AEA Summer Training Program -- REU site

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

The AEA Summer Training Program is an intensive nine-week program hosted by Duke University in affiliation with North Carolina A&T State University. Intellectual Merit: It strengthens analytical and technical skills, while showing students that these skills are useful, and that economics can be relevant and exciting. Students receive the requisite analytical and computer skills for data analysis in four interrelated courses taught at Foundations and Advanced levels. This research experience is structured to facilitate completion during the summer by Advanced participants, while Foundations students are expected to complete an initial version of the project, and then will refine it during the following academic year. A variety of data sets are maintained for Summer Program students. Weekly seminars by outside speakers, along with the annual Pipeline Conference of leading minority economists and advanced graduate students, familiarize students with policy issues and career options. Broader Impacts: The Training Program is combined with a Scholarship Program that recruits, selects, and funds Minority (Black, Hispanic, Native American, and certain Asian-American) participants who are U.S. citizens. While the primary objective of the AEA Training Program is to increase the number of underrepresented and historically disadvantaged minorities in the economic profession, the Program is open to and includes some non-minority participants. The class of 2004 is the largest in the AEA Summer Program's 31-year history, with 36 students from 26 universities in 13 states, plus Puerto Rico. The class included 22 women and 14 men, of whom 16 attended Minority Serving Institutions. The 2004 class also included 20 African-Americans, 13 Hispanics, two Vietnamese-Americans, and one Filipino-American. Of the 103 participants during 2001-04, 41 students have entered Ph.D. programs or will do so; 25 have entered (or will do so) MA programs. Ultimately, about two-thirds of Training Program participants enter doctoral programs in Economics or a related field.