Search Results

Title: Essays on the Returns to Higher Education
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Park, WooRam
Essays on the Returns to Higher Education
Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University, 2013
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT)
Keyword(s): Career Patterns; Cognitive Ability; College Education; College Graduates; Labor Force Participation; Occupations

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

The third and final chapter of my dissertation, "The Effect of Higher Education on the Careers of Workers", examines the effect of college education on individuals' subsequent careers. As documented by recent literature, college graduation plays a direct role in revealing an individual's ability to labor market. Thus, the ability of college graduates is more directly observed than the ability of high school graduates in the labor market. I examine whether this difference in ability revelation between college and high school graduates has an implication on their career after they enter the job market. I build a model that yields testable implications regarding the effect of college education on ability revealing activity, given the role of college education in ability revelation. Using the NLSY79 data, I empirically confirm the prediction of the model. In particular, I find that high ability high school graduates more actively engage in ability revealing activities than high ability college graduates. Overall, the results coincide with the predictions of the model, implying that the difference in ability revelation has a large implication on understanding different careers of high school and college graduates.
Bibliography Citation
Park, WooRam. Essays on the Returns to Higher Education. Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University, 2013.