This paper uses the American Community Survey to examine the previously overlooked fact that foreign STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) graduates have much lower self-employment rates than their non-STEM counterparts, with an unconditional difference of 3.3 percentage...

Outside the U.S., little is known about the labor-market returns to vocational (or polytechnic) postsecondary education. This paper focuses on the labor-market returns to polytechnic bachelor's degrees in Finland. Using detailed administrative data, we estimate person fixed effect models to...

We evaluate the labor-market returns to General Educational Development (GED) certification using state administrative data. We develop a fuzzy regression discontinuity (FRD) method to account for the fact that GED test takers can repeatedly retake the test until they pass it. Our technique can...

Previous research suggests that the local stock of human capital creates positive externalities within local labor markets and plays an important role in regional economic development. However, there is still considerable uncertainty over what types of human capital are most important. Both...

Public schooling in the U.S. has numerous critics, many of whom suggest that alternatives such as providing vouchers for private schools may be more effective. This paper combines decennial census and American Community Survey data for various years to examine the relationship between...

We evaluate the educational returns to General Educational Development (GED) certification using state administrative data. We use fuzzy regression discontinuity (FRD) methods to account for the fact that GED test takers can repeatedly retake the test until they pass it and the fact that test...

Much is known about private returns to education in the form of higher earnings. Less is known about social value, over and above the private, market value. Associations between education and socially-desirable outcomes are strong, but disentangling the effect of education from other causal...