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This is the first paper that seeks to reconcile the large and persistent differences across data sources in the number of new economics PhDs that U.S. universities produce. During 1997–2006, the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) reported 11,524 such degrees in all specialties, compared to 10,812 degrees by the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and 8,862 dissertations listed in the Journal of Economic Literature (JEL). The comparable estimates in general economics (GE) were 9,504, 8,534, and 7,856, respectively. Such differences can lead to problematic assessments of the balance between supply and demand in the market for new PhDs. The study finds that the SED picks up the most new economics PhDs, but it also attracts an unknown number of graduates of business schools and interdisciplinary programs. IPEDS has the most detailed classification framework of specialty degrees, but undercounts graduates of larger GE programs and misclassifies some GE programs. The JEL's annual lists provide useful information on the content of doctoral research, but suffer from serious under-reporting by economics departments. After adjusting counts, the study estimates that about 9,100 GE degrees were conferred during the survey decade. The paper offers a rule of thumb for estimating adjusted counts in future years. An epilog finds that other social science disciplines have problems counting new doctoral dissertations and making lists of them accessible to researchers.

Economic analysis of the labor supply of married women has long emphasized the impact of the unemployment of husbands—the added worker effect. This article re-examines the magnitude of the added worker effect in the waning years of the Great Depression. Previous studies of the labor supply of married women during this period failed to take account of various institutional features of New Deal work relief programs, which reduced the size of the added worker effect.

We use data from norming the third edition of the Test of Understanding College Economics to exam ine whether instructors for whom English is a second language (ESLs) receive lower student ratings of teaching effectiveness in principles of economics courses, holding constant what students learn in the course. The results suggest that student ratings of ESL instructors are, on average, about 0.4 points lower, on a scale of 1.0 to 5.0, than the ratings of native English speaking instructors. Most of this deficit can be attributed to differences in how the two groups of instructors teach their courses and evaluate the knowledge of their students.

Using objective and subjective data from the third edition of the Test of Understanding College Economics (TUCE) collected from 117 classes in introductory economics taught at 34 different colleges, this study examines whether students taught by regular faculty with a Ph.D. degree learn more than students taught by regular faculty who have only an M.A. degree. After controlling for other characteristics of instructors, schools, and students, we find no significant association between instructor's terminal degree and several objective measures of student learning in introductory macroeconomics classes; students in introductory microeconomics classes taught by Ph.D.-holding instructors learned substantially and significantly less. For neither subject is there a significant net association between instructor's degree and student assessments of amount learned or instructor effectiveness. The results suggest that a future shortage of Ph.D. economists would not reduce student learning in introductory economics courses.

The belief that minimum wage legislation helps the working poor is one reason for its continued popular support. Here, data from the 1950-1980 decennial censuses & the 1985 Current Population Survey are used to track changes in the characteristics & household incomes of US low-wage workers; they reveal that a radical transformation has occurred in the half century since the passage of the original minimum wage law: today, most low-wage workers live in households well above the poverty line. Thus, those living in poverty will only get about 11% of the gains from the higher minimum wage increase proposed in the 1988 Kennedy-Hawkins Bill, while low-wage workers in families with incomes 3 or more times the poverty line will get nearly 40%. Therefore, it is not clear that increases in the minimum wage make good policy even if no jobs are lost as a result. 3 Tables, 1 Figure, 1 Appendix. Modified HA

This paper describes the progress, eight years after matriculating, of 586 individuals who entered one of 27 economics Ph.D. programs in fall 2002. By October 2010, 59 percent of the fall 2002 entering cohort had earned a Ph.D. in economics at the university where they initially matriculated, 37 percent had dropped out, and 4 percent were still writing their dissertations.We examine student outcomes by Ph.D. program tier and investigate factors associated with completion and time to degree. We document and describe the rise in median time to degree from 5.0 to 5.6 years during the period 1996–2010.