The impact of Australian higher education policy changes on the production of PhDs in the field of accounting and finance

This article examines the growth in accounting and finance PhD graduates across all Australian universities from 1965 to 2006. It investigates the impact of the major changes that were initiated in 1988 in higher education in Australia with the introduction of the Unified National Scheme (UNS) and, in 2002, with the Research Training Scheme (RTS). A data set of PhD thesis records provides data of actual PhD completions, as distinct from enrolments. Analyses show that both the number of accounting and finance PhD completions and the dispersion of these PhD completions across Australian universities increased from 1988 with the introduction of the UNS. There is also evidence that the proportion of accounting and finance-related PhD completions relative to total Australian PhD completions increased from 1988. While there is strong statistical support for the effect of the UNS on PhD completions, this is not the case for the more recent changes associated with the Research Training Scheme (RTS).