Multidimensional Ability Sorting, Education Choices, and Labor Market Outcomes

John Humphries, Gregory Veramendi and Juanna Joensen

No 1301, 2018 Meeting Papers from Society for Economic Dynamics

Abstract: The process of skill specialization starts early in the life-cycle, with large differences in the labor market “premium” for different types of skills. Understanding the process of skill formation early in the life-cycle is therefore crucial for understanding later-life inequality. We study how early choices in secondary school affect later college enrollment and major choices, as well as later life outcomes. We focus on high school tracking choices in 10th grade which greatly affect the depth and breath of the curriculum students are exposed to. We study how individuals sort into high school tracks and how these shape college major choices, college graduation, and labor market outcomes. We estimate a sequential choice model of education specialization at each stage using Swedish administrative data. Individuals sort into each stage based on prior specialization choices and three dimensions of ability: cognitive, interpersonal, and grit. We use the model to compare counterfactual policies targeting students at different stages and margins of choice. We show that policies targeting marginal individuals to enroll in STEM college degrees have limited effects as most fail to graduate. In contrast, inducing students into the STEM track in 10th grade both increases STEM college enrollment and graduation. Earlier investments in STEM skills thus lead to much larger benefits than later investments.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:red:sed018:1301

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2018 Meeting Papers from Society for Economic Dynamics Society for Economic Dynamics Marina Azzimonti Department of Economics Stonybrook University 10 Nicolls Road Stonybrook NY 11790 USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christian Zimmermann ().