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Trends in Quality-Adjusted Skill Premia in the United States, 1960-2000

Author Info

  • Carneiro, Pedro

    ()

    (University College London)

  • Lee, Sokbae

    ()

    (Seoul National University)

Abstract

This paper presents new evidence that increases in college enrollment lead to a decline in the average quality of college graduates between 1960 and 2000, resulting in a decrease of 6 percentage points in the college premium. We show that although a standard demand and supply framework can qualitatively account for the trend in the college and age premia over this period, substantial quantitative adjustments still need to be made to account for changes in quality.

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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 5295.

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Length: 72 pages
Date of creation: Oct 2010
Date of revision:
Publication status: published in: American Economic Review, 2011, 110 (6), 2309-2349
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5295
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Keywords: inequality; college premium; composition effects;

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  • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General

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As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Trends in Quality-Adjusted Skill Premia in the United States, 1960-2000
    by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog on 2010-11-23 17:10:57
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Cited by:

  1. Lindley, Joanne, 2012. "The gender dimension of technical change and the role of task inputs," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 516-526.
  2. Elitas, Zeynep & Ercan, Hakan & Tumen, Semih, 2014. "Reassessing the Trends in the Relative Supply of College-Equivalent Workers in the U.S.: A Selection-Correction Approach," MPRA Paper 55396, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  3. Lustig, Nora & Lopez-Calva, Luis F. & Ortiz-Juarez, Eduardo, 2013. "Deconstructing the decline in inequality in Latin America," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6552, The World Bank.
  4. Aitor Lacuesta & Sergio Puente & Ernesto Villanueva, 2011. "The schooling response to a sustained increase in low-skill wages: evidence from Spain 1989-2009," Banco de Espa�a Working Papers 1208, Banco de Espa�a.
  5. Carneiro, Pedro & Lee, Sokbae, 2009. "Estimating distributions of potential outcomes using local instrumental variables with an application to changes in college enrollment and wage inequality," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 149(2), pages 191-208, April.
  6. Fang Yang & John Bailey Jones, . "Skill-Biased Technical Change and the Cost of Higher Education," Departmental Working Papers 2014-09, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
  7. MORIKAWA Masayuki, 2013. "Postgraduate Education, Labor Participation, and Wages: An empirical analysis using micro data from Japan," Discussion papers 13065, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
  8. Bratti, Massimiliano & Leombruni, Roberto, 2009. "Local Human Capital Externalities and Wages at the Firm Level: The Case of Italian Manufacturing," IZA Discussion Papers 4613, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  9. Antonczyk, Dirk & DeLeire, Thomas & Fitzenberger, Bernd, 2010. "Polarization and rising wage inequality: comparing the U.S. and Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 10-015, ZEW - Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung / Center for European Economic Research.
  10. MORIKAWA Masayuki, 2012. "Postgraduate Education and Human Capital Productivity in Japan," Discussion papers 12009, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
  11. Bonfatti, Roberto & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2013. "Trade and the allocation of talent with capital market imperfections," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 187-201.
  12. Oppedisano, Veruska, 2014. "Higher education expansion and unskilled labour market outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 205-220.
  13. Lindley, Joanne & Machin, Stephen, 2011. "Rising Wage Inequality and Postgraduate Education," IZA Discussion Papers 5981, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  14. DEIDDA, Luca G. & PAOLINI , Dimitri & ,, 2013. "Wage premia, education race, and supply of educated workers," CORE Discussion Papers 2013062, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
  15. Verdugo, Gregory, 2014. "The Great Compression of the French Wage Structure, 1969-2008," IZA Discussion Papers 8088, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  16. Patrizia Ordine & Giuseppe Rose, 2014. "Too Many Graduates? A Theory Of (Efficient) Educational Mismatch And Evidence From A Quasi-Natural Experiment," Working Papers 201409, Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza (Ex Dipartimento di Economia e Statistica).
  17. Gregory Kurtzon, 2012. "Ability Composition Effects on the Education Premium," Working Papers 456, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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