Educational Screening and Occupational Earnings

Edward Wolff () and Joel Hay

No 174, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The educational screening hypothesis states that beyond a certain point schooling functions as a signaling device to identify pre-existing talents. We test for the presence of screening by comparing the schooling and earnings of self-employed workers and of those employed by others in a sample set of occupations. We expect those employed by others to pursue additional schooling to signal prospective employers. We expect self-employed managers to acquire no additional schooling for signaling purposes. We expect other self-employed workers to obtain additional schooling to signal potential customers. Our empirical results, based on 1970 Census data, strongly support the case for screening. However, the relative magnitude of the screening portion of schooling is relatively modest, lying between approximately 5 and 10 percent.

Date: 1977-04
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w0174.pdf (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:nbr:nberwo:0174

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w0174

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().