University selectivity and the relative returns to higher education : Evidence from the UK

Walker, Ian and Zhu, Yu (2018) University selectivity and the relative returns to higher education : Evidence from the UK. Labour Economics, 53. pp. 230-249. ISSN 0927-5371

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Abstract

We study the wage outcomes of university graduates by course (i.e. by subject and institution) using the UK Labour Force Surveys (LFS). We show that the selectivity of undergraduate degree programmes plays an important role in explaining the variation in the relative graduate wages. In fact, we find that much of the variation in relative wages across courses is due to the quality of students selected. Once we allow for course selectivity in our analysis we find that our estimates of the effects of attending the most prestigious HEIs is around 10 percentage points lower than otherwise; the effects of attending the middle ranking HEIs is around 5 percentage points lower; and that of attending these lowest ranking HEIs is unaffected. We go on to consider selection (on observables) into subjects and institutions using the Inverse Probability Weighted Regression Adjusted (IPWRA) method to estimate multiple treatment effects.

Item Type:

Journal Article

Journal or Publication Title:

Labour Economics

Additional Information:

This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Labour Economics. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Labour Economics, 53, 2018 DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2018.05.005

Uncontrolled Keywords:

/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1400/1407

Subjects:

?? college selectivityrelative returns to higher educationorganizational behavior and human resource managementeconomics and econometrics ??

Departments:

Lancaster University Management School > Economics

ID Code:

125705

Deposited By:

ep_importer_pure

Deposited On:

06 Jun 2018 08:26

Refereed?:

Yes

Published?:

Published

Last Modified:

16 Oct 2024 23:49

URI:

https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/125705