[go: up one dir, main page]

  EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The role of mathematical and verbal skills on the returns to graduate and professional education

Moohoun Song, Peter Orazem and Darin Wohlgemuth

Economics of Education Review, 2008, vol. 27, issue 6, 664-675

Abstract: Students in majors with higher average quantitative graduate records exam (GRE) scores are less likely to attend graduate school whereas students in majors with higher average verbal GRE scores are more likely to attend graduate school. This sorting effect means that students whose cognitive skills are associated with lower earnings at the bachelor's level are the most likely to attend graduate school. As a result, there is a substantial downward bias in estimated returns to graduate education. Correcting for the sorting effect raises estimated annualized returns to a Master's or doctoral degree from about 5% to 7.3% and 12.8%, respectively. Estimated returns to professional degrees rise from 13.9% to 16.6%. These findings correspond to a large increase in relative earnings received by postgraduate degree holders in the United States over the past 20 years.

Keywords: Postgraduate; Rate; of; return; Demand; for; schooling; Quantitative; skills; Qualitative; skills; Sorting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272-7757(07)00113-6
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: The role of mathematical and verbal skills on the returns to graduate and professional education (2008) Downloads
Working Paper: The Role of Mathematical and Verbal Skills on the Returns to Graduate and Professional Education (2007) Downloads
Working Paper: The Role of Mathematical and Verbal Skills on the Returns to Graduate and Professional Education (2007) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:27:y:2008:i:6:p:664-675

Access Statistics for this article

Economics of Education Review is currently edited by E. Cohn

More articles in Economics of Education Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2024-07-01
Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:27:y:2008:i:6:p:664-675