COVID-19 created major disruptions for young people including health concerns, school closures, reduced social opportunities, and a wilting economy. We examine the effect of COVID-19 on high school completion in the United States. We find that high school completion rates increased considerably...

State merit aid programs have been found to reduce the likelihood that students attend college out-of-state. Using the U.S. News & World Report rankings of colleges and universities to measure college quality and Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System data to measure enrollment, we...

The current study examines earnings differences for practicing lawyers by undergraduate major with a focus on economics majors. Some majors do much better than others. Economics majors tend to do very well in both median and mean earnings, and both without and with controlling for individual...

College graduates are considerably more mobile than non-graduates, and previous literature suggests that the difference is at least partially attributable to college graduates being more responsive to employment opportunities in other areas. However, there exist considerable differences in...

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...

Economics has been shown to be a relatively high earning college major, but geographic differences in earnings have been largely overlooked. This paper uses the American Community Survey to examine geographic differences in both absolute earnings and relative earnings for economic majors. We...

State and local policymakers are very interested in how attending college in one's home state affects the likelihood of living in that state after college. This paper uses cohort-level data from the American Community Survey, decennial censuses, and other sources to examine how birth-state...

This paper examines effects of the U.S. Immigration Act of 1990 on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) degree completion and labor market outcomes for native-born Americans. The Act increased the in-flow and stock of foreign STEM workers in the U.S., both by increasing green...

Formal education is correlated with entrepreneurial activity and success, but correlation does not indicate causation. Education and entrepreneurship are both influenced by other related factors. The current study estimates causal effects of formal education on entrepreneurship outcomes by...

This paper examines the effects of foreign- and native-born STEM graduates and non-STEM graduates on patent intensity in U.S. metropolitan areas. I find that both native and foreign-born STEM graduates significantly increase metropolitan area patent intensity, but college graduates in non-STEM...