrounds have similar outcomes in the economics profession (where the problem isn't), and then where those with similar backgrounds have divergent outcomes (where the problems might be).

Kahn, Shulamit and Ginther, Donna K. (2018). Women and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM):  Are Differences in Education and Careers due to Stereotypes, Interests or Family? In The Oxford Handbook on the Economics of Women, ed. Susan L. Averett, Laura M. Argys, and Saul D. Hoffman  (New York: Oxford University Press. 2018).   10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190628963.013.13 

Researchers from economics, sociology, psychology, and other disciplines have studied the persistent underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This chapter summarizes this research. It argues that women’s underrepresentation is concentrated in the math-intensive science fields of geosciences, engineering, economics, math/computer science, and physical science. Its analysis concentrates on the environmental factors that influence ability, preferences, and the rewards for those choices. The chapter examines how gendered stereotypes, culture, role models, competition, risk aversion, and interests contribute to the gender STEM gap, starting in childhood, solidifying by middle school, and affecting women and men as they progress through school and higher education and into the labor market. The results are consistent with preferences and psychological explanations for the underrepresentation of women in math-intensive STEM fields.

Klein, Daniel B., Davis, William L., & Hedengren, David (2013). Economics Professors’ Voting, Policy Views, Favorite Economists, and Frequent Lack of Consensus. Character Issues, 10(1), 116-125. https://econjwatch.org/File+download/625/KleinDavisHedengrenJan2013.pdf?mimetype=pdf

A sample of 299 U.S. economics professors responded to our 2010 survey. This paper reports on their views on 17 policy issues. We relate attitude toward liberalization to political-party voting. Abortion and occupational licensing are among the questions novel to the survey. We also look at gender, favorite economists, the frequent lack of consensus on issues, and the percent of economics professors who firmly support the principles of free enterprise.

Kolpin, V., & Singell, L. (1996). The Gender Composition and Scholarly Performance of Economics Departments: A Test for Employment Discrimination. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 49(3), 408-423. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2524194 

Using data on academic economists in the years 1973, 1977, 1982, and 1987, the authors investigate gender differences in placement and their consequences for departmental productivity. The initial analysis shows that in the years studied, the departments that were highest-ranked on a measure of scholarly publications per faculty member were the least likely to hire female faculty. A second analysis shows that departments that hired fewer women in the 1970s subsequently declined in publications rank relative to other departments. Finally, in a third analysis the authors find that the research output of women in the 1970s cohort of economists was greater than that of their male counterparts at comparable institutions. These results reject productivity-based explanations for the observed differential placement, and they provide some of the first formal evidence that employment discrimination is costly to the employer.

Krause, Annabelle, Rinne, Ulf, Zimmerman, Klaus F. (2012). Anonymous job applications of fresh Ph.D. economists. Economics Letters, 117(2), 441-444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2012.06.029

This paper analyzes anonymous job applications of Ph.D. economists in the academic job market. We use data on interview invitations from a randomized experiment at a European-based research institution. Results show that the underrepresented gender was hurt by anonymous applications.

Lewis, Margaret & McGoldrick, Kimmarie (2001). Moving Beyond the Masculine Neoclassical Classroom. Feminist Economics. Feminist Economics, 7(2), 91-103. 10.1080/13545700110059252

In addition to critiques of the content and methodology of neoclassical economics, feminist economists have also offered constructive reflections on the way economics is taught. The "Voluntary Economics Content Standards for PreCollege Economics Education," developed in 1997 by the U.S. National Council of Economic Education, present yet another challenge to feminist economic educators. In this paper, we first review general methods for challenging and expanding these standards. Next, we select a specific content standard and explore how it might be reworked to reflect more accurately feminist economic scholarship and pedagogy. This reformulation of the standard will help broaden the pedagogy and content that are both implicit and explicit in all of the standards, allowing for a more inclusive classroom.

Li, Hsueh-Hsiang (2018). Do mentoring, information, and nudge reduce the gender gap in economics majors?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), 165-183. https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0272775717305198?token=3DC8FCC73E68BC815524007B7D9820788DBAFF963AEBCA70FF5B9C1BA1E483DE5B127C2EC4BAB0F2AD772F5630928A11

The gender gap in economics majors (i.e., male students are much more likely to major in economics than are their female counterparts) has remained large, despite narrowing gaps observed in many other fields. This study examines whether mentoring, the provision of additional information, and nudges help reduce the gender gap in economics majors via a randomized controlled experiment conducted in introductory economics classes at a large, public, four-year institution in the United States. The results show that the treatment effects are heterogeneous and have the most significant impact on female students with grades above the median. The treatments increase these female students’ probability of majoring in economics by 5.41–6.27 percentage points.

Lundberg, Shelly, and Jenna Stearns (2019). Women in Economics: Stalled Progress. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33 (1), 3-22. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.33.1.3

Women are still a minority in the economics profession. By the mid-2000s, just under 35 percent of PhD students and 30 percent of assistant professors were female, and these numbers have remained roughly constant ever since. Over the past two decades, women's progress in academic economics has slowed, with virtually no improvement in the female share of junior faculty or graduate students in decades. Little consensus has emerged as to why, though there has been a renewal of widespread interest in the status and future of women in economics and of the barriers they face to professional success. In this paper, we first document trends in the gender composition of academic economists over the past 25 years, the extent to which these trends encompass the most elite departments, and how women's representation across fields of study within economics has changed. We then review the recent literature on other dimensions of women's relative position in the discipline, including research productivity and income, and assess evidence on the barriers that female economists face in publishing, promotion, and tenure. While differences in preferences and constraints may directly affect the relative productivity of men and women, productivity gaps do not fully explain the gender disparity in promotion rates in economics. Furthermore, the progress of women has stalled relative to that in other disciplines in the past two decades. We propose that differential assessment of men and women is one important factor in explaining this stalled progress, reflected in gendered institutional policies and apparent implicit bias in promotion and tenure processes.

Madera, J.M., Hebl, M.M., & Martin, R.C. (2009). Gender and letters of recommendation for academia: agentic and communal differences. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(6), 1591-9. https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0016539

In 2 studies that draw from the social role theory of sex differences (A. H. Eagly, W. Wood, & A. B. Diekman, 2000), the authors investigated differences in agentic and communal characteristics in letters of recommendation for men and women for academic positions and whether such differences influenced selection decisions in academia. The results supported the hypotheses, indicating (a) that women were described as more communal and less agentic than men (Study 1) and (b) that communal characteristics have a negative relationship with hiring decisions in academia that are based on letters of recommendation (Study 2). Such results are particularly important because letters of recommendation continue to be heavily weighted and commonly used selection tools. 

Main, Joyce B.  & Ost, Ben (2014). The Impact of Letter Grades on Student Effort, Course Selection, and Major Choice: A Regression-Discontinuity Analysis. The Journal of Economic Education, 45(1). 10.1080/00220485.2014.859953

The authors apply a regression-discontinuity design to identify the causal impact of letter grades on student effort within a course, subsequent credit hours taken, and the probability of majoring in economics. Their methodology addresses key issues in identifying the causal impact of letter grades: correlation with unobservable factors, such as motivation, and direction of causation. They find no evidence that letter grades influence undergraduate students’ course-taking behavior or decision to major in economics. They find that, within a course, the first exam letter grade can affect student performance on the second exam.

Manchester, Colleen & A. Barbezat, Debra (2013). The Effect of Time Use in Explaining Male–Female Productivity Differences Among Economists. Industrial Relations-A Journal of Economy and Society, 52(1).  10.1111/irel.12011

This study examines the opportunity cost of non‐research responsibilities on research output. Using a sample of early career faculty members who received their Ph.D. in economics, we consider the effect of two dimensions of time use on research output: (1) time allocation, or how time is divided between research and other duties and (2) time concentration, or how research time is distributed during the academic year relative to summer months. This second dimension has not been used in prior studies on research productivity; however, the inherent delays in the publication process as well as start‐up costs may imply that concentrating research time exclusively in the summer months reduces research output. We find that both dimensions of time use are significant predictors of peer‐reviewed publications and that time concentration is a significant predictor of submissions. We find gender differences in both dimensions of time use, which are attributable to gender differences in employment at research institutions and on‐going childcare responsibilities.

Manchester, C. F., Leslie, L. M., & Kramer, A. (2013). Is the Clock Still Ticking? An Evaluation of the Consequences of Stopping the Tenure Clock. ILR Review, 66(1), 3–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/001979391306600101

Using a longitudinal administrative data set from a large research university, the authors empirically evaluate the consequences of using stop the clock (STC) policies for the career success of tenure track faculty. STC policies were introduced approximately 40 years ago, yet surprisingly little has been written about how they affect career outcomes. The prevalence of the ideal worker norm in academia raises the possibility of negative consequences as evaluators may treat STC policy use as a signal that the faculty member lacks sufficient commitment to his or her academic role. Consistent with this possibility, the authors find that faculty members who stop their clock for family reasons incur a salary penalty relative to faculty members who do not stop their clock, which cannot be explained by differences in productivity. Alternatively, faculty members who use the policy are not at a promotion disadvantage as compared with nonusers, and they actually have higher promotion rates.

Manchester, C., Leslie, L., & Kramer, A. (2010). Stop the Clock Policies and Career Success in Academia. The American Economic Review, 100(2), 219-223. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27804993

In the present research, we provide one of the first empirical analyses of the relationship between faculty members' use of STC policies and career rewards, specifically promotion and pay. Although originally aimed at women who give birth during their pretenure years, STC policies are now available to both male and female faculty and can be used for a variety of family and nonfamily reasons. We therefore explore if outcomes of stopping the tenure clock vary by the gender of the user or the reason for use. We find that use of STC policies by pretenure faculty is not significantly related to their prob ability of promotion to a tenured position; however, STC use constrains pay for both male and female faculty. Moreover, we find that the pay penalty associated with stopping the tenure clock is larger and more persistent for faculty members who stop the clock for family reasons, as compared to nonfamily reasons. We discuss different mechanisms that may explain the observed relationships between STC use and faculty rewards and describe our ongoing efforts to isolate which of these mechanisms is at work.

Maske, Kellie L., Durden, Garey C., & Gaynor, Patricia E. (2007). Determinants of Scholarly Productivity among Male and Female Economists. Economic Inquiry, 41(4), 555-564. https://doi.org/10.1093/ei/cbg027

A model of the determinants of articles produced by male and female economists is estimated using data from a survey of members of the American Economics Association. Years of experience, coauthorship rates, gender, research‐teaching orientation of the respondent's institution, and teaching loads are shown to be important estimators. Coauthorship appears to increase the overall production of articles and may help explain why collaboration among economists has increased in recent years. Males produce, on average, about seven more articles than females, with approximately 59% of gender‐specific differentials left unexplained by the variables included in the model.

May, Ann Mari (2008). On Gender Balance in the Economics Profession. Econ Journal Watch, 5(2), 193-198. https://econjwatch.org/articles/on-gender-balance-in-the-economics-profession

This paper contends that women tend to eschew the economics profession due to institutional barriers and that women tend to identify themselves with professions less obtuse than economics. Furthermore this paper suggests that social pressures foster perceptions that appropriate fields of thought exist for women reinforcing the idea of appropriate academic fields for women.

May, A. M., McGarvey, M. G., & Whaples, R. (2014). Are disagreements among male and female economists marginal at best? A survey of AEA members and their views on economics and economic policy. Contemporary Economic Policy, 32(1), 11-132. https://doi.org/10.1111/coep.12004

The authors survey economists in the United States holding membership in the American Economic Association (AEA) to determine if there are significant differences in views between male and female economists on important policy issues. Controlling for place of current employment (academic institution with graduate program, academic institution-undergraduate only, government, for-profit institution) and decade of PhD, the authors find many areas in which economists agree. However, important differences exist in the views of male and female economists on issues including the minimum wage, views on labor standards, health insurance, and especially on explanations for the gender wage gap and issues of equal opportunity in the labor market and the economics profession itself. These results lend support to the notion that gender diversity in policy-making circles may be an important aspect in broadening the menu of public policy choices.

Mcdowell, John M., Singell, Larry D., & Stater, Mark (2007). Two to Tango? Gender Differences in the Decisions to Publish and Coauthor. Economic Inquiry, 44(1), 153-168. https://doi.org/10.1093/ei/cbi065

The existence of old boy networks has long been postulated as a possible explanation for the presence of gender differences in market outcomes but with little empirical support because of the difficulty of measuring network access. This article exploits the unique attributes of academic labor markets and detailed data on individuals and jobs for PhD economists over nearly four decades. The results suggest that networks impact the joint decision to publish and coauthor, that these network effects differ by gender, and that gender differences in network access change over time as women become more well represented in a profession.

McDowell, J., Singell, L., & Ziliak, J. (2001). Gender and Promotion in the Economics Profession. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 54(2), 224-244. https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=755

The authors use unique panel data on American Economic Association members to test for gender differences in promotion in a profession with a well-defined promotion and job hierarchy and in which men and women exhibit similar labor-market attachment. The results suggest that over the period from the 1960s through the early 1980s, female economists had lower levels of professional attainment and career advancement than did their male colleagues with similar attributes. These gender differences remain in evidence despite controls for unobserved heterogeneity and self-selection between academic and non-academic jobs. There is evidence, however, that promotion prospects for female economists significantly improved during the 1980s, not only at all ranks, but also within both Ph.D.-granting institutions and non-Ph.D.-granting institutions. In fact, the results reveal no unexplained gender-specific differences in promotion by the end of the 1980s.

Mcdowell, J. M., & Smith, J. K. (1992).The Effect of Gender-Sorting on Propensity to Coauthor: Implications for Academic Promotion. Economic Inquiry, 30(1), 68-82. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7295.1992.tb01536.x

A cohort sample of Ph.D. economists indicates a significant propensity for researchers to select coauthors of the same sex. This gender‐sorting contributes to lower article production for women. Further, we find evidence of bias in academic promotion when single‐authored and coauthored articles carry the same weight in promotion and salary decisions. The evidence explains, in part, why women academics wait longer for promotion and are not as likely to be promoted as men. Among the effects of gender‐sorting is self‐selection of women into larger departments where they are more likely to find colleagues of the same sex.

McGoldrick, KimMarie & Schuhmann, Peter W. (2002). Instructor Gender and Student Registration: An Analysis of Preferences. Education Economics, 10(3), 241-260. https://doi.org/10.1080/09645290210127480

The present study uses conjoint analysis to examine college students' choices of elective courses. The relative contributions to student satisfaction or 'utility' of six course and instructor attributes are computed. Results suggest that choice is in large part a function of the perceived interest in course topic, the applicability of course material to future career opportunities, and the time of day the course is offered. A relative preference for low levels of course and instructor rigor may suggest that students also place a high premium on expected grade. The gender of the instructor does not appear to influence the registration choices of most students, but may affect registration decisions made by students that do not belong to a fraternity or sorority, students with low grade point averages, and sophomores. The implication of these results for gender biases in student evaluations is discussed.

McMillen, D., & Singell, L. (1994). Gender Differences in First Jobs for Economists. Southern Economic Journal, 60(3), 701-714. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1060577

Relatively little is known about career choice within a profession. In this paper, we model the first-job choice of economists among several careers, and use data on new Ph.D. economists over the last thirty years to examine whether career choices differ by gender over a period of low, but increasing, representation of women. An advantage of our single-profession analysis is that it contains a relatively homogeneous set of workers with quantitative human-capital measures that other studies of job choice suggest are important. There is significant variation in career choices available within economics that permits possible market segmentation: there are research and teaching academic jobs, and the government and private sectors employ large numbers of economists. We find significant structural differences in the placements of male and female economists, indicating that the choices of female economists differ from those of the male counterparts both within academia and between this and other sectors.

McPherson, Michael A., Kim, Myungsup, Dorman, Megan, & Perera, Nishelli (2013). Research Output at US Economics Departments. Applied Economics Letters, 20(9), 889-892. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2012.761331

Using curricula vitae and EconLit, we examine the publication records of nearly 2000 academic economists. We consider the probationary period and the years between tenure and promotion to professor. Faculty tenured at top programmes average 3.44 articles in top-ten journals (and 8.75 total articles). The quality of faculty members' publications decreases with programme ranking; the quantity of publications does not differ much among top-100 programmes. Those promoted to professor generate fewer top-ten and total articles. There is some evidence that females produce fewer top-ten and total journal articles than males at many programmes.

Mixon, Franklin G. & Treviño, L. (2005). Is there gender discrimination in named professorships? An econometric analysis of economics departments in the US South. Applied Economics, 37(8), 849-854. 10.1080/00036840500048902 

This study examines the correlates of the probability that an individual academician holds a named professorship. Named professorships, like other positions within an organization, are determined by a mixture of market and non-market forces. Thus, both merit (both past and expected future productivity) and discrimination may play a role. Regression results and Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition tests presented here support a conclusion of gender discrimination in the named professorship process at American institutions of higher education. Specifically, it is found that gender discrimination results in a 7.6 percentage point disadvantage for females (relative to males) regarding the likelihood of holding a named professorship in economics.

Neumark, David & Gardecki, Rosella (1998). Women Helping Women? Role Model and Mentoring Effects on Female Ph.D. Students in Economics. Journal of Human Resources 33(1), 220–46. https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=757

One potential method to increase the success of female graduate students in economics may be to encourage mentoring relationships between these students and female faculty members. Increased hiring of female faculty is viewed as one way to promote such mentoring relationships, perhaps because of role-model effects. A more direct method of promoting such relationships may be for female graduate students to have female faculty serve as dissertation chairs. The evidence in his paper addresses the question of whether either of these strategies results in more successful outcomes for female graduate students. The evidence is based on survey information on female graduate students and faculties of Ph.D.-producing economics departments, covering the mid- 1970s to the early 1990s.

With respect to characteristics of the institutions at which students are first placed when leaving graduate school, the empirical evidence provides no support for the hypothesis that outcomes for female graduate students are improved by adding female faculty members, or by having a female dissertation chair. However, with respect to time to complete graduate school, and the completion rate, there is some limited evidence of beneficial effects of female faculty members.

Önder, Ali Sina and Hakan, Yilmazkuday (2016). Research teams and research fields of North American economics PhDs, 1980-2014. Vox Column. https://voxeu.org/article/peer-reviewed-output-north-american-economics-phds

North American economics departments produce a substantial amount of economics PhDs, and these PhDs are responsible for a disproportionately large share of research published in top academic journals. This column provides an overview of 35 years of peer-reviewed publications by North American economics PhDs. Since 1980, the size of author teams grown and female representation steadily improved. The shares of the major research fields show relatively little variation, though international economics, development economics, and finance are exceptions to this.

Önder, Ali Sina and Hakan, Yilmazkuday (2016). Thirty-Five Years of Peer-Reviewed Publishing by North American Economics PhDs: Quantity, Quality, and Beyond.  SSRN Electronic Journal. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2773230

We analyze and document various qualities of peer-reviewed journal publications listed in the EconLit database between 1980 and 2014. At least one author of the publication had to graduate from a North American economics PhD program between 1970 and 2009. We find that the share of single-author papers diminishes over time, and North American PhDs engage more in coauthored publications. While two-author papers are published on average more than three-author papers during 1980-1999, this switches after 2000. We also find that author teams containing at least one author who is a graduate of a top thirty department publish significantly more compared with other author teams. All-female and mixed-gender author teams publish significantly less compared with all-male author teams between 1980-1999, but we find no significant difference after 2000. The shares in the different fields in total publications show little variation in three decades. While male authors are over-represented in micro and macroeconomics, female authors are over-represented in labor and development economics. Some fields, such as microeconomics, econometrics, and experimental economics, are published in high quality journals, whereas macroeconomics, public economics, industrial organization, finance, health and urban economics, and development economics are published in journals that have lower quality weights than the average journal. Labor economics and economic history are published significantly better after 2000.

Owen, A. (2010). Grades, Gender, and Encouragement: A Regression Discontinuity Analysis. The Journal of Economic Education, 41(3), 217-234. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25766059

The author employs a regression discontinuity design to provide direct evidence on the effects of grades earned in economics principles classes on the decision to major in economics and finds a differential effect for male and female students. Specifically, for female students, receiving an A for a final grade in the first economics class is associated with a meaningful increase in the probability of majoring in economics, even after controlling for the numerical grade earned in the class. This suggests that for female students, the feedback that is embedded in the course letter grade has an encouragement effect on their decision to study economics further. The author finds no evidence of a similar effect for male students.

Persson, I. (2003).  Gender and Economics in Sweden., Le travail du genre : les sciences sociales du travail à l’épreuve des différences de sexe, 259-273. https://www.cairn.info/le-travail-du-genre--9782707141118-page-259.html#

This paper describes the evolution of Gender & Economics in Sweden during recent decades. It treats several sub-themes. One is that of economic research on women/gender. It is shown that in Sweden this research area has gradually grown into a fairly large mainstream research area in Economics. Two factors have contributed to this. One is the external (to the academic community) demand and support for such research in Sweden. Another is the fact that a number of theoretical and methodological developments in economics have had interesting applications within gender research.

Porter, Catherine & Serra, Danila (forthcoming). Gender Differences in the Choice of Major: The Importance of Female Role Models. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20180426&&from=f

We conducted a field experiment aimed at increasing the percentage of women majoring in economics. We exposed students enrolled in introductory classes to successful and charismatic women who majored in economics at the same university. The intervention significantly impacted female students' enrollment in further economics classes, increasing their likelihood to major in economics by 8 percentage points. This is a large effect, given that only 9 percent of women were majoring in economics at baseline. Since the impacted women were previously planning to major in lower-earning fields, our low-cost intervention may have a positive effect on their future incomes.

Price, Gregory & Razzolini, Laura (2002). The returns to seniority in the labor market for academic economists. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.196.5609&rep=rep1&type=pdf

This paper empirically explores the idea that the labor market for academic economists is possibly monopsonistic whereby employers can exploit the heterogeneity of employees to lower the returns to seniority. We estimate the returns to seniority in wage equations from censored salary data generated by grant applications submitted to the National Science Foundation Economics Program. Our results reveal that for academic economists, the returns to seniority are negative. This suggests that the labor market for economics faculty is monopsonistic with employers able to engage in salary discrimination as a result of heterogeneity in employee moving costs.

Ransom, M. (1993). Seniority and Monopsony in the Academic Labor Market. The American Economic Review, 83(1), 221-233. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2117505

Workers with high seniority usually have higher wages than workers with low seniority and the same total labor market experience. In contrast, the results of this paper indicate that higher seniority is associated with lower salaries for university professors. The author documents this finding for national surveys and individual institutions and explains it as due to monopsonistic discrimination by employers.

Rask, Kevin & Tiefenthaler, Jill (2008). The role of grade sensitivity in explaining the gender imbalance in undergraduate economics. Economics of Education Review, 27(6), 676-687. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2007.09.010

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 gender imbalance in undergraduate economics, particularly at institutions with traditional liberal arts curriculums, is partly explained by women's greater sensitivity to grades, particularly lower grades. Students choose their majors based on both their interests and their abilities. The literature indicates that the grade a student receives in an introductory class relative to grades received in other departments is one of the strongest predictors of whether or not the student chooses to enroll in more courses in the discipline. However, our hypothesis is that men who take economics courses are less responsive to this signal than are women. As a result, men who do poorly in economics are more likely to continue in the major. Women who do poorly, in contrast, are more likely to abandon economics and pursue a different major. Our results, generated from 16 years of data from a liberal arts college where economics is one of the most popular majors, support this hypothesis. The overall economics GPA for female majors is significantly higher than that for males and male students dominate the bottom of the grade distribution. Finally, results from the estimation of a series of selection models of the decision to take more economics courses indicate that, holding other characteristics constant, women are more responsive to the relative grade received than are men.

Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. (1973). The American Economic Review, 63(2), 508-511. http://www.jstor.org.proxy.library.vanderbilt.edu/stable/1817119

Last year the Association adopted a set of principles disavowing sex discrimination in the profession of economics and estab- lished the committee which I chair to in- vestigate conformity with these principles. The resolutions expressing these principles were published in the 1972 Papers and Proceedings issue of the A merican Eco- nomic Review. Appointed in March, the committee met first on May 31 and second in Washington on October 6, with a press conference to release preliminary results of our findings. This interim report covers three major activities. We have accumu- lated data on the supply of women econo- mists; we have attempted to respond to the demand for women economists; and we have worked out programs for affirmative action.

Robb, R. & Robb, A. (1999). Gender and the Study of Economics: The Role of Gender of the Instructor. The Journal of Economic Education, 30(1), 3-19. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1183028

The decision to pursue economics may be thought of as involving a two-stage process. In the first stage, the high school student decides to take economics (or a program requiring economics) in the first year at the university; in the second stage, the university student decides to take further courses in economics conditional on having taken the introductory course. Although the analyses of these decisions are quite limited, recent work by Dynan and Rouse (1997) for the United States indicates that women are significantly less likely than men to take introductory economics in the first place or to major in economics conditional on having taken the introductory course.

Robinson, Michael D. & Monks, James (1999). Gender differences in earnings among economics and business faculty. Economics Letters, 63(1), 119-125. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0165-1765(99)00016-6

This research note finds significant earnings differentials across gender that cannot be explained by differences in individual, job, or institutional characteristics. Specifically, we find that female economics and business faculty earn between 1.3 and 7.4% less than would be predicted in the absence of discrimination.

Sarsons, H (2017). Gender Differences in Recognition for Group Work. Working Paper. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/sarsons/files/full_v6.pdf

How is credit for group work allocated when individual contributions are not perfectly observed? Do demographic traits like gender influence the allocation of credit? Using data from academic economists’ CVs, I test whether coauthored and solo-authored publications matter differently for tenure for men and women. Because coauthors are listed alphabetically in economics, coauthored papers do not provide specific information about each contributor’s skills or ability. Solo-authored papers, on the other hand, provide a relatively clear signal of ability. I find that men are tenured at roughly the same rate regardless of whether they coauthor or solo-author. Women, however, become less likely to receive tenure the more they coauthor. The result is most pronounced for women coauthoring with men and less pronounced among women who coauthor with other women. I contrast economics with sociology, a discipline in which coauthors are listed in order of contribution, and find that when contributions are made clear, men and women receive equal credit for coauthored papers.

Schulze, Gunther & Warning, Susanne & Wiermann, Christian. (2008). What and How Long Does It Take to Get Tenure? The Case of Economics and Business Administration in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. German Economic Review, 9(11), 473-505.  10.1111/j.1468-0475.2008.00450.x

This paper investigates the determinants of tenure decisions in Germany, Austria and the German-speaking part of Switzerland for professorships in economics, business administration and related fields. Our dataset comprises candidates who were awarded tenure as well as those who were eligible but were not tenured. We show that business candidates have a higher probability of being tenured than economists. Youth, marital status and publications matter; gender and children do not. The market for first appointments in economics relies much more on publication performance than the market for business administration.

Stevenson, Betsey, & Zlotnik, Hanna (2018). Representations of Men and Women in Introductory Economics Textbooks. AEA Papers and Proceedings, 108, 180-85. http://fordschool.umich.edu/files/stevenson-manuscript-textbooks.pdf

This paper examines the frequency and ways in which men and women appear in principles of economics textbooks. Men account for more than 90 percent of business leaders, policymakers, and economists mentioned in textbooks. In addition, women are a minority of the fictionalized people appearing in textbooks and a minority of celebrities. Fictionalized women are shown taking fewer actions and are more likely to be involved in food, fashion, or household tasks, while men are more likely both to be in leadership positions and in business or policy.

Stock, W., & Siegfried, J. (2006). Where Are They Now? Tracking the Ph.D. Class of 1997. Southern Economic Journal, 73(2), 472-488.  https://www.jstor.org/stable/20111902

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 years. Salaries of the cohort increased at an average annual rate of 8.2 percent from 1997 through 2003. Academic-year salaries rose about 5.7 percent per year, while private sector salaries skyrocketed at 15 percent per year. Finally, the median salaries of first-year full-time permanent 9-10 month academic economists hired in 2002-03 actually exceed the 2003 salaries of their counterparts initially hired in 1997-98. Some of this apparent salary inversion reflects a different mix of employers and departments between the two cohorts, with the younger group securing relatively more jobs at higher paying institutions.

Stone, Joe & Singell, Larry Jr. (1993). Gender Differences in Ph.D. Economists Careers. Contemporary Economic Policy, 11(4), 95-106. 10.1111/j.1465-7287.1993.tb00404.x

This study of Ph.D. economists' careers during the period 1960-1989 examines both initial and current employment and explicitly accounts for the joint relationship between choosing an employment sector and placement within the academic sector. Initial placement and market conditions create effects that tend to persist throughout an individual's career. With the exception of the labor and welfare fields, women are not less likely than men either to enter or to persist in academia. But significant evidence shows that in the past, women have placed in lower-ranked departments. Among recent degree recipients, however, underplacement of women as a general phenomenon apparently has disappeared.

Takahashi, Ana Maria & Takahashi, Shingo (2015). Gender promotion differences in economics departments in Japan: A duration analysis. Journal of Asian Economics, 41, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asieco.2015.09.002

Using a unique data set from our survey of academic economists in Japan, we present the first detailed study of gender promotion gaps in Japanese academia. The length of time from initial appointment to promotion to associate professor is greater for women than men, largely due to women spending more time as lecturers, the lowest academic rank. The gender gaps in promotions from associate professor to full professor are more complex. Childless women are promoted faster than childless men. However, since the effects of marriage and children are negative for women, this ‘reverse gender gap’ disappears for childless married academics, and women's time to promotion becomes substantially longer than men's if they have children.

Takahashi, Ana Maria & Takahashi, Shingo (2011). Gender Salary Differences in Economics Departments in Japan. Economics of Education Review, 30(6). 10.1016/j.econedurev.2011.06.002

By using unique survey data, we conduct a detailed study of the gender salary gap within economics departments in Japan. Despite the presence of rigid pay scales emphasizing age and experience, there is a 7% gender salary gap after controlling for rank and detailed personal, job, institutional and human capital characteristics. This gender salary gap exists within ranks. We find no gender promotion differences. In addition, we find a concentration of the salary gap in public universities and in research oriented universities. Our results show no evidence that the gender salary gap is reducing over time, and reject the hypothesis that females' choice between household work and market activities is responsible for the gender salary gap.

Taylor, S., Fender, B., & Burke, K. (2006). Unraveling the Academic Productivity of Economists: The Opportunity Costs of Teaching and Service. Southern Economic Journal, 72(4), 846-859. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20111856

This study investigates the relationships among research productivity, teaching, and service on the basis of individual-specific information involving approximately 715 academic economists. Responding to an online survey, these economists provided information regarding their teaching and service commitments as well as personal and institutional information. The publication record of each respondent was then obtained from EconLit. Together, these data constitute a rich field for the systematic study of research productivity. Results of a Tobit analysis reveal much about the nature of research productivity, underscoring, for instance, the importance of gender, coauthorship, presentations at conferences, and peers who publish. Among the more important findings from this analysis is that both teaching and service commitments have a significantly negative impact on the research productivity of academic economists. These relations hold across types of academic employer, though to varying degrees. Taken together, the results provide interesting insights into the roles of academic scholars, teachers, and colleagues.

Thilmany, D. (2000). Gender Based Differences of Performance and Pay among Agricultural Economics Faculty. Review of Agricultural Economics, 22(1), 23-33. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1349926

In 1998, the Committee on Women in Agricultural Economics (CWAE) began a tracking project to more closely examine and report on issues and trends in the agricultural economics profession. This study presents results on performance and pay among academics, focusing on differences across genders. Experience and refereed journal articles appear to have the greatest affect on salary differences. Discussion on several academic issues of debate, including nine- versus eleven-month appointments and workload expectations, is also presented.

Toutkoushian, R., Bellas, M., & Moore, J. (2007). The interaction effects of gender, race, and marital status on faculty salaries. Journal of Higher Education, 78(5), 572–601. http://muse.jhu.edu/article/222934

Large national surveys of faculty afford analysts the opportunity to examine differences in faculty salary based on combinations of all three dimensions--gender, race/ethnicity, and marital status--as well as the possible interactive effects among them. In this study, the authors used data from the 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:99) to examine the different ways in which a faculty member's gender, race/ethnicity, and marital status can interact to influence compensation. They begin by reviewing the literature on the effects of these variables on faculty salaries and then discuss empirical approaches to measuring differences in faculty salary. The authors then provide a description of the data, followed by the results of their analyses. They conclude with some thoughts on the implications of their findings and future directions for research.

Ward, Melanie (2003). Gender and Promotion in the Academic Profession. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 48(3), 283-302. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9485.00199

This paper examines the possibility that the gender rank distribution observed in the academic labor market is predominantly explained by two factors. First, the differing average characteristics of male and female academics, and second, barriers to female promotion. Despite detailed controls for personal attributes, including career breaks and publication history, male academics are more likely to be found in higher grades. Promotion from researcher to lecturer is a relatively high hurdle for women. Evidence suggests that initial placement and the process of moving between universities contributes to the male advantage in rank attainment.

Ward, Melanie (2002). The Gender Salary Gap in British Acadamia. Applied Economics, 33(13), 1669-1681. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00036840010014445

This paper considers salary determination and the gender salary gap in the academic labor market utilizing a particularly detailed data set of academics from five old established Universities. Results reveal an aggregate gender salary differential for academic staff of 15%. Most of this differential can, however, be explained by our model. Evidence suggests a limited opportunity for female academics to combine career and family, despite the flexibility of an academic job and emphasizes the importance of mobility to the male career. Publication record is found to be an important determinant of salary.

Wu, Alice (2017). Gender Stereotyping in Academia: Evidence from Economics Job Market Rumors Forum. Working Paper. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwjFN4HbBrDBbnFqZzdLWThDb0U/view

This paper examines whether people in academia portray and judge women and men differently in everyday conversations that take place online. I combine methods from text mining, machine learning and econometrics to study the existence and extent of gender stereotyping on the Economics Job Market Rumors forum. I first design a propensity score model to infer the gender a post mainly refers to from text, and simultaneously identify the individual words with the strongest association with gender. The words selected provide a direct look into the gender stereotyped language on this forum. Through a topic analysis of the posts, I find that when women are under discussion, the discourse tends to become significantly less academic or professionally oriented, and more about personal information and physical appearance. Moreover, a panel data analysis reveals the state dependence between the content of posts within a thread. In particular, once women are mentioned in a thread, the topic is likely to shift from academic to personal. Finally, I restrict the analysis to discussions about specific economists, and find that high-profile female economists tend to receive more attention on EJMR than their male counterparts.