I use the American Community Survey to examine how college earnings premiums differ across small metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the U.S. I document that the West North Central Division (Plains Region) has especially low average college earnings premiums. Controlling for observable MSA...

This paper examines how college students in the United States altered their college major decisions during the energy boom and bust of the 1970s and 1980s. We focus on petroleum engineering and geology, two majors closely related to the energy industry. We find strong evidence that the energy...

In most countries, average wages tend to be higher in larger cities. In this paper, we focus on the role played by the matching of workers to firms in explaining geographical wage differences. Using rich administrative German data for 1985-2014, we show that wages in large cities are higher not...

As the number of secondary school graduates rises, many developing countries expand the supply of public and private universities or face pressure to do so. However, several factors point to the need for caution, including weak job markets, low-quality university programs, and job-education...

We use census-like data and a regression discontinuity design to study the labor market impacts of a signal provided by a government-sponsored award given to top-performing students on a nationwide college exit exam in Colombia. Students who can signal their high level of specific skills earn...

This paper estimates the return to education using two alternative instrumental variable estimators: one exploits variation in schooling associated with early smoking behaviour, the other uses the raising of the minimum school leaving age. Each instrument estimates a 'local average treatment...

We replicate Shaw (1996) who found that individual wage growth is higher for individuals with greater preference for risk taking. Expanding her dataset with more American observations and data for Germany, Spain and Italy, we find mixed support for the earlier results. We present and estimate a...

This paper provides findings from the UK Labour Force Surveys from 1996 to 2003 on the financial private returns to a degree the "college premium". The data covers a decade when the university participation rate doubled yet we find no significant evidence that the mean return to a degree dropped...

In this paper I present a selective survey of the empirical literature on wage premium to university selectivity focusing mainly on the context of the country under analysis and the identification strategies employed. I then estimate the wage premium to university selectivity using Canadian data...

This paper investigates the impact of changes in the funding of higher education in England on students' choices and outcomes. Over the last two decades - through three major reforms in 1998, 2006 and 2012 - undergraduate university education in public universities moved from being free to...