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Author: Anderson, Andrew A.
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Anderson, Andrew A.
Human Capital and Educational Institutions
Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2014
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT)
Keyword(s): American Community Survey; College Major/Field of Study/Courses; Human Capital; Life Cycle Research; Occupational Choice; Wages

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This work investigates the implications of human capital specialization as well as the challenges of teacher evaluation. The first two chapters contrast occupational college majors with more general courses of study, for example mathematics versus accounting. The first chapter introduces the Herfindahl-Hirschman index as an objective measure of the occupational concentration of a college major. Outcomes are documented using the American Community Survey 2009 and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Occupational majors are associated with higher wages and are not correlated with either the incidence or the duration of unemployment spells. These findings indicate that occupational study may confer productivity gains without augmenting unemployment risk.

The second chapter uses a life cycle model to evaluate the role of occupational study in providing information about occupational preferences. The model is estimated using a sample from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. The results suggest that the opportunity to gain preference information is an important advantage of occupational courses of study. Furthermore, consistent with Chapter 1, the productivity gain from occupational study is greater than the gain from general study.

Bibliography Citation
Anderson, Andrew A. Human Capital and Educational Institutions. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2014.