This dissertation consists of three chapters that study individual investment in human capital and the incidence of economic shocks. I use administrative data to answer these questions, developing and applying structural methods to analyze individual choices in combination with a careful consideration of research design. Chapter 1 studies the…

I study the effect of higher education on lifecycle earnings and focus on three ways in which education may help drive earnings: the effect of higher education on one's skills, the effect on one's ability to accumulate new skills in the future, and the relationship between education and one's likelihood of unemployment. In the first chapter, I…

Chapter 1 studies the change in women's college major choices in response to the dot-com crash. Although the dot-com crash had similar labor market effects for new graduates in engineering and computer science, it had different effects on who chose each major: women disproportionately left computer science, but not engineering. I investigate the…

This dissertation presents three separate essays. The first two essays explore the gender wage gap and its dynamics in urban China from 1995 to 2018. The first chapter decomposes the gender wage gap based on the observed wage for workers with a precise measure of the hourly wages. The first chapter examines the observed average gender wage gap in…

In this dissertation, I explore how international migration and environmental pollution shape human capital accumulation and labor market outcomes.The first chapter examines how college enrollment and major choice decisions of young adults in migrant-sending countries are affected by the removal of international migration barriers. My…

This dissertation addresses three separate questions in human capital and development economics. In the first chapter, I study how college admission concerns drive students' field choices in a field-specific college admission system. To study this question, I leverage a college admission policy reform in Ethiopia that sharply increased the…

Chapter 1 investigates asks the question how do financial frictions affect the type of human capital investments that students make in college? To study this question, I build a novel dataset covering more than 700,000 U.S. students, merging commencement records with address histories, credit bureau records, and professional resumes. I document…

Human capital production is central to economic wellbeing from a national perspective: it improves productivity, spurs technological innovation, and promotes sustainable economic growth over time. Equally important, investments in human capital are central to economic wellbeing at the individual level. College graduates tend to earn more money,…

The remarkable economic success of the Cayman Islands is primarily driven by its large expatriate population. Expatriates make up over one-third of the total population of the Islands and half of the labor force. This has led some Caymanians to demand more opportunities for local individuals. However in April 2014, one of the two local newspapers…

This dissertation contains three chapters that explore various aspects of the economics of education, with a focus on higher education. In particular, the first two chapters deal with college major as it relates to earnings, occupational choice, and high school curriculum, while the third discusses the relationship between college-student match…

A commonly held belief is that formal education has a strong positive association with earnings (Sanchez, 1998). The motivation for individuals to pursue and complete an education beyond high school is likely founded in the hopes of higher paying jobs or a higher position. The "economic benefits" of a community college education can be…

This dissertation seeks to increase our understanding of the factors that lead to student success at community colleges. Using data on a cohort of students enrolled at a two-year college, this dissertation presents the results of a longitudinal analysis. Citing the results of several persistence studies as well as the literature on…

The purpose of this study was to clarify the ways that a district used its teacher staffing and professional development policies to increase the supply of effective teachers in high-poverty schools, to determine the efficacy of these policies in the view of district administrators and teachers, and to identify the facilitators and constraints to…

Forty-three percent of doctoral students never complete their degree. This dropout is the highest among graduate and professional degree programs. Previous cross sectional studies of doctoral students' retention show the importance of financial aid in predicting degree completion. The studies however, do not estimate the labor market's effect on…

This study investigated the readiness of three higher educational institutions in Nigeria in their attempt to introduce and maintain technology-driven services to students, faculty, and support staff. The prerequisites for participation in the digital, networked economy include the affordable ICT, reliable electric supply, reliable and up-to-date…