Three Essays on *Education and Human Capital
The third chapter examines whether the return to schooling varies depending on the degree of relevance of one's field of education to their occupation. Using information on fields of education and occupations of over 6,000 individuals, I find that people who matched their field of education to an occupation realize higher than average returns to schooling. Interestingly, I find that more schooling is associated with higher earnings even among people whose education is completely irrelevant to their occupation. This finding can be interpreted as evidence of unobserved ability differences among people with different amounts of schooling.
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign