Modeling College Major Choices Using Elicited Measures of Expectations and Counterfactuals

Peter Arcidiacono (), V. Joseph Hotz and Songman Kang ()
Additional contact information
Peter Arcidiacono: Duke University
Songman Kang: Duke University

No 4738, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The choice of a college major plays a critical role in determining the future earnings of college graduates. Students make their college major decisions in part due to the future earnings streams associated with the different majors. We survey students about what their expected earnings would be both in the major they have chosen and in counterfactual majors. We also elicit students' subjective assessments of their abilities in chosen and counterfactual majors. We estimate a model of college major choice that incorporates these subjective expectations and assessments. We show that both expected earnings and students' abilities in the different majors are important determinants of student's choice of a college major. We also show that students' forecast errors with respect to expected earnings in different majors is potentially important, with our estimates suggesting that 7.5% of students would switch majors if they made no forecast errors.

Keywords: subjective expectations; choice of college major (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C81 I2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2010-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (27)

Published - published in: Journal of Econometrics, 2012, 166 (1), 3-16

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Related works:
Journal Article: Modeling college major choices using elicited measures of expectations and counterfactuals (2012)
Working Paper: Modeling College Major Choices Using Elicited Measures of Expectations and Counterfactuals (2010)
Working Paper: Modeling College Major Choices using Elicited Measures of Expectations and Counterfactuals (2010)
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