College and Life-Cycle Earnings Inequality

Lawrence Costa

Journal of Human Capital, 2026, vol. 20, issue 3, 462 - 500

Abstract: Has a rising college earnings premium contributed to increased earnings inequality over the past 50 years? I answer this question with a model of college linked to a Ben-Porath human capital problem. The model is estimated from data on college attainment rates and life-cycle income profiles, which I document by education level. I find that lifetime earnings inequality within cohorts has risen significantly since the 1970s, but little of this is directly attributable to the college premium. Neither is higher tuition particularly important. Increasing earnings risk seems to be the main driver, with higher college return dispersion a contributing factor.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/741542 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/741542 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

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:ucp:jhucap:doi:10.1086/741542

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Human Capital from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().