Caught in the Cycle: Economic Conditions at Enrolment and Labour Market Outcomes of College Graduates

Alena Bičáková, Guido Matias Cortes and Jacopo Mazza

The Economic Journal, 2021, vol. 131, issue 638, 2383-2412

Abstract: We show that cohorts of male graduates who start college during worse economic times earn higher average wages than those who start during better times. This is not explained by differences in selection into employment, economic conditions at graduation, or field of study choices. Graduates who enrol in bad times are not more positively selected based on their high-school outcomes, but they achieve higher college grades and earn higher wages conditional on their grades. Patterns for female graduates are similar, though less robust. Our results suggest that individuals who enrol during downturns exert more effort during their studies.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ej/ueab003 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Caught in the Cycle: Economic Conditions at Enrollment and Labor Market Outcomes of College Graduates (2020)
Working Paper: Caught in the cycle: Economic conditions at enrollment and labor market outcomes of college graduates (2020)
Working Paper: Caught in the Cycle: Economic Conditions at Enrollment and Labor Market Outcomes of College Graduates (2018)
Working Paper: Caught in the Cycle: Economic Conditions at Enrollment and Labor Market Outcomes of College Graduates (2018)
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:oup:econjl:v:131:y:2021:i:638:p:2383-2412.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Economic Journal is currently edited by Francesco Lippi

More articles in The Economic Journal from Royal Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press () and ().