IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlabec/doi10.1086-677390.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is a Dream Deferred a Dream Denied? College Enrollment and Time-Varying Opportunity Costs

Author

Listed:
  • Francisco Perez-Arce

Abstract

A public college randomly assigns applicants into a group that can enroll immediately and a group that can do so only after 1 year. One and a half years after the first group enrolled, individuals in that group were 19 percentage points more likely to be enrolled than those who had to wait. I present a model of educational decision making that predicts a substantial effect of deferral on attainment only when opportunity costs (wages) can vary across time within individuals. I estimate the model to project the long-term effect of deferred admission on attainment for different groups of applicants.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco Perez-Arce, 2015. "Is a Dream Deferred a Dream Denied? College Enrollment and Time-Varying Opportunity Costs," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 33-61.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlabec:doi:10.1086/677390
    DOI: 10.1086/677390
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/677390
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/677390
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/677390?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lee, Bong-Soo & Ingram, Beth Fisher, 1991. "Simulation estimation of time-series models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2-3), pages 197-205, February.
    2. Duffie, Darrell & Singleton, Kenneth J, 1993. "Simulated Moments Estimation of Markov Models of Asset Prices," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(4), pages 929-952, July.
    3. David Atkin, 2016. "Endogenous Skill Acquisition and Export Manufacturing in Mexico," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(8), pages 2046-2085, August.
    4. Gary S. Becker, 1962. "Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 9-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Jacobson, Louis S & LaLonde, Robert J & Sullivan, Daniel G, 1993. "Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 685-709, September.
    6. Louis S. Jacobson & Robert J. LaLonde & Daniel G. Sullivan, 1993. "Long-term earnings losses of high-seniority displaced workers," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 17(Nov), pages 2-20.
    7. McFadden, Daniel, 1989. "A Method of Simulated Moments for Estimation of Discrete Response Models without Numerical Integration," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(5), pages 995-1026, September.
    8. Robert Bozick, 2009. "Job opportunities, economic resources, and the postsecondary destinations of American youth," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 46(3), pages 493-512, August.
    9. Pakes, Ariel & Pollard, David, 1989. "Simulation and the Asymptotics of Optimization Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(5), pages 1027-1057, September.
    10. Susan M. Dynarski, 2003. "Does Aid Matter? Measuring the Effect of Student Aid on College Attendance and Completion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 279-288, March.
    11. Duryea, Suzanne & Arends-Kuenning, Mary, 2003. "School Attendance, Child Labor and Local Labor Market Fluctuations in Urban Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 1165-1178, July.
    12. Mattila, J Peter, 1982. "Determinants of Male School Enrollments: A Time-Series Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 64(2), pages 242-251, May.
    13. Philip Oreopoulos & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2011. "Priceless: The Nonpecuniary Benefits of Schooling," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(1), pages 159-184, Winter.
    14. Franke, Reiner, 2009. "Applying the method of simulated moments to estimate a small agent-based asset pricing model," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 804-815, December.
    15. David S. Lee, 2009. "Training, Wages, and Sample Selection: Estimating Sharp Bounds on Treatment Effects," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(3), pages 1071-1102.
    16. Harris Dellas & Plutarchos Sakellaris, 2003. "On the cyclicality of schooling: theory and evidence," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 55(1), pages 148-172, January.
    17. Mattila, J. Peter, 1982. "Determinants of Male School Enrollments, A Time-Series Analysis," Staff General Research Papers Archive 10849, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    18. McKenzie, David J, 2006. "The Consumer Response to the Mexican Peso Crisis," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(1), pages 139-172, October.
    19. Stephanie Riegg Cellini, 2009. "Crowded Colleges and College Crowd-Out: The Impact of Public Subsidies on the Two-Year College Market," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 1-30, August.
    20. Damon Clark, 2011. "Do Recessions Keep Students in School? The Impact of Youth Unemployment on Enrolment in Post‐compulsory Education in England," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 78(311), pages 523-545, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Perez-Arce, Francisco, 2017. "The effect of education on time preferences," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 52-64.
    2. de Roux, Nicolás & Riehl, Evan, 2022. "Disrupted academic careers: The returns to time off after high school," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:ran:wpaper:843 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Francisco Perez-Arce, 2013. "Is A Dream Deferred a Dream Denied? College Enrollment and Time-Varying Opportunity Costs," Working Papers WR-843-1, RAND Corporation.
    3. Zila, Eric & Kukacka, Jiri, 2023. "Moment set selection for the SMM using simple machine learning," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 366-391.
    4. Zhenxi Chen & Thomas Lux, 2018. "Estimation of Sentiment Effects in Financial Markets: A Simulated Method of Moments Approach," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 711-744, October.
    5. Hansen, Lars Peter & Heaton, John & Luttmer, Erzo G J, 1995. "Econometric Evaluation of Asset Pricing Models," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 8(2), pages 237-274.
    6. Calvet, Laurent E. & Czellar, Veronika, 2015. "Through the looking glass: Indirect inference via simple equilibria," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 185(2), pages 343-358.
    7. Hajivassiliou, Vassilis A. & Ruud, Paul A., 1986. "Classical estimation methods for LDV models using simulation," Handbook of Econometrics, in: R. F. Engle & D. McFadden (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 40, pages 2383-2441, Elsevier.
    8. Liesenfeld, Roman & Breitung, Jörg, 1998. "Simulation based methods of moments in empirical finance," Tübinger Diskussionsbeiträge 136, University of Tübingen, School of Business and Economics.
    9. Sara Ayllón & Natalia Nollenberger, 2021. "The Unequal Opportunity For Skills Acquisition During The Great Recession In Europe," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 67(2), pages 289-316, June.
    10. Jean-Jacques Forneron, 2019. "A Sieve-SMM Estimator for Dynamic Models," Papers 1902.01456, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2023.
    11. Amand, Marnix & Chéron, Arnaud & Pelgrin, Florian & Terriau, Anthony, 2023. "Soccer labour market equilibrium and efficient training of players," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    12. Aitor Lacuesta & Sergio Puente & Ernesto Villanueva, 2020. "The schooling response to a sustained increase in low-skill wages: evidence from Spain 1989–2009," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 457-499, December.
    13. Ramdan Dridi & Eric Renault, 2000. "Semi-Parametric Indirect Inference," STICERD - Econometrics Paper Series 392, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    14. Santos, Manuel S., 2004. "Simulation-based estimation of dynamic models with continuous equilibrium solutions," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-4), pages 465-491, June.
    15. Irina Merkurieva, 2018. "Late Career Job Loss and the Decision to Retire," Discussion Paper Series, School of Economics and Finance 201606, School of Economics and Finance, University of St Andrews.
    16. Ramdan Dridi, 2000. "Simulated Asymptotic Least Squares Theory," STICERD - Econometrics Paper Series 396, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    17. Sadaba, Barbara & Vujić, Sunčica & Maier, Sofia, 2024. "Characterizing the schooling cycle," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    18. Shuowen Chen, 2022. "Indirect Inference for Nonlinear Panel Models with Fixed Effects," Papers 2203.10683, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2022.
    19. Tauchen, George E., 1995. "New Minimum Chi-Square Methods in Empirical Finance," Working Papers 95-42, Duke University, Department of Economics.
    20. Hirbod Assa & Amal Dabbous & Nikolay Gospodinov, 2013. "A staggered pricing approach to modeling speculative storage: implications for commodity price dynamics," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2013-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    21. Santos, Manuel S., 2003. "Simulation-based estimation of dynamic models with continuous equilibrium solutions," UC3M Working papers. Economics we034716, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.

    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:ucp:jlabec:doi:10.1086/677390. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JOLE .

    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.