Working Paper: NBER ID: w21130
Authors: Hans Fricke; Jeffrey Grogger; Andreas Steinmayr
Abstract: This study investigates how being exposed to a field of study influences students’ major choices. We exploit a natural experiment at a Swiss university where all first-year students face largely the same curriculum before they choose a major. An important component of the first-year curriculum that varies between students involves a multi-term research paper in business, economics, or law. Due to oversubscription of business, the university assigns the field of the paper in a standardized way that is unrelated to student characteristics. We find that being assigned to write in economics raises the probability of majoring in economics by 2.7 percentage points, which amounts to 18 percent of the share of students who major in economics.
Keywords: exposure; major choice; natural experiment; economics; law
JEL Codes: A20; I20; I23
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Assignment to economics paper (A29) | Major in economics (A22) |
| Assignment to law paper (K36) | Major in law (K19) |
| Exposure to economics (A12) | Grades in introductory economic courses (A22) |
| Exposure to economics (A12) | Major choices of male students (D29) |
| Exposure to law (K49) | Major choices of female students (J16) |