How does measured performance at university affect labor market outcomes? We show that degree class - a coarse measure of student performance used in the UK - causally affects graduates' industry and hence expected wages. To control for unobserved ability, we employ a regression discontinuity...

We study how a large household windfall affects sorting of relatively disadvantaged youth over high school tracks by exploiting the discontinuity in the assignment of a welfare program in Mexico. The in-cash transfer is found to significantly increase the probability of selecting vocational...

We exploit an age-specific minimum wage rule - which sets a lower minimum wage for workers of age 15 than that for workers of age 16 and above in Turkey - and its abolition to estimate the causal effect of a minimum wage increase on youth employment and education. Using a regression...

We exploit an age-specific minimum wage rule-which sets a lower minimum wage for workers of age 15 than the adult minimum wage paid to workers of age 16 and above-and its abolition to estimate the causal effect of a minimum wage increase on youth employment and education in Turkey. Using a...

We analyse wage differentials between Higher Education graduates in the UK, differentiating between polytechnic and university graduates. Polytechnic graduates earned on average lower wages than university graduates prior to the UK Further and Higher Education Act of 1992. The reform changed the...

Across the United States, there is a dearth of women, underrepresented racial minority (URM), and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and many other terms (LGBTQIA+) community members in STEM-oriented academic majors and careers. While prior research has tended to...

This paper examines the influence of educational mismatch on wages according to workers' region of birth, taking advantage of our access to rich matched employer-employee data for the Belgian private sector for the period 1999-2010. Using a fine-grained approach to measuring educational mismatch...

We conduct an empirical simulation exercise that gauges the plausible impact of increased rates of college attainment on a variety of measures of income inequality and economic insecurity. Using two different methodological approaches—a distributional approach and a causal parameter...

Despite great focus on and public investment in STEM education, little causal evidence connects quantitative coursework to students' economic outcomes. I show that state changes in minimum high school math requirements substantially increase black students' completed math coursework and their...

We ask whether shifting male and female employment patterns can help to explain why the US college boom between 1981 and 2005 was dominated by women. We make three contributions. First, we show that while a massive feminization of high-wage, high-skill occupations plausibly contributed to the...