What is the impact of the minimum wage on the college wage premium? I show that job-ladder models imply that the effect should be small on impact--raising only the wages of workers bound by the minimum wage--and grow over time as workers slowly move up the job ladder. Guided by my theory, I present evidence that these dynamic effects are present…

Evidence on gender inequality in the labor market is extensive. However, little is known about the potential role of overeducation and horizontal mismatch in explaining women's labor-market disadvantages. We draw on recent data from the Eurograduate pilot survey to investigate the role of overeducation, field-of-study mismatch and field-specific…

This paper is among the first to investigate the impact of over-education and over-skilling on workers' wages using a unique pan-European database covering twenty-eight countries for the year 2014, namely the CEDEFOP's European Skills and Jobs (ESJ) survey. Overall, the results suggest the existence of a wage penalty associated with…

Data showing what students earn after attending higher education institutions have become increasingly available, bolstering calls from policymakers and advocates that government financial aid programs should be tied to those outcomes. Often overlooked, however, is that these data and policies usually reflect the earnings of only students who…

This study focuses on the increasing disparities in STEM education achievement and long-term wage earnings of under-represented minority groups. As part of national efforts to improve the diversity of the STEM workforce, this study uses longitudinal data from the University of Houston's Education Research Center (UH-ERC) to examine the effect of…

This study seeks to reveal the heterogeneity in occupation-specific wage returns among graduates of the German vocational education and training (VET) system. We distinguish between VET graduates with and without a higher education entrance certificate (i.e. an Abitur). To implement our hierarchical multi-level analyses, we exploit the latest wave…

This study analyzes college graduates in the workplace to evaluate the effects of horizontal mismatches between education and jobs on wages and mobility. Using the Heckman-Lee and probit models, this study shows that a gender wage gap still exists. However, the size of the gender wage differential depends on the extent of mismatch. Specifically,…

The economic effects of educational mismatch include its negative impact on economic growth, which is due to the inefficient allocation of resources it generates. The main causes of this phenomenon need to be determined to correctly implement policies to avoid such mismatches. This paper investigated the determinants of educational mismatch from a…

We test for the signaling hypothesis versus the human capital theory using the Wiles test in a country which has experienced a dramatic increase in the supply of skills in a relatively short period of time. For this purpose, we construct a job match index based on the usefulness of school-provided skills and the relevance of the job performed to…

This paper analyses the prevalence of educational mismatch and its effects on wages in Brazil using a large employer-employee dataset. I find that half of the Brazilian labour market is mismatched, with similar proportions of over- and undereducated. Overeducated (undereducated) workers earn significantly lower (higher) than their co-workers who…

Majoring in business typically pays off. While graduates' earnings and federal student loan debt vary by institution and degree level, the majority of business programs lead to median earnings that are roughly 10 times graduates' debt payments two years after program completion. "The Most Popular Degree Pays Off: Ranking the Economic Value of…

We study how human capital diversification, in the form of double majoring, affects the response of earnings to labor market shocks. Double majors experience substantial protection against earnings shocks, of 56%. This finding holds across different model specifications and data sets. Furthermore, the protection double majors experience is more…

This study investigates whether the completion of an optional 'sandwich' work placement enhances graduate starting salaries. We use a variety of multivariate regression techniques to investigate this issue and find that the graduate starting salaries of students who took professional work placements were significantly higher by £1686 ($2105)…

We provide first evidence of the impact of over-education, among natives and immigrants, on firm-level productivity and wages. Our results show that the over-education wage premium is higher for natives than for immigrants. However, since the differential in productivity gains associated with over-education outweighs the corresponding wage premium…

This study investigates the impact of the extension of the duration of general education on educational opportunities and labour market performance. Taking the example of the Polish education reform of 1999, which we treated as a natural experiment, we used a regression discontinuity design and estimated the effects of an additional year of…