AEA Home
AEA

Document Request

You have requested the following article:
What Can UWE Do for Economics?
Tatyana Avilova and Claudia Goldin
AEA Papers and Proceedings. May 2018, Vol. 108, No. : Pages 186-190

What Can UWE Do for Economics?

Tatyana Avilova1 and Claudia Goldin2

1Columbia University, 420 W. 118th Street, MC 3308, New York, NY 10027 (email: )

2Harvard University, 229 Littauer, Cambridge, MA 02138 (email: )

Abstract

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 began 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 women in economics.