The Search for Economics Talent: Doctoral Completion and Research Productivity

Economists hold an annual talent search in which students from around the world apply to doctoral programs and economics departments. Top economics PhD programs seek candidates with the preparation, aptitude, drive, and creativity to become academic professionals whose research will advance the frontiers of the discipline. Admission committee members must judge students’ potential economic talent based on the evidence provided in the application folders, which includes standardized test scores, course selection and grades, quality of the undergraduate institution, fellow economists’ evaluations, and other relevant information. Due to the nonobservability of important characteristics, the admission committee’s task of matching opportunity with talent constitutes a signaling problem, as modeled by Michael A. Spence (1973). What information, then, credibly signals otherwise unobservable economics talent? Viewing quantitative Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores as a proxy for ability, Ronald G. Ehrenberg and Panagiotis G. Mavros (1995) found that these scores failed to predict PhD completion or time-to-degree for 25 years of economics PhD students at Cornell University. Attributing that result to a poor proxy for ability, they recommended obtaining a richer set of information about a student’s “true ability” by using, for example, the quality of applicants’ undergraduate institution, information from letters of recommendation, and the graduate committee’s ranking. The Search for Economics Talent: Doctoral Completion and Research Productivity