IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v107y2025i2p355-371.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Signals, Information, and the Value of College Names

Author

Listed:
  • Alex Eble

    (Columbia University)

  • Feng Hu

    (University of Science and Technology Beijing)

Abstract

Colleges can send signals about their quality by adopting new, more alluring names. We study how this affects college choice and labor market performance of college graduates. Administrative data show name-changing colleges enroll higher-aptitude students, with larger effects for alluring-but-misleading name changes and among students with less information. A large resume audit study suggests a small premium for new college names in most jobs, and a significant penalty in lower-status jobs. We characterize student and employer beliefs using web-scraped text, surveys, and other data. Our study shows signals designed to change beliefs can have real, lasting impacts on market outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Alex Eble & Feng Hu, 2025. "Signals, Information, and the Value of College Names," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 107(2), pages 355-371, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:107:y:2025:i:2:p:355-371
    DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_01277
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01277
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1162/rest_a_01277?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:107:y:2025:i:2:p:355-371. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: The MIT Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.