The value of a college degree is impacted by how it is financed. Using 1968-2011 PSID surveys we construct a synthetic panel of US high school and college graduates and derive a model of their respective incomes, accounting for taxes, unemployment, retirement and mortality. With CRRA utility,...

This article presents cross-section estimates of gross hourly wage premia on tertiary education. The estimates are based on a unified framework for 21 OECD countries from the 1990s to the early 2000s and use international household surveys to maximize cross-country comparability. The results of...

Student loans increase educational opportunities for students from all backgrounds. They have also been criticized as imposing financial and psychological hardships. We employ the data from restricted-use National Surveys of Recent College Graduates to conduct an in-depth investigation of the...

Using a survey of a cohort of UK graduates, linked to administrative data on higher education participation, this paper investigates the labour market attainment of recent graduates by subject of study. We document a large heterogeneity in the mean wages of graduates from different subjects and...

Using a survey of a cohort of UK graduates, linked to administrative data on higher education participation, this paper investigates the labour market attainment of recent graduates by subject of study. We document a large heterogeneity in the mean wages of graduates from different subjects and...

The purpose of this paper is to provide an update of the empirical evidence on the private returns to education in Italy. First, we show that, whilst returns to education in Italy (based on gross wages) are in line with the European average, educational attainment is generally much lower...

How does the financial aid allocation mechanism affect student behavior? We provide a framework for quantifying the impact of financial aid on student debt, academic capital, and labor market outcomes. We specify and estimate a dynamic discrete choice model of simultaneous education, work, and...

This paper examines how policies, aimed at increasing the supply of education in the economy, affect the matching between workers and firms, and the wages of various skill groups. We build an equilibrium model where workers endogenously invest in education, while firms direct their technology...

This paper presents cross-section estimates of gross hourly wage premia on tertiary education. They are based on a unified framework for 21 OECD countries from the 1990s to the early 2000s and use international household surveys to maximise international comparability. The results of the...

This paper argues that skill formation is a life-cycle process and develops the implications of this insight for Scottish social policy. Families are major producers of skills, and a successful policy needs to promote effective families and to supplement failing ones. We present evidence that...