IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/0174.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Educational Screening and Occupational Earnings

Author

Listed:
  • Edward N. Wolff
  • Joel Hay

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Edward N. Wolff & Joel Hay, 1977. "Educational Screening and Occupational Earnings," NBER Working Papers 0174, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0174
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0174.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward N. Wolff, 1977. "Schooling And Occupational Earnings," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 23(3), pages 259-278, September.
    2. Wise, David A, 1975. "Academic Achievement and Job Performance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(3), pages 350-366, June.
    3. Edward N. Wolff & Dennis M. Bushe, 1976. "Age, Education and Occupational Earnings Inequality," NBER Working Papers 0149, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Kenneth Wolpin, 1975. "Education and Screening," NBER Working Papers 0102, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. repec:bla:revinw:v:23:y:1977:i:3:p:259-78 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. R. S. Eckaus, 1973. "Estimation of the Returns to Education with Hourly Standardized Incomes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(1), pages 121-131.
    7. Lazear, Edward, 1977. "Academic Achievement and Job Performance: Note," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 252-254, March.
    8. Arrow, Kenneth J., 1973. "Higher education as a filter," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 193-216, July.
    9. Taubman, Paul J & Wales, Terence J, 1973. "Higher Education, Mental Ability, and Screening," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(1), pages 28-55, Jan.-Feb..
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nakabayashi, Masaki, 2011. "Schooling, employer learning, and internal labor market effect: Wage dynamics and human capital investment in the Japanese steel industry, 1930-1960s," MPRA Paper 30597, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. M. C. Navarro-Perez & J. M. Serrano-Sanz, 2002. "Evaluating Educational Output: An Estimation Method Based on Cross-Section Data," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 71-95.
    3. Jean Léonard, 1996. "Education, effets externes, emploi : le cas de la France," Revue de l'OFCE, Programme National Persée, vol. 58(1), pages 67-102.
    4. Arnaud Chevalier & Colm Harmon & Ian Walker & Yu Zhu, 2004. "Does Education Raise Productivity, or Just Reflect it?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(499), pages 499-517, November.
    5. Tayyeb Shabbir, 1991. "Sheepskin Effects in the Returns to Education in a Developing Country," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 30(1), pages 1-19.
    6. SWATI Sharma, 2016. "Does Education Determine Employment: Peculiarities Of The Indian Labour Market," Studies in Business and Economics, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 11(1), pages 164-180, April.
    7. Albrecht, James W., 1981. "A procedure for testing the signalling hypothesis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 123-132, February.
    8. Charles Brown, 1982. "Estimating the Determinants of Employee Performance," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 17(2), pages 178-194.
    9. Stepan Zemtsov & Vladimir Eremkin & Vera Barinova, 2015. "Factors of Attractiveness of the Leading Russian Universities Overview of Literature and Econometric Analysis of the Leading Universities," Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 4, pages 201-233.
    10. Alfonso Flores-Lagunes & Audrey Light, 2010. "Interpreting Degree Effects in the Returns to Education," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(2).
    11. Habermalz, Steffen, 2003. "Job Matching and the Returns to Educational Signals," IZA Discussion Papers 726, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. M.A. Marais, 1992. "The Distribution of Resources in Education in South Africa," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 92-16, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    13. Li, Tao & Zhang, Juyan, 2010. "What determines employment opportunity for college graduates in China after higher education reform?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 38-50, March.
    14. Brown, Sarah & Sessions, John G., 1999. "Education and employment status: a test of the strong screening hypothesis in Italy," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 397-404, October.
    15. James L. Medoff, 1978. "The Earnings Function: A Glimpse Inside the Black Box," NBER Working Papers 0224, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Andrew Clark, 2000. "Signalling and Screening in a Transition Economy: Three Empirical Models Applied to Russia," CERT Discussion Papers 0003, Centre for Economic Reform and Transformation, Heriot Watt University.
    17. Hussey, Andrew, 2012. "Human capital augmentation versus the signaling value of MBA education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 442-451.
    18. Ranadeb Chaudhuri & Zoran Ivković & Joshua Pollet & Charles Trzcinka, 2020. "A Tangled Tale of Training and Talent: PhDs in Institutional Asset Management," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5623-5647, December.
    19. Denis Maguain, 2007. "Les rendements de l'éducation en comparaison internationale," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 180(4), pages 87-106.
    20. William Blankenau & Gabriele Camera, 2006. "A Simple Economic Theory of Skill Accumulation and Schooling Decisions," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(1), pages 93-115, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0174. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.