Search Results
Journal Article
From the classroom to the workplace. So where are the jobs?
Report
College major choice and the gender gap
Males and females are markedly different in their choice of college major. Two main reasons have been suggested for the gender gap: differences in innate abilities and differences in preferences. This paper addresses the question of how college majors are chosen, focusing on the underlying gender gap. Since observed choices may be consistent with many combinations of expectations and preferences, I use a unique data set of Northwestern University sophomores that contains the students' subjective expectations about choice-specific outcomes. I estimate a choice model where selection of college ...
Journal Article
Losing its minds? evaluating “brain drain” in Ohio
Is Ohio losing its best and brightest minds? That?s what is often implied by some well-publicized data on college graduates who move to other states after graduation. But what do these data actually tell us? This Commentary shows that they do not paint a complete picture of the emerging class of graduates, much less the state?s workforce. States interested in attracting and retaining college graduates as part of their overall economic development plans should look to other sources of data for a more complete picture. But they also need to consider the drive to improve graduate retention rates ...
Journal Article
Childhood savings and college success
As the cost of postsecondary education continues to rise, many families, especially low-income families, are concerned about their ability to pay. A variety of initiatives are making it easier to start saving early.
Working Paper
The fiscal impacts of college attainment
This study quantifies one important part of the economic return to public investment in college education, namely, the fiscal benefits associated with greater college attainment. College graduates generally pay much more in taxes than those not going to college. Government expenditures are also generally much less for college graduates than for those without a college education. Indeed, over an average lifetime, total government spending per college degree is negative. That is, direct savings in post-college government expenditures are greater than government expenditures on higher education. ...
Journal Article
High returns: public investment in higher education
Conservatively speaking, a college graduate generates $142,000 in state fiscal benefits over time while costing a state only $60,500. But trends in higher education allocations (4.1 percent of total state spending nationwide in 1984; 1.8 percent in 2004) suggest states have become shortsighted.
Speech
The national and regional economic outlook
Remarks at the University at Albany, Albany, New York.
Journal Article
Recent college graduates and the labor market
In the recent recession and recovery, the unemployment rates, part-time employment trends, and earnings growth of recent college graduates have closely mirrored the patterns they displayed during the cyclical recession of 2001 and the subsequent jobless recovery. Recent college graduates are typically not subject to structural frictions that can contribute to weak labor markets, such as mismatches between the skills of job seekers and the needs of employers. Similarities in the labor market experiences of recent college graduates in the two recessions and recoveries suggest that the current ...
Speech
The national and regional economy
Remarks at Queens College, Flushing, New York.
Working Paper
House price growth when kids are teenagers: a path to higher intergenerational achievement?
This paper examines whether rising house prices immediately prior to children entering their college years impacts their intergenerational earnings mobility and/or educational outcomes. Higher house prices provide homeowners, especially liquidity constrained ones, with additional funding to invest in their children's human capital. The results show that a 1 percentage point increase in house prices, when children are 17-years-old, results in roughly 0.8 percent higher annual income for the children of homeowners, and 1.2 percent lower annual income for the children of renters. Additional ...