IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fednsr/450.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is economics coursework, or majoring in economics, associated with different civic behaviors?

Author

Abstract

Studies regularly link levels of educational attainment to civic behavior and attitudes, but only a few investigate the role played by specific coursework. Using data collected from students who attended one of four public universities in our study, we investigate the relationship between economics coursework and civic behavior after graduation. Drawing from large samples of students in economics, business, or general majors, we compare responses across the three groups and by the number of undergraduate economics courses completed. We find that undergraduate coursework in economics is strongly associated with political party affiliation and with donations to candidates or parties, but not with the decision to vote or not vote. Nor is studying economics correlated with the likelihood (or intensity of) volunteerism. While we find that the civic behavior of economics majors and business majors is similar, it appears that business majors are less likely than general majors to engage in time-consuming behaviors such as voting and volunteering. Finally, we extend earlier studies that address the link between economics coursework and attitudes on public policy issues, finding that graduates who studied more economics usually reported attitudes closer to those expressed in national surveys of U.S. economists. Interestingly, we find the public policy attitudes of business majors to be more like those of general majors than of economics majors.

Suggested Citation

  • Sam Allgood & William Bosshardt & Wilbert Van der Klaauw & Michael Watts, 2010. "Is economics coursework, or majoring in economics, associated with different civic behaviors?," Staff Reports 450, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:450
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr450.html
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr450.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Evidence on the goodness of economists
      by Kevin Denny in Geary Behaviour Centre on 2010-06-14 20:14:00

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Javdani, Mohsen & Chang, Ha-Joon, 2019. "Who Said or What Said? Estimating Ideological Bias in Views Among Economists," IZA Discussion Papers 12738, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Paul W. Grimes & Kevin E. Rogers & William D. Bosshardt, 2021. "Economic Education and Household Financial Outcomes during the Financial Crisis," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-12, July.
    3. Franklin G. Mixon & Richard J. Cebula (ed.), 2014. "New Developments in Economic Education," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15538.
    4. Maite D. Laméris & Pierre-Guillaume Méon & Anne-Marie Prooijen, 2023. "What have we done?! The impact of economics on the beliefs and values of business students," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 93(3), pages 433-483, April.
    5. John W. Straka & Brenda C. Straka, 2020. "Reframe policymaking dysfunction through bipartisan-inclusion leadership," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 53(4), pages 779-802, December.
    6. Amélie Goossens & Pierre-Guillaume Méon, 2015. "The Belief that Market Transactions Are Mutually Beneficial: A Comparison of the Views of Students in Economics and Other Disciplines," Post-Print CEB, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 46(2), pages 121-134, April.
    7. John V. Winters & Weineng Xu, 2014. "Geographic Differences in the Earnings of Economics Majors," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(3), pages 262-276, September.
    8. Thomas Carroll & Djeto Assane & Jared Busker, 2014. "Why it Pays to Major in Economics," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(3), pages 251-261, September.
    9. Hrishikesh Joshi, 2020. "What are the chances you’re right about everything? An epistemic challenge for modern partisanship," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 19(1), pages 36-61, February.
    10. Grimes, Paul W. & Lopus, Jane S. & Amidjono, Dwi Sulistyorini, 2022. "Financial life-skills training and labor market outcomes in Indonesia," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    11. Brent A. Evans, 2015. "Did Economic Literacy Influence Macroeconomic Policy Preferences of the General Public during the Financial Crisis?," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 60(2), pages 132-141, September.
    12. Bell, D’Wayne & Feng, Jing & Holbein, John B. & Smith, Jonathan, 2022. "Do STEM Students Vote?," IZA Discussion Papers 15483, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Simon Niklas Hellmich, 2019. "Are People Trained in Economics “Different,†and if so, Why? A Literature Review," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 64(2), pages 246-268, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Education; Human behavior; Economics - Study and teaching; Business and education; Volunteers;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:450. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Gabriella Bucciarelli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbnyus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.