How does postsecondary human capital investment respond to changes in labor market skill demand? We quantify the magnitude and nature of this response in the U.S. 4-year sector. To do so, we develop a new measure of institution-major-specific labor demand, and corresponding shift-share...

This paper introduces a new measure of the labor markets served by colleges and universities across the United States. About 50 percent of recent college graduates are living and working in the metro area nearest the institution they attended, with this figure climbing to 67 percent in-state....

Recent studies have found a large earnings premium to attending a more selective college, but the mechanisms underlying this premium have received little attention and remain unclear. In order to shed light on this question, I develop a multidimensional signaling model relying on college grades...

Despite tremendous recent interest in the subject of student debt by both researchers and policy makers, little is known about how the distribution of college graduate debt has been evolving and what factors can explain it. We use National Postsecondary Student Aid Study data from 1990 through...

While previous research has documented how the Kalamazoo Promise, the most prominent and generous place-based college scholarship program, increased enrollment in Kalamazoo Public Schools, this paper qualifies and quantifies the characteristics of students who were induced to enter – or stay...

Good data on the size and composition of the independent contractor workforce are elusive, with household survey and administrative tax data often disagreeing on levels and trends. We carried out a series of focus groups to learn how self-employed independent contractors speak about their work....

When minimum wages increase, employers may respond to the regulatory burdens by substituting away from disadvantaged workers. We test this hypothesis using a correspondence study with 35,000 applications around ex-ante uncertain minimum wage increases in three U.S. states. Before the increases,...

Public investments in repairs, modernization, and construction of schools cost billions. However, little is known about the nature of school facility investments, whether such investments actually change the physical condition of public schools, and the subsequent causal impacts on student...

Public investments in repairs, modernization, and construction of schools cost billions. However, little is known about the nature of school facility investments, whether such investments actually change the physical condition of public schools, and the subsequent causal impacts on student...