The Causal Effects of Participation in the American Economic Association Summer Minority Program

This article examines whether participation by underrepresented minority groups in the American Economics Association Summer Minority Program (AEASMP) has causal effects on outcomes associated with success as academic economists. We estimate both propensity score weighted and Heckit parameter estimates of (1) the average effect of treatment and (2) the effect of treatment on the treated. Our results, which vary across specifications of potential outcomes and propensity score truncated samples, suggest that AEASMP participation by black American Ph.D. economists has a positive and causal impact on 4 outcomes associated with success as an academic economist. However if the probability of selection into the treatment by the nontreated is similar to that of the treated, the results suggest that AEASMP participation by black American Ph.D. economists has a positive and causal effect on research productivity and in gaining access to research funding.