Gender pay gaps in earnings are well-documented in the literature. However, new factors contributing to women's lower earnings have emerged and remain under-researched. Educational choices are among them. We use a rich administrative dataset from Poland, a Central Eastern European country with...

We analyze whether field of study assigned at age 16 impacts mental health in adulthood. Using a regression discontinuity design that exploits GPA cut-offs, we find that admission to the preferred study field improves mental health, lowering both the incidence of antidepressant prescriptions and...

Purpose - This study estimates returns to higher education across different fields in Thailand for 2019 and 2021, accounting for field selection endogeneity. The comparison offers insights into the impact of the pandemic and other economic shocks on the returns. Design/methodology/approach - The...

Adolescents' educational choices are shaped by their peers. Using administrative data covering the entire population of Italian middle school students, we show that exposure to high-achieving male peers in math reduces the likelihood that girls choose a scientific high school track. To...

Using Italian data, we study whether their intended choice of college major is affected by the college major selected by family members. We find evidence of strong inter-generational persistence, especially in medicine and health professions, followed by economics and law, and STEM. The effects...

Horizontal gender segregation in education negatively impacts both equity and efficiency in the labor market, contributing to disparities in career opportunities and economic outcomes. This paper examines the influence of social origins on gender segregation in Italian tertiary education over...

This paper investigates the impact of studying the first-choice university subject on dropout and switching field of study for a cohort of students in Germany. Using detailed survey data, and employing an instrumental variable strategy based on variation in the local field of study availability,...

This paper investigates the impact of studying the first-choice university subject on dropout and switching field of study for a cohort of students in Germany. Using detailed survey data, and employing an instrumental variable strategy based on variation in the local field of study availability,...

Multiple unordered treatments with a binary instrument for each treatment are common in policy evaluation. This multiple treatment setting allows for different types of changes in treatment status that are non-compliant with the activated instrument. Therefore, instrumental variable (IV) methods...

While gender differences in the decision of what to study at undergraduate level are much studied, there is relatively little attention paid to subsequent study decisions of graduates. Given the increased importance of graduate education in recent decades, these decisions can have major labour...

This study provides the first causal analysis of the impact of expanding Computer Science (CS) education in U.S. K-12 schools on students' choice of college major and early career outcomes. Utilizing rich longitudinal data from Maryland, we exploit variation from the staggered rollout of CS...

While gender differences in the decision of what to study at undergraduate level are much studied, there is relatively little attention paid to subsequent study decisions of graduates. Given the increased importance of graduate education in recent decades, these decisions can have major labour...

College-educated workers in jobs unrelated to their degree generally receive lower wages compared to well-matched workers. Our analysis of data from the National Survey of College Graduates shows that although the rate of this mismatch declined only slightly (19% to 17%), the wage penalty...

We analyze whether field of study assigned at age 16 impacts mental health in adulthood. Using a regression discontinuity design that exploits GPA cut-offs, we find that admission to the preferred study field improves mental health, lowering both the incidence of antidepressant prescriptions and...

Gender pay gaps in earnings are well-documented in the literature. However, new factors contributing to women's lower earnings have emerged and remain under-researched. Educational choices are among them. We use a rich administrative dataset from Poland, a Central Eastern European country with...

Can public diplomacy efforts effectively change target country public’s perception of the sender country? Public diplomacy has been regarded as a means of promoting a country's soft power, and many countries have been exerted great about of effort and resources in this pursuit by building...

Much research shows that students take account of their perceived comparative advantage in mathematics relative to verbal skills when choosing college majors and career tracks. There is also evidence for an important role for comparative advantage in explaining the gender gap in college STEM...

College-educated workers in jobs unrelated to their degree generally receive lower wages compared to well-matched workers. Our analysis of data from the National Survey of College Graduates shows that although the rate of this mismatch declined only slightly (19% to 17%), the wage penalty...

We estimate causal effects of 121 graduate degrees on log earnings. The returns average 0.159 but vary widely across fields, with a standard deviation of 0.176. Experience profiles of the returns also vary and are particularly steep for medicine. Internal rates of return, which account for...

We study whether gender differences in university major choices result from anticipated labor market discrimination. First, we document two novel facts using administrative transcript records from a large Midwestern university: women are less likely to study science, technology, engineering, and...

We argue that college students' field-of-study choices significantly influence how economies respond to labor market disruptions. To do so, we develop and estimate a framework featuring forward-looking students who choose a field of study when entering college, and subsequently make decisions...

A large literature documents the uneven distribution of labor market outcomes across majors. Students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) can earn more than their peers. This earnings gap can be attributed not only to the differential educational resources investment but...

Multiple unordered treatments with a binary instrument for each treatment are common in policy evaluation. This multiple treatment setting allows for different types of changes in treatment status that are non-compliant with the activated instrument. Therefore, instrumental variable (IV) methods...

This paper explores gender wage dynamics using an administrative dataset covering Irish graduate earnings from 2010-2020. Our data allows us to look at a broad range of degrees and compare workers who are identical in important observable characteristics. We find that although male and female...

We study whether the onset of the COVID-19 crisis affected the program choices of high school applicants in Sweden. Our analysis exploits the fact that the admission process consists of two stages: a preliminary round in which applicants initially rank programs in order of preference and a final...

This paper investigates the impact of studying the first-choice university subject on dropout and switching field of study for a cohort of students in Germany. Using detailed survey data, and employing an instrumental variable strategy based on variation in the local field of study availability,...

This paper investigates the impact of studying the first-choice university subject on dropout and switching field of study for a cohort of students in Germany. Using detailed survey data, and employing an instrumental variable strategy based on variation in the local field of study availability,...

This paper investigates the impact of studying the first-choice university subject on dropout and switching field of study for a cohort of students in Germany. Using detailed survey data, and employing an instrumental variable strategy based on variation in the local field of study availability,...

Multiple unordered treatments with a binary instrument for each treatment are common in policy evaluation. This multiple treatment setting allows for different types of changes in treatment status that are non-compliant with the activated instrument. Therefore, instrumental variable (IV) methods...

We document the skill content of college majors as perceived by employers and expressed in the near universe of U.S. online job ads. Social and organizational skills are general in that they are sought by employers of almost all college majors, whereas other skills are more specialized. In turn,...

Multiple unordered treatments with a binary instrument for each treatment are common in policy evaluation. This multiple treatment setting allows for different types of changes in treatment status that are non-compliant with the activated instrument. Therefore, instrumental variable (IV) methods...

Students may hold inaccurate beliefs about earnings and employment opportunities when making their education decisions. This paper analyzes the effects of information provision on student’s intended and actual college major choices in Georgia. Secondary school students in our experiment...

This paper explores gender wage dynamics using an administrative dataset covering Irish graduate earnings from 2010-2020. Our data allows us to look at a broad range of degrees and compare workers who are identical in important observable characteristics. We find that although male and female...

We study whether the onset of the COVID-19 crisis affected the program choices of high school applicants in Sweden. Our analysis exploits the fact that the admission process consists of two stages: a preliminary round in which applicants initially rank programs in order of preference and a final...

We use data from six cohorts of university graduates in Germany to assess the extent of gender gaps in college and labor market performance twelve to eighteen months after graduation. Men and women enter college in roughly equal numbers, but more women than men complete their degrees. Women...