Heterogeneity in Human Capital Investments: High School Curriculum, College Major, and Careers

Altonji, Joseph G.; Blom, Erica; Meghir, Costas

doi:10.3386/w17985

Cited by 105 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…There is some evidence, however, of differentiation in the returns along varied dimensions (e.g. Martins and Pereira 2004;Hoekstra 2009;Green and Zhu 2010;Altonji et al 2012;Figueiredo et al 2013;Lindley and Machin 2014). Differentiation reflects a combination of within-group skill heterogeneity and disequilibrium in the graduate labour market, consistent with a range of labour market theories (McGuinness 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

The changing graduate labour market: analysis using a new indicator of graduate jobs

Green¹,

Henseke²

2016

IZA J Labor Policy

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This paper examines differentiation in the recent evolving graduate labour market in Britain. Using a novel statistically derived indicator of graduate jobs, based on job skill requirements in three-digit occupations obtained from the British Skills and Employment Survey series, we analyse trends in the labour market between 1997/2001 and 2006/2012. The indicator performs better than other indicators in validation tests, could be applied flexibly in other contexts, and is available in the Additional file 1. We find that the massive influx of graduates into the labour force has been absorbed with no increase in overeducation. However, the returns to graduation have become more dispersed, with those at the upper quartile of the residual distribution increasing, while those at the lowest quartile have fallen. The wage gap between matched and overeducated graduates increased by 11 log points. Using the British Household Panel Study, we find that the persistence of overeducation status did not change but for non-employed male graduates moving into employment, the chances of entering a graduate job decreased.JEL Classification: J21, J24, J3

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

The changing graduate labour market: analysis using a new indicator of graduate jobs

Green¹,

Henseke²

2016

IZA J Labor Policy

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“…The magnitude of this effect is comparable to estimates from previous studies in the U.S. Hamermesh and Donald (2008) estimate that the earnings of students who majored in engineering and hard business are respectively, 31.6 and 48.9 log points higher than those who majored in education. Altonji et al (2012) suggest a wage premium of 56.1 and 51.8 log points for those who studied electrical engineering and finance relatively to education. Melguzio and Wozniak (2011) estimate a 25% to 40% STEM related premium for high achieving minority students.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Quality of Higher Education and Earnings: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from the French Baccalaureate

Canaan

Mouganie

2014

SSRN Journal

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An emerging body of literature examines the economic returns to quality of postsecondary education. This literature has predominantly focused on the returns to the most selective universities. However, less is known about the extent to which these gains are realized for the academically marginal student who does not necessarily attend the most selective of institutions. In this paper, we address this question by exploiting the presence of the Baccalauréat Général (or the General Baccalaureate), a degree that students in France must earn to graduate from secondary school and enroll in postsecondary institutions. The degree is awarded upon passing a series of national exams. Students can retake the exam in the same year but the standards for passing are higher in the first round. Our data links individual-level information on secondary and postsecondary education to labor market outcomes, allowing us to track the complete educational and professional paths of all students in our sample. We use a regression discontinuity design that compares the outcomes of students who marginally pass and fail the first round of the French Baccalaureate exam. Marginally passing increases the likelihood of attending a higher quality university and a STEM major. Threshold crossing also raises earnings by 13.6 percent at the age of 27 to 29. After ruling out other channels that could affect earnings, we conclude that increased access to higher quality postsecondary education leads to a significant earnings premium for academically marginal students.JEL Classification: H52, I21, I28, J24 Keywords: Quality of education, returns to education, regression discontinuity design * We would like to thank Kelly Bedard, Olivier Deschênes, Mark Hoekstra, Scott Imberman, Peter Kuhn, Jason Lindo, Shelly Lundberg, Jonathan Meer, Steven Puller and Heather Royer for their invaluable comments and suggestions. We also thank seminar participants at the Applied-Micro brown bag seminar at Texas A&M University, for helpful comments and discussions. Finally, we would like to thank the staff at the "Centre Maurice Halbwachs" for providing us with the data. All errors are our own.

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“…Goldin, Katz and Kuziemko (2006) find that better female college preparedness, as measured by grades and test scores as well as completion of advanced math and science courses from high school, is an important factor in the reversal from male-dominated colleges to female-dominated colleges in the US. Paglin and Rufolo (1990), Rose and Betts (2004), Goldin, Katz and Kuziemko (2006) and Altonji, Blom and Meghir (2012) touch upon the link between lack of math qualifications 1 and the gender wage gap, but due to the lack of exogenous variation in the choice of math, causality is still not established. Also in our data set, the gender earnings gap is substantial (34%) and one-fifth of this gap evaporates when accounting for advanced math qualifications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Math and Gender: Is Math a Route to a High-Powered Career?

Joensen

Nielsen

2013

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes.You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. licence. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. There is a large gender gap in advanced math coursework in high school that many believe exists because girls are discouraged from taking math courses. In this paper, we exploit an institutional change that reduced the costs of acquiring advanced high school math to determine if access is, in fact, the mechanism -in particular for girls at the top of the math ability distribution. By estimating marginal treatment effects of acquiring advanced math qualifications, we document substantial beneficial wage effects from encouraging even more females to opt for these qualifications. Our analysis suggests that the beneficial effect comes from accelerating graduation and attracting females to high-paid or traditionally maledominated career tracks and to CEO positions. Our results may be reconciled with experimental and empirical evidence suggesting there is a pool of unexploited math talent among high ability girls that may be retrieved by changing the institutional set-up of math teaching. ...

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Heterogeneity in Human Capital Investments: High School Curriculum, College Major, and Careers

Cited by 105 publications

References 45 publications

The changing graduate labour market: analysis using a new indicator of graduate jobs

The changing graduate labour market: analysis using a new indicator of graduate jobs

Quality of Higher Education and Earnings: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from the French Baccalaureate

Math and Gender: Is Math a Route to a High-Powered Career?

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