Dissertation advisors and initial job placements for economics PhD recipients

Abstract

Using a unique data set that matches economics PhD recipients with their advisors, we find that after controlling for programme quality, the relative standing of a student's dissertation advisor has a significant impact on his or her initial job placement.

Notes

¹ According to its description, this database contains information on ‘dissertations on all academic topics accepted at accredited institutions since 1861, including more than 1.2 million citations (with abstracts since 1980) to doctoral degree dissertations by accredited North American educational institutions and more than 200 institutions elsewhere.’

² This classification might seem somewhat arbitrary. However, we did explore a multitude of other categorical breakdowns (every 100, every 200, etc.) as well as the inclusion of a continuous measure of advisor rank. Every alternative specification yielded similar results and thus, we believe that the results presented here are highly robust.

³ Tier 1 programmes are Harvard, Chicago, M.I.T., Stanford, Princeton, and Yale. Tier 2 programmes are UC Berkeley, Pennsylvania, Northwestern, Minnesota, UCLA, Columbia, Michigan, Rochester and Wisconsin. Tier 3 programmes are UC San Diego, NYU, Cornell, Cal Tech, Maryland, Boston University, Duke, Brown, Virginia, North Carolina, University of Washington-Seattle, Michigan State, Illinois, Washington University (St. Louis) and Iowa.