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The Big Sort : College Reputation and Labor Market Outcomes / W. Bentley MacLeod [and three others], National Bureau of Economic Research.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- MacLeod, W. Bentley (William Bentley), 1954- author.
- National Bureau of Economic Research, author.
- Series:
- Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; number 21230.
- Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; number 21230
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Labor supply--Effect of education on.
- Labor supply.
- School choice.
- Management.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (72 pages) : illustrations.
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, Massachusetts : National Bureau of Economic Research, 2015.
- Summary:
- Spence (1973) noted that individuals' choice of educational quantity -- measured by years of schooling -- may stem partially from a desire to signal their ability to the labor market. This paper asks if individuals' choice of educational quality -- measured by college reputation -- may likewise signal their ability. We use data on the admission scores of all Colombian college graduates to define a measure of reputation that gives clear predictions in a signaling framework. We find that college reputation, unlike years of schooling, is correlated with graduates' earnings growth. We also show that Colombia's staggered rollout of a new signal of skill -- a college exit exam -- reduced the earnings return to reputation and increased the return to individual admission scores. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that a college's reputation provides information about the ability of its student body and about its value added, broadly understood.
- Notes:
- Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.
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