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Reaching For The Brass Ring: The U.S. News & World Report Rankings And Competition, Ronald Ehrenberg Nov 2012

Reaching For The Brass Ring: The U.S. News & World Report Rankings And Competition, Ronald Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] The behavior of academic institutions, including the extent to which they collaborate on academic and nonacademic matters, is shaped by many factors. This paper focuses on one of these factors, the U.S. News & World Report (USNWR) annual ranking of the nation’s colleges and universities as undergraduate institutions, exploring how this ranking exacerbates the competitiveness among American higher education institutions. After presenting some evidence on the importance of the USNWR rankings to both public and private institutions at all levels along the selectivity spectrum, I describe how the rankings actually are calculated, then discuss how academic institutions alter their …


Did Teachers’ Race And Verbal Ability Matter In The 1960’S? Coleman Revisited, Ronald Ehrenberg, Dominic Brewer Nov 2012

Did Teachers’ Race And Verbal Ability Matter In The 1960’S? Coleman Revisited, Ronald Ehrenberg, Dominic Brewer

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Our paper reanalyzes data from the classic 1966 study Equality of Educational Opportunity, or Coleman Report. It addresses whether teacher characteristics, including race and verbal ability, influenced "synthetic gain scores" of students (mean test scores of upper grade students in a school minus mean test scores of lower grade students in a school), in the context of an econometric model that allows for the possibility that teacher characteristics in a school are endogenously determined. We find that verbal aptitude scores of teachers influenced synthetic gain scores for both black and white students. Verbal aptitude mattered as much for black teachers …


Unequal Progress: The Annual Report On The Economic Status Of The Profession 2002-03, Ronald Ehrenberg Sep 2012

Unequal Progress: The Annual Report On The Economic Status Of The Profession 2002-03, Ronald Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Most colleges and universities adopted budgets for the 2002-03 academic year in the spring and early summer of 2002. At that time, a pessimist might have cited several factors – negative rates of return from institutional endowments, a rising unemployment rate, an economic recession, and large increases in college and university enrollments, for example - to predict that faculty members would not see their earnings increase substantially in real terms in the coming year. The good news is that, overall and on average, the pessimists' worst fears proved incorrect. The bad news is that the overall aver-ages don't tell …


The Changing Distributions Of New Ph.D. Economists And Their Employment: Implications For The Future, Ronald Ehrenberg Aug 2012

The Changing Distributions Of New Ph.D. Economists And Their Employment: Implications For The Future, Ronald Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Academic careers are no longer the be-all and end-all for economics Ph.D. students, and the findings and background provided by Siegfried and Stock help to explain why this is so. The median age at which individuals receive economics Ph.D.'s in the Siegfried and Stock sample is 32. While they are somewhat surprised at this finding, it parallels the experiences of many other fields. Increasingly, students are working before proceeding to doctoral studies. Often Ph.D. students in economics enter their programs after having spent several years working for government agencies or research consulting companies—work that has whetted their appetites for …


Do Economics Departments With Lower Tenure Probabilities Pay Higher Faculty Salaries?, Ronald Ehrenberg, Paul Pieper, Rachel Willis Aug 2012

Do Economics Departments With Lower Tenure Probabilities Pay Higher Faculty Salaries?, Ronald Ehrenberg, Paul Pieper, Rachel Willis

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

The simplest competitive labor market model asserts that if tenure is a desirable job characteristic for professors, they should be willing to pay for it by accepting lower salaries. Conversely, if an institution unilaterally reduces the probability that its assistant professors receive tenure, it will have to pay higher salaries to attract new faculty. Our paper tests this theory using data on salary offers accepted by new assistant professors at economics departments in the United States during the 1974-75 to 1980-81 period, along with data on the proportion of new Ph.D.s hired by each department between 1970 and 1980 that …


How Would Universities Respond To Increased Federal Support For Graduate Students?, Ronald Ehrenberg, Daniel Rees, Dominic Brewer Aug 2012

How Would Universities Respond To Increased Federal Support For Graduate Students?, Ronald Ehrenberg, Daniel Rees, Dominic Brewer

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] This paper has demonstrated that doctorate-producing universities respond to changes in the number of FTSEG students supported on external funds by altering the number of FTSEG students that they support on institutional funds. While institutional adjustment to changes in external support levels appears to be quite rapid, in the aggregate the magnitude of these responses is quite small. A increase of 100 in the number of FTSEG students supported by external funds is estimated to reduce the number supported on institutional funds by 22 to 23. Since some of the institutional funds that are "saved" may be redirected to …


Institutional Responses To Increased External Support For Graduate Students, Ronald Ehrenberg, Daniel Rees, Dominic Brewer Aug 2012

Institutional Responses To Increased External Support For Graduate Students, Ronald Ehrenberg, Daniel Rees, Dominic Brewer

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

This paper uses institutionally based data to estimate how universities would respond to increased federal support for graduate students. It demonstrates that doctorate-producing universities do respond to changes in the number of full-time science and engineering students supported on external funds by altering the number of students that they support on institutional funds. Institutional adjustment to changes in external support levels appears to be quite rapid. However, in the aggregate, the magnitude of these responses is quite small.