University Quality and Labour Market Outcomes of Canadian Youth

This paper estimates the wage returns to the Canadian university reputation and quality by using the Maclean's magazine Best Overall Reputation ranking and a quality ranking based on an index constructed by the Principal Component Analysis of a set of university characteristics. The main data source is Youth in Transition Survey and the outcome of interest is the hourly wage rate of Canadian youth between 2003-2005. Using matching methods we draw some main results from this analysis. First, we find that returns to having a Bachelor's degree from a higher versus lower ranking university is 10.3% for women and 13.4% for men. The returns are higher when comparing the wages in the top and bottom tails of the reputation ranking distribution. Second, there are returns to university quality but the results are mixed. Third, the ranking premiums are higher for men than women. The results are robust through different specifications, sample exclusions and estimators.