Three essays on unemployment, self-selection and wage differentials

This thesis is a collection of three essays on labor economics from a macroeconomic prospective. Chapter 1 discusses imperfect information, self-selection and the market for higher education. It explores how the steady trends in increased tuition costs, college enrollment and returns to education might be related to the quality of college graduates. The model shows that the signaling role of education might be an important, yet largely neglected ingredient in these recent changes. In a special signaling model, workers face the same costs, but can expect different returns from college. Allocation of ability into skill is determined by the equilibrium skill premium. Incorporating a production of higher education, the properties of the college market equilibrium are discussed. A skill biased technical change initially decreases self-selection into college, but the general equilibrium effect can overturn the initial decline, since increased enrollment and rising tuition costs increase selection. Higher initial human capital has an external effect on subsequent investment: all agents increase their schooling investment, and the higher equilibrium tuition costs increase self-selection and the college premium. Chapter 2 is about unemployment insurance and the uninsured.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Economics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Regev, Tal, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Daron Acemoglu and Ivan Werning.

• Economics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34512

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34512