MCA-ECON: The Impacts of Supply and Demand on Ideas, Innovation, and Diversity in Economics

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This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Researchers play a critical role in the production of new ideas, yet relatively little is known about how the composition of researchers affects research output. This project will address this question directly and explicitly tie the evolution of ideas to demographic shifts in the representation of historically underrepresented minority (URM) groups and women in economics. As such, it connects closely with efforts to broaden participation toward greater inclusion of historically marginalized groups at universities, colleges, and professional organizations across the nation.This project will link the most comprehensive data sets on the supply of, and demand for, Ph.D. economists by year and field within economics. This unprecedented coverage will enable researchers to track the evolution of ideas and innovation in economics and the role that labor supply and demand factors have played in that process. Close examination of these data will lead to a better understanding of the relationship between the demographic composition of researchers and ideas, with a focus on estimating the impact of increasing diversity on the depth and breadth of research innovation and ideas. This project will also yield insights from the variation in the representation of women and URM groups across fields over time to provide actionable evidence on increasing diversity more broadly in the profession. Finally, this Mid-Career Advancement (MCA) project will support moving the PI’s area of expertise into the field of innovation while opening new avenues of inquiry into the link between diversity and innovation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.