Title
Barriers To Professional Entry: How Effective Is The 150-Hour Rule?
Keywords
150-hour rule; CPA exam; Elasticity
Abstract
Policy debates about the 150-hour rule have taken place without information regarding the marginal impacts that education has on CPA exam success. We find that education is a relatively weak input. An increase from the traditional undergraduate requirement of 128 credit hours to 150 hours is equivalent to a four-percentile increment in a candidate's mathematics aptitude. Among inputs that might be more direct substitutes, we observe that the "extra" 22 hours is offset by two-thirds of a review course on one exam section. Our results explain why several states have recently adopted the 120/150 rule, which removes the 150-hour constraint from the exam. Since the CPA exam will be soon changing to address a broader range of competencies, the results of this study also provide a baseline for policy makers to assess the impact of educational requirements on future entry. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Publication Date
4-10-2002
Publication Title
Journal of Accounting and Public Policy
Volume
21
Issue
1
Number of Pages
71-93
Document Type
Article
Personal Identifier
scopus
DOI Link
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0278-4254(02)00037-6
Copyright Status
Unknown
Socpus ID
0036201633 (Scopus)
Source API URL
https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/0036201633
STARS Citation
Grant, C. Terry; Ciccotello, Conrad S.; and Dickie, Mark, "Barriers To Professional Entry: How Effective Is The 150-Hour Rule?" (2002). Scopus Export 2000s. 2590.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/scopus2000/2590