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Educational Attainment and the Changing U.S. Wage Structure: Dynamic Implications on Young Individuals' Choices

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  • Moshe Buchinsky
  • Phillip Leslie

Abstract

We present a dynamic model of individuals' educational investments that allows us to explore alternative modeling strategies for forecasting future wage distributions. The key innovation we propose is an approach to forecasting that relies only on the information that would be available at the actual time decisions are made and which incorporates the role of parameter uncertainty into the decision-making process. We compare the performance of our method with alternative models of forecasting behavior, based on CPS data over the period 1964-2004. (c) 2010 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

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  • Moshe Buchinsky & Phillip Leslie, 2010. "Educational Attainment and the Changing U.S. Wage Structure: Dynamic Implications on Young Individuals' Choices," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(3), pages 541-594, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlabec:v:28:y:2010:i:3:p:541-594
    DOI: 10.1086/651720
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    Cited by:

    1. Alexander Whalley, 2004. "Black-White Differences in the Insurance Value of Human Capital," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 575, Econometric Society.
    2. Xavier D'Haultfoeuille & Christophe Gaillac & Arnaud Maurel, 2018. "Rationalizing Rational Expectations? Tests and Deviations," NBER Working Papers 25274, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Adeline Delavande & Basit Zafar, 2014. "University choice: the role of expected earnings, non-pecuniary outcomes, and financial constraints," Staff Reports 683, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    4. Ben Rejeb, Aymen & Arfaoui, Mongi, 2016. "Financial market interdependencies: A quantile regression analysis of volatility spillover," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 140-157.
    5. Long, Mark C. & Goldhaber, Dan & Huntington-Klein, Nick, 2015. "Do completed college majors respond to changes in wages?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 1-14.
    6. Ben Rejeb, Aymen, 2017. "On the volatility spillover between lslamic and conventional stock markets: A quantile regression analysis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 794-815.
    7. Magali Beffy & Denis Fougère & Arnaud Maurel, 2012. "Choosing the Field of Study in Postsecondary Education: Do Expected Earnings Matter?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 334-347, February.
    8. Heckman, James J. & Lochner, Lance J. & Todd, Petra E., 2006. "Earnings Functions, Rates of Return and Treatment Effects: The Mincer Equation and Beyond," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 7, pages 307-458, Elsevier.
    9. Stacey Chen, 2003. "Risk Attitude and College Attendance," Discussion Papers 03-03, University at Albany, SUNY, Department of Economics.
    10. Dragomirescu-Gaina, Catalin & Elia, Leandro & Weber, Anke, 2015. "A fast-forward look at tertiary education attainment in Europe 2020," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 804-819.
    11. Courtioux, Pierre & Gregoir, Stéphane & Houeto, Dede, 2014. "Modelling the distribution of returns on higher education: A microsimulation approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 328-340.
    12. Michelle L. Barnes & Anthony W. Hughes, 2002. "A quantile regression analysis of the cross section of stock market returns," Working Papers 02-2, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    13. Hügle, Dominik, 2021. "The decision to enrol in higher education," Discussion Papers 2021/8, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    14. Basit Zafar, 2011. "Can subjective expectations data be used in choice models? evidence on cognitive biases," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 520-544, April.
    15. Ben Rejeb, Aymen, 2016. "Volatility Spillover between Islamic and conventional stock markets: evidence from Quantile Regression analysis," MPRA Paper 73302, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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