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Effects Of Peer Groups On The Gender-Wage Gap And Life After The Mba: Evidence From The Random Assignment Of Mba Peers, Mallika Thomas
Effects Of Peer Groups On The Gender-Wage Gap And Life After The Mba: Evidence From The Random Assignment Of Mba Peers, Mallika Thomas
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Using the historical random assignment of MBA students to peer groups at a top business school in the United States, I study the effect of the gender composition of a student’s peers on the gender pay gap at graduation and long-term labor market outcomes. I find that a 10 percentage point increase in the share of male peers leads to a 2.1 percent increase in the relative earnings of female students at graduation, closing the gender gap in earnings at graduation by two-thirds. The effects on women’s long-term earnings grow even larger with time. Using novel data on job offers, …
Financial Incentives For Adoption And Kin Guardianship Improve Achievement For Foster Children, David Simon, Aaron Sojourner, Jon Pedersen, Heidi Ombisa Skallet
Financial Incentives For Adoption And Kin Guardianship Improve Achievement For Foster Children, David Simon, Aaron Sojourner, Jon Pedersen, Heidi Ombisa Skallet
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Difference-in-differences analysis of linked administrative data estimates effects of a Minnesota policy change that increased the payments to adoptive parents and kin guardians for children ages 6 and older, making them equal to what foster care payments were, but didn’t for younger children. Equalizing payments raised average academic achievement by 31 percent of a standard deviation three years after foster children’s cases started, raised the value of payments by about $2,000 per child during this period, raised the monthly chance of moving from foster care to adoption or kin guardianship by 29 percent, improved school stability, and reduced school suspensions.
Skills, Majors, And Jobs: Does Higher Education Respond?, Johnathan G. Conzelmann, Steven W. Hemelt, Brad J. Hershbein, Shawn Martin, Andrew Simon, Kevin M. Stange
Skills, Majors, And Jobs: Does Higher Education Respond?, Johnathan G. Conzelmann, Steven W. Hemelt, Brad J. Hershbein, Shawn Martin, Andrew Simon, Kevin M. Stange
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
How does postsecondary human capital investment respond to changes in labor market skill demand? We quantify the magnitude and nature of this response in the U.S. 4-year sector. To do so, we develop a new measure of institution-major-specific labor demand, and corresponding shift-share instrument, that combines job ads with alumni locations. We find that postsecondary human capital investments meaningfully respond. We estimate elasticities for degrees and credits centered around 1.3, generally increasing with time horizon. We provide evidence that both student demand and institutional supply-side constraints matter. Our findings illuminate the nature of educational production in higher education.
Work Organization And High-Paying Jobs, Dylan Nelson, Nathan Wilmers, Letian Zhang
Work Organization And High-Paying Jobs, Dylan Nelson, Nathan Wilmers, Letian Zhang
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
High-paying factory jobs in the 1940s were an engine of egalitarian economic growth for a generation. Are there alternate forms of work organization that deliver similar benefits for frontline workers? Work organization varies by type of complexity and degree of employer control. Technical and tacit knowledge tasks receive higher pay for signaling or developing human capital. Higher-autonomy tasks elicit efficiency wages. To test these ideas, we match administrative earnings to task descriptions from job postings. We then compare earnings for workers hired into the same occupation and firm, but under different task allocations. When jobs raise task complexity and autonomy, …
The Long-Run Impacts Of Public Industrial Investment On Local Development And Economic Mobility: Evidence From World War Ii, Andrew Garin, Jonathan Rothbaum
The Long-Run Impacts Of Public Industrial Investment On Local Development And Economic Mobility: Evidence From World War Ii, Andrew Garin, Jonathan Rothbaum
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper studies the long-run effects of government-led construction of manufacturing plants on the regions where they were built and on individuals from those regions. Specifically, we examine publicly financed plants built in dispersed locations outside of major urban centers for security reasons during the United States’ industrial mobilization for World War II. Wartime plant construction had large and persistent impacts on local development, characterized by an expansion of relatively high-wage manufacturing employment throughout the postwar era. These benefits were shared by incumbent residents; we find men born before WWII in counties where plants were built earned $1,200 (in 2020 …
Grads On The Go: Measuring College-Specific Labor Markets For Graduates, Johnathan G. Conzelmann, Steven W. Hemelt, Brad J. Hershbein, Shawn Martin, Andrew Simon, Kevin M. Stange
Grads On The Go: Measuring College-Specific Labor Markets For Graduates, Johnathan G. Conzelmann, Steven W. Hemelt, Brad J. Hershbein, Shawn Martin, Andrew Simon, Kevin M. Stange
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper introduces a new measure of the labor markets served by colleges and universities across the United States. About 50 percent of recent college graduates are living and working in the metro area nearest the institution they attended, with this figure climbing to 67 percent in-state. The geographic dispersion of alumni is more than twice as great for highly selective 4-year institutions as for 2-year institutions. However, more than one-quarter of 2-year institutions disperse alumni more diversely than the average public 4-year institution. In one application of these data, we find that the average strength of the labor market …
Gains From Reassignment: Evidence From A Two-Sided Teacher Market, Mariana Laverde, Elton Mykerezi, Aaron Sojourner, Aradhya Sood
Gains From Reassignment: Evidence From A Two-Sided Teacher Market, Mariana Laverde, Elton Mykerezi, Aaron Sojourner, Aradhya Sood
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Although the literature on assignment mechanisms emphasizes the importance of efficiency based on agents’ preferences, policymakers may want to achieve different goals. For instance, school districts may want to affect student learning outcomes but must take teacher welfare into account when assigning teachers to students in classrooms and schools. This paper studies both the potential efficiency and equity test-score gains from within-district reassignment of teachers to classrooms using novel data that allows us to observe decisions of both teachers and principals in the teacher internal transfer process, and test-scores of students from the observed assignments. We jointly model student achievement …
The Effect Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Kps Student Enrollment And Nwea Test Scores, Randall W. Eberts
The Effect Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Kps Student Enrollment And Nwea Test Scores, Randall W. Eberts
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This report focuses on the COVID-19 pandemic in the Kalamazoo Public Schools District in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which closed its doors to students from mid-March 2020 to June 2021. During this time, instruction transitioned from face-to-face to virtual, with students having three options for virtual instruction. In addition to individual KPS student data, the study looks at the NWEA national sample as presented in several publications and technical appendices. The study addresses three basic questions, as well as examining students’ race/ethnicity and poverty status, summer learning loss to determine the change in achievement gains, and attendance rates as an example of …
College Majors And Skills: Evidence From The Universe Of Online Job Ads, Steven W. Hemelt, Brad J. Hershbein, Shawn Martin, Kevin M. Stange
College Majors And Skills: Evidence From The Universe Of Online Job Ads, Steven W. Hemelt, Brad J. Hershbein, Shawn Martin, Kevin M. Stange
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We use the near universe of U.S. online job ads to document four new facts about the skills employers demand from college majors. First, some skills––social and organizational––are demanded from all majors whereas others––financial and customer service––are demanded from only particular majors. Second, some majors have skill demand profiles that mirror overall demand for college graduates, such as Business and General Engineering, while other majors, such as Nursing and Education, have relatively rare skill profiles. Third, cross-major differences in skill profiles explain considerable wage variation. Fourth, although major-specific skill demand varies across place, this variation plays little role in explaining …
The Decline Of Routine Tasks, Education Investments, And Intergenerational Mobility, Patrick Bennett, Kai Liu, Kjell Salvanes
The Decline Of Routine Tasks, Education Investments, And Intergenerational Mobility, Patrick Bennett, Kai Liu, Kjell Salvanes
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
How does a large structural change to the labor market affect education investments made at young ages? Exploiting differential exposure to the national decline in routine-task intensity across local labor markets, we show that the secular decline in routine tasks causes major shifts in education investments of high school students, where they invest less in vocational-trades education and increasingly invest in college education. Our results highlight that labor demand changes impact inequality in the next generation. Low-ability and low-SES students are most responsive to task-biased demand changes and, as a result, intergenerational mobility in college education increases.
Keep Me In, Coach: The Short- And Long-Term Effects Of Targeted Academic Coaching, Serena Canaan, Stefanie Fischer, Pierre Mouganie, Geoffrey C. Schnorr
Keep Me In, Coach: The Short- And Long-Term Effects Of Targeted Academic Coaching, Serena Canaan, Stefanie Fischer, Pierre Mouganie, Geoffrey C. Schnorr
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
To boost college graduation rates, policymakers often advocate for academic supports such as coaching or mentoring. Proactive and intensive coaching interventions are effective, but are costly and difficult to scale. We evaluate a relatively lower-cost group coaching program targeted at first-year college students placed on academic probation. Participants attend a workshop where coaches aim to normalize failure and improve self-confidence. Coaches also facilitate a process whereby participants reflect on their academic difficulties, devise solutions to address their challenges, and create an action plan. Participants then hold a one-time follow-up meeting with their coach or visit a campus resource. Using a …
The Great Migration And Educational Opportunity, Cavit Baran, Eric Chyn, Bryan A. Stuart
The Great Migration And Educational Opportunity, Cavit Baran, Eric Chyn, Bryan A. Stuart
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper studies the impact of the First Great Migration on children. We use the complete-count 1940 Census to estimate selection-corrected place effects on education for children of Black migrants. On average, Black children gained 0.8 years of schooling (12 percent) by moving from the South to the North. Many counties that had the strongest positive impacts on children during the 1940s offer relatively poor opportunities for Black youth today. Opportunities for Black children were greater in places with more schooling investment, stronger labor market opportunities for Black adults, more social capital, and less crime.
Promise Program Design For Equity Outcomes: A Landscape Survey, Michelle Miller-Adams, Isabel Mcmullen
Promise Program Design For Equity Outcomes: A Landscape Survey, Michelle Miller-Adams, Isabel Mcmullen
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Using the W.E. Upjohn Institute’s Promise Programs Database—a searchable data set covering about 200 place-based scholarship programs—this paper explores how the design of Promise programs can shape their equity impacts. The authors first examine the landscape of place-based programs to understand the impact of program design on equity outcomes. They then use the statistical method of polychoric correlation to combine design features related to the equity potential of community-based Promise programs and develop an index expressing this concept. They conclude with two vignettes of recently announced Promise programs with different design features and implementation strategies to highlight the varied paths …
Pell Grants And Labor Supply: Evidence From A Regression Kink, Michael S. Kofoed
Pell Grants And Labor Supply: Evidence From A Regression Kink, Michael S. Kofoed
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
A concern in higher education policy is that students are taking longer to graduate. One possible reason for this observation is an increase in off-campus labor market participation among college students. Financial aid may play a role in the labor/study choice of college students—as college becomes more affordable, students my substitute away from work and toward increased study. I use data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) to exploit nonlinearity in the Pell Grant formula to estimate a regression kink and regression discontinuity designs. I find that conditional on receiving the minimum of $550, students reduce their labor …
How Does The Elimination Of State Aid To For-Profit Colleges Affect Enrollment? Evidence From California’S Reforms, Oded Gurantz, Ryan Sakoda, Shayak Sarkar
How Does The Elimination Of State Aid To For-Profit Colleges Affect Enrollment? Evidence From California’S Reforms, Oded Gurantz, Ryan Sakoda, Shayak Sarkar
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper examines how financial aid reform based on postsecondary institutional performance impacts student choice. Federal and state regulations often reflect concerns about the private, for-profit sector’s poor employment outcomes and high loan defaults, despite the sector’s possible theoretical advantages. We use student-level data to examine how eliminating public subsidies to attend low-performing for-profit institutions impacts students’ college enrollment and completion behavior. Beginning in 2011, California tightened eligibility standards for their state aid program, effectively eliminating most for-profit eligibility. Linking data on aid application to administrative payment and postsecondary enrollment records, this paper utilizes a difference-in differences strategy to investigate …
Beyond Degrees: Longer Term Outcomes Of The Kalamazoo Promise, Brad J. Hershbein, Isabel Mcmullen, Brian Pittelko, Bridget F. Timmeney
Beyond Degrees: Longer Term Outcomes Of The Kalamazoo Promise, Brad J. Hershbein, Isabel Mcmullen, Brian Pittelko, Bridget F. Timmeney
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We estimate the effects on workforce and location outcomes of the Kalamazoo Promise, a generous, place-based college scholarship. Drawing upon administrative unemployment insurance wage records merged with individual-level education data, we identify Promise effects by comparing eligible to ineligible graduates before and after the Promise’s initiation. We supplement this quantitative analysis with surveys and interviews. Despite earlier research showing that the Kalamazoo Promise substantially increased degree attainment, we find little evidence that the program affected average earnings within 10 years of high school graduation. However, the Kalamazoo Promise may have increased the likelihood of eligible graduates having earnings, within Michigan, …
Youth Disconnection During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Mark Borgschulte, Yuci Chen
Youth Disconnection During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Mark Borgschulte, Yuci Chen
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth disconnection—i.e., the share of young people who were neither in school nor at work. Youth disconnection offers important advantages, relative to unemployment or participation rates, as a measure of the labor market for the most marginal and disadvantaged youth. Before the pandemic, approximately one out of eight young people between the ages of 18 and 24 were disconnected. The disconnection rate increased dramatically in April 2020 because of the pandemic; however, it has decreased quickly since that time. The increase in the disconnection rate at the beginning of the …
Informed Choices: Gender Gaps In Career Advice, Yana Gallen, Melanie Wasserman
Informed Choices: Gender Gaps In Career Advice, Yana Gallen, Melanie Wasserman
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper estimates gender differences in access to informal information regarding the labor market. We conduct a large-scale field experiment in which real college students seek information from 10,000 working professionals about various career paths, and we randomize whether a professional receives a message from a male or a female student. We focus the experimental design and analysis on two career attributes that prior research has shown to differentially affect the labor market choices of women: the extent to which a career accommodates work/life balance and has a competitive culture. When students ask broadly for information about a career, we …
Biased Beliefs And Entry Into Scientific Careers, Ina Ganguli, Patrick Gaulé, Danijela Vuletić Čugalj
Biased Beliefs And Entry Into Scientific Careers, Ina Ganguli, Patrick Gaulé, Danijela Vuletić Čugalj
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We investigate whether excessively optimistic beliefs play a role in the persistent demand for doctoral and postdoctoral training in science. We elicit the beliefs and career preferences of doctoral students through a novel survey and randomize the provision of structured information on the true state of the academic market and information through role models on nonacademic careers. One year later, both treatments lead students to update their beliefs about the academic market and impact career preferences. However, we do not find an effect on actual career outcomes two years postintervention.
The Long-Term Labor Market Effects Of Parental Unemployment, Bernhard Schmidpeter
The Long-Term Labor Market Effects Of Parental Unemployment, Bernhard Schmidpeter
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
I investigate the impact of parental unemployment on children’s educational attainment and long-run labor market outcomes in Austria. I find that parental unemployment shortly before an important educational decision by parents for their children lowers a child’s probability of holding a university degree by more than 5 percentage points. I do not find that income is affected at the beginning of a child’s labor market career along the distribution, but I find a gradual deterioration later on. A substantial share of these long-term losses can be explained by the lower parental investment decision. My results emphasize the intergenerational and long-lasting …
College Attainment, Income Inequality, And Economic Security: A Simulation Exercise, Brad J. Hershbein, Melissa S. Kearney, Luke W. Pardue
College Attainment, Income Inequality, And Economic Security: A Simulation Exercise, Brad J. Hershbein, Melissa S. Kearney, Luke W. Pardue
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We conduct an empirical simulation exercise that gauges the plausible impact of increased rates of college attainment on a variety of measures of income inequality and economic insecurity. Using two different methodological approaches—a distributional approach and a causal parameter approach—we find that increased rates of bachelor’s and associate degree attainment would meaningfully increase economic security for lower-income individuals, reduce poverty and near-poverty, and shrink gaps between the 90th and lower percentiles of the earnings distribution. However, increases in college attainment would not significantly reduce inequality at the very top of the distribution.
Pre-K In The Public Schools: Evidence From Within U.S. States, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein
Pre-K In The Public Schools: Evidence From Within U.S. States, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
In the past 15 years, four-year-olds’ enrollment in state-funded pre-kindergarten in the United States has doubled, and advocates have pushed for further expansion. Although research has shown that pre-K programs can have important benefits, most existing studies have focused on small or state-specific programs that may not generalize to other areas or contexts. The uniqueness of our paper is its scope: our data cover the last two decades, span nearly all states, and allow for intrastate variation. For the average state program, we find no evidence of effects on the average student’s test scores, assignment to special education, or grade …
Degrees Of Poverty: The Relationship Between Family Income Background And The Returns To Education, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein
Degrees Of Poverty: The Relationship Between Family Income Background And The Returns To Education, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Drawing on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we document a startling empirical pattern: the career earnings premium from a four-year college degree (relative to a high school diploma) for persons from low-income backgrounds is considerably less than it is for those from higher-income backgrounds. For individuals whose family income in high school was above 1.85 times the poverty level, we estimate that career earnings for bachelor’s graduates are 136 percent higher than earnings for those whose education stopped at high school. However, for individuals whose family income during high school was below 1.85 times the poverty level, the career …
The Effects Of The Kalamazoo Promise Scholarship On College Enrollment, Persistence, And Completion, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein, Marta Lachowska
The Effects Of The Kalamazoo Promise Scholarship On College Enrollment, Persistence, And Completion, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein, Marta Lachowska
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We estimate the effects on postsecondary education outcomes of the Kalamazoo Promise, a generous, place-based college scholarship. We identify Promise effects using difference-in-differences, comparing eligible to ineligible graduates before and after the Promise’s initiation. According to our estimates, the Promise significantly increases college enrollment, college credits attempted, and credential attainment. Stronger effects occur for women.
Are Teacher Pensions "Hazardous" For Schools?, Patten Priestley Mahler
Are Teacher Pensions "Hazardous" For Schools?, Patten Priestley Mahler
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
I use a detailed panel of data and a unique modeling specification to explore how public schoolteachers respond to the incentives embedded in North Carolina’s retirement system. Like most public-sector retirement plans, North Carolina’s teacher pension implicitly encourages teachers to continue working until they are eligible for their pension benefits, and then leave soon afterward. I find that teachers with higher levels of quality, as measured by a teacher’s value-added to her students’ achievement test scores, are more responsive to the “pull” of teacher pensions. Younger teachers, those with higher salaries, and nonwhite teachers are also more likely to stay …
Propelled: The Effects Of Grants On Graduation, Earnings, And Welfare, Jeffrey T. Denning, Benjamin M. Marx, Lesley J. Turner
Propelled: The Effects Of Grants On Graduation, Earnings, And Welfare, Jeffrey T. Denning, Benjamin M. Marx, Lesley J. Turner
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We estimate the effect of grant aid on poor college students’ attainment and earnings using student-level administrative data from four-year public colleges in Texas. To identify these effects, we exploit a discontinuity in grant generosity as a function of family income. Eligibility for the maximum Pell Grant significantly increases degree receipt and earnings beginning four years after entry. Within 10 years, imputed taxes on eligible students’ earnings gains fully recoup total government expenditures generated by initial eligibility. To clarify how these estimates relate to social welfare, we develop a general theoretical model and derive sufficient statistics for the welfare implications …
Genes, Education, And Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence From The Health And Retirement Study, Nicholas W. Papageorge, Kevin Thom
Genes, Education, And Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence From The Health And Retirement Study, Nicholas W. Papageorge, Kevin Thom
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Recent advances have led to the discovery of specific genetic variants that predict educational attainment. We study how these variants, summarized as a genetic score variable, are associated with human capital accumulation and labor market outcomes in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We demonstrate that the same genetic score that predicts education is also associated with higher wages, but only among individuals with a college education. Moreover, the genetic gradient in wages has grown in more recent birth cohorts, consistent with interactions between technological change and labor market ability. We also show that individuals who grew up in economically …
A Benefit-Cost Analysis Of The Tulsa Universal Pre-K Program, Timothy J. Bartik, Jonathan A. Belford, William T. Gormley, Sara Anderson
A Benefit-Cost Analysis Of The Tulsa Universal Pre-K Program, Timothy J. Bartik, Jonathan A. Belford, William T. Gormley, Sara Anderson
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
In this paper, benefits and costs are estimated for a universal pre-K program, provided by Tulsa Public Schools. Benefits are derived from estimated effects of Tulsa pre-K on retention by grade 9. Retention effects are projected to dollar benefits from future earnings increases and crime reductions. Based on these estimates, Tulsa pre-K has benefits exceeding costs by about 2-to-1. This benefit cost ratio is far less than the benefit-cost ratios (ranging from 8-to-1 to 16-to-1) for more targeted and intensive pre-K programs from the 1970s and 80s, such as Perry Preschool and the Chicago Child-Parent Center (CPC) program. Comparing benefit-cost …
Born Under A Lucky Star: Financial Aid, College Completion, Labor Supply, And Credit Constraints, Jeffrey T. Denning
Born Under A Lucky Star: Financial Aid, College Completion, Labor Supply, And Credit Constraints, Jeffrey T. Denning
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Higher education has experienced many changes since the 1970s, including an increase in the price of college, an increase in student employment during college, a decrease in college completion rates, and an increase in time to degree. This paper ties these trends together by causally linking changes in financial aid with time to degree and student employment during college. I find that additional financial aid accelerates graduation for university seniors because they increase credits attempted and reduce earnings while in college. In reaching this finding, I use administrative education and earnings data to examine a discrete change in the amount …
The Merits Of Universal Scholarships: Benefit-Cost Evidence From The Kalamazoo Promise, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein, Marta Lachowska
The Merits Of Universal Scholarships: Benefit-Cost Evidence From The Kalamazoo Promise, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein, Marta Lachowska
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
As higher education costs rise, many communities have begun to adopt their own financial aid strategy: place-based scholarships for students graduating from the local school district. In this paper, we examine the benefits and costs of the Kalamazoo Promise, one of the more universal and more generous place-based scholarships. Building upon estimates of the program's heterogeneous effects on degree attainment, scholarship cost data, and projections of future earnings by education, we examine the Promise’s benefit-cost ratios for students differentiated by income, race, and gender. Although the average rate of return of the program is 11 percent, rates of return vary …