The Short-Term Effect of the Great East Japan Earthquake on the Wage of College Graduates : the Role of the Quality of Education(in Japanese)

The objective of this research is to empirically show how the Great East Japan Earthquake that happened on March 11th 2011 (at the end of 2010FY) affects the short-term wages of college graduates in 2010FY. Moreover, we have paid attention to the role of the quality of college education. Our research question is: are the graduates from colleges with the higher quality of education less likely to be subject to decreasing demand than their counterparts? Our data was collected through the web-monitoring survey targeting college graduates from 2008FY through 2010FY. According to the empirical results, the wages of college graduates in 2010FY were significantly lower than ones in 2008FY and 2009FY after controlling for the ability and other potential bias. However, the quality of college education positively affects the wages of college graduates and it helps to mitigate the negative shock of the Earthquake. In other words, graduates from high quality colleges would be protected even when the unexpected negative shock happens in the economy. This may bring important policy implications to build up to the stronger society against unexpected natural disaster.