Sorting, Selection, and Transformation of the Return to College Education in China

Belton M. Fleisher (), Haizheng Li, Shi Li and Xiaojun Wang ()
Additional contact information
Haizheng Li: Georgia Tech
Shi Li: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and IZA Bonn

No 1446, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Abstract: We estimate selection and sorting effects on the evolution of the private return to schooling for college graduates during China’s between 1988 and 2002. We pay special attention to the changing role of sorting by ability versus budget-constraint effects as China’s education policy has changed from one in which the bulk of direct costs are paid by government for students who pass a rigid set of test to one in which freedom of choice is increasingly the rule for those who can afford to pay for tuition and living expenses while acquiring higher education. We find evidence of substantial sorting gains under the traditional system but that gains have diminished and even become negative as schooling choices widened and participation has become subject to increasing direct private costs. We take this as evidence consistent with the influence of financial constraints on decisions to attend college.

Keywords: return to schooling; sorting gains; heterogeneity; financial constraints; comparative advantage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 J24 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-lab, nep-sea and nep-tra
Date: 2004-12
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
ftp://repec.iza.org/RePEc/Discussionpaper/dp1446.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Sorting, Selection, and Transformation of the Return to College Education In China (2000)
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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1446

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 for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Address: IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Mark Fallak ().