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American Economic Review Vol. 101 No. 3 2011

Completion Rates and Time-to-Degree in Economics PhD Programs

Wendy A. Stock1; John J. Siegfried2; T. Aldrich Finegan3

1 Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics, 306 Linfield Hall, P.O. Box 172920, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717-2920. · 2 Box 1741, Station B, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235. · 3 Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235.

Abstract

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.

DOI
10.1257/aer.101.3.176
Volume
101
Issue
3
Pages
176-187
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref openalex

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