Nudges to encourage female and racial minority students to enroll in additional economics courses

Abstract

This paper replicates studies on alumni visits and email interventions in Economics Principles courses to address diversity among students majoring in economics. Using a new, racially diverse sample reflecting national demographics, we find that two 15-min visits from female alumnae, mostly African American, or an encouraging email can increase enrollment in upper-level economics courses, but combining these interventions is potentially less effective. Alumnae visits increased upper-level economics course completion among Black and Latinx students by almost 12 percentage points more than they increased completion among white students. Our results suggest that alumni visits can increase racial diversity at a relatively low cost.