The Lasting Effects of Introductory

tion. On most college campuses more students are enrolled in introductory economics courses than in all other undergraduate economics courses combined, and academic members of the profession collectively spend more time teaching introductory economics than any other single course. Yet, the one most widely publicized pronouncement on the subject continues to be the now-famous "Stigler hypothesis" which suggests that, if an essay test on current economic problems were administered to college seniors (or persons five years out of college), there would be no difference in the performance of students with a "conventional" one-year course and those who had never had a course in economics (Stigler 1963).' If substantiated, the results predicted by Stigler would constitute a serious indictment of the pedagogical effectiveness of the profession. However, the kind of essay examination he proposed is not practical with the type of large nationwide sample that would be necessary to adequately test his hypothesis in its original form. Early empirical studies by Bach and Saunders (1965, 1966), using a multiple-choice examination, lent support to Stigler's hypothesis. However, these studies were limited to a nationwide sample of high school social studies teachers, and no data were available on the teachers' scholastic ability or the grades they received in their college economics courses. Also, the test used in the Bach-Saunders studies was the very elementary Test of Economic Understanding (TEU 1964), an instrument designed primarily for use with high school students. This paper reports the results of a study designed to provide a more adequate, albeit still indirect, test of the Stigler hypothesis and to obtain additional information on college students' attitudes about economics and on their reading habits. The regression analyses reported below indicate that