Males and females are markedly different in their choice of college major. Two main reasons have been suggested for the gender gap: differences in innate abilities and differences in preferences. This paper addresses the question of how college majors are chosen, focusing on the underlying...

At least a quarter of college students in the United States graduate with more than one undergraduate major. This paper investigates how students decide on the composition of their paired majors - in other words, whether the majors chosen are substitutes or complements. Since students use both...

This paper studies the determinants of college major choice using a unique "information" experiment embedded in a survey. We first ask respondents their self-beliefs - beliefs about their own expected earnings and other major-specific outcomes conditional on various majors, their population...

Standard observed characteristics explain only part of the differences between men and women in education choices and labor market trajectories. Using an experiment to derive students’ levels of overconfidence, and preferences for competitiveness and risk, this paper investigates whether these...

Standard observed characteristics explain only part of the differences between men and women in education choices and labor market trajectories. Using an experiment to derive students' levels of overconfidence, and preferences for competitiveness and risk, this paper investigates whether these...

In this paper, we estimate a rich model of college major choice using a panel of experimentally-derived data. Our estimation strategy combines two types of data: data on self-reported beliefs about future earnings from potential human capital decisions and survey-based measures of risk and time...