The Analysis of Field Choice in College and Graduate School

Joseph Altonji, P. Arcidiacono and Arnaud Maurel

from Elsevier

Abstract: As the workforce has become more educated, educational decisions are about what type of education to pursue as well as how much to pursue. In college, individuals somewhat specialize through their choice of college major. Further specialization occurs in graduate school. This chapter investigates how majors and graduate school affect labor market outcomes, as well as how individuals make these potentially important decisions. To do so, we develop a dynamic model of educational decision-making. In light of the model, we examine the estimation issues associated with obtaining causal effects of educational choices on earnings. We then examine ways that authors have overcome the selection problem, as well as the approaches authors have taken to estimate the process by which these educational decisions are made.

Keywords: College majors; Advanced degrees; Returns to schooling; Uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (167)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780444634597000075
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:educhp:v:5:y:2016:i:c:p:305-396

DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-444-63459-7.00007-5

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Handbook of the Economics of Education from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().