Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Educational Spillovers: Does One Size Fit All?, Robert Baumann, Raphael Solomon

Economics Department Working Papers

In a search model of production, where agents accumulate heterogenous amounts of human capital, an individual worker’s wage depends on average human capital in the searching population. Based on this model, this paper estimates a Mincerian wage equation augmented with terms for average human capital. The authors find that there is a positive and significant spillover effect, but that the effect differs by gender and population group, as well as educational status. The differing spillover effects can only partially be explained by occupational choice.