A Question of Degree: The Effects of Degree Class on Labor Market Outcomes

Andy Feng () and Georg Graetz
Additional contact information
Andy Feng: Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry

No 8826, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: 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 design that utilizes rules governing the award of degrees. A First Class (Upper Second) increases the probability of working in a high-wage industry by thirteen (eight) percentage points, and leads to three (seven) percent higher expected wages. The results point to the importance of statistical discrimination, heuristic decision making, and luck in the labor market.

Keywords: statistical discrimination; regression discontinuity design; high skill wage inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C26 I24 J24 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2015-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab, nep-lma, nep-ltv and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Economics of Education Review, 2017, 61, 140-161

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp8826.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: A question of degree: The effects of degree class on labor market outcomes (2017)
Working Paper: A Question of Degree: The Effects of Degree Class on Labor Market Outcomes (2013)
Working Paper: A question of degree: the effects of degree class on labor market outcomes (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8826

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().