Differences among Costa Rican public and private tertiary education: returns and overeducation

Laura Cristina Blanco and María José Sauma Chacón

Revista de Ciencias Económicas, 2020, vol. 38, issue 1

Abstract: Overeducation rates were estimated for the Costa Rican graduate working population using the National Household Survey 2011-2017. Further on, Mincerian wage equations were estimated using ordinary least squares to analyze the existing relationship between wages and the type of university attended, degree subject, area and skill mismatches. Results show that attending a public university is associated with a wage premium ranging from 4.7% to 9.5%. This premium varies by degree subject, but public universities exhibit an advantage in most cases. For elderly cohorts, the premium associated with being a graduate from a public university disappears. Genuine overeducation is not found to be a problem in the Costa Rican labor market, despite the existence of a considerable percentage of apparently overeducated graduates; and this percentage is found to be higher among public universities alumni.

Keywords: EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES; SCHOOLING; HIGHER EDUCATION; HUMAN CAPITAL; MINCER EARNINGS FUNCTION; RETURNS TO EDUCATION; OCCUPATIONAL CHOICE; RESULTADOS EDUCATIVOS; EDUCACIÓN; EDUCACIÓN SUPERIOR; CAPITAL HUMANO; FUNCIONES DE INGRESO DE MINCER; TASAS DE RETORNO DE LA EDUCACIÓN; DECISIÓN OCUPACIONAL (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/economicas/article/view/39039 (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:rce:rvceco:39039

Access Statistics for this article

Revista de Ciencias Económicas is currently edited by Fabricio Marín Rodríguez

More articles in Revista de Ciencias Económicas from Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias Económicas, Universidad de Costa Rica Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Luis J. Hall ().