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Discovering One's Talent: Learning From Academic Specialization

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  • Ofer Malamud
Abstract
In addition to providing useful skills, education may also yield valuable information about one's tastes and talents. This paper exploits an exogenous difference in the timing of academic specialization within the British system of higher education to test whether education provides such information. I develop a model in which individuals, by taking courses in different fields of study, accumulate field-specific skills and receive noisy signals of match quality to these fields. Distinguishing between educational regimes with early and late specialization, I derive comparative static predictions about the likelihood of switching to an occupation that is unrelated to one's field of study. If higher education serves mainly to provide specific skills, the model predicts more switching in a regime with late specialization because the cost of switching is lower in terms of foregone skills. Using survey and administrative data on university graduates, I find that individuals from Scotland, where specialization occurs relatively late, are less likely to switch to an unrelated occupation compared to their English counterparts who specialize earlier. This implies that the benefits to increased match quality are sufficiently large to outweigh the greater loss in skills from specializing early, and thus confirms the important role of higher education in helping students discover their own tastes and talents.

Suggested Citation

  • Ofer Malamud, 2007. "Discovering One's Talent: Learning From Academic Specialization," Working Papers 0809, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    • Handle: RePEc:har:wpaper:0809
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Humlum, Maria Knoth & Thorsager, Mette, 2021. "The Importance of Peer Quality for Completion of Higher Education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    2. Fricke, Hans & Grogger, Jeffrey & Steinmayr, Andreas, 2018. "Exposure to academic fields and college major choice," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 199-213.
    3. Bordon, Paola & Fu, Chao, 2015. "College-Major Choice to College-Then-Major Choice," MPRA Paper 79643, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Ofer Malamud, 2010. "Breadth versus Depth: The Timing of Specialization in Higher Education," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 24(4), pages 359-390, December.
    5. Luc Bridet & Margaret Leighton, 2015. "The Major Decision: Labor Market Implications of the Timing of Specialization in College," Discussion Paper Series, School of Economics and Finance 201510, School of Economics and Finance, University of St Andrews.
    6. Keith Bender & John Heywood, 2011. "Educational mismatch and the careers of scientists," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 253-274.
    7. Philip Oreopoulos & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2011. "Priceless: The Nonpecuniary Benefits of Schooling," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(1), pages 159-184, Winter.
    8. Daniel Kreisman & Kevin Stange, 2020. "Vocational and Career Tech Education in American High Schools: The Value of Depth Over Breadth," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 15(1), pages 11-44, Winter.
    9. Juerg Schweri & Annina Eymann & Manuel Aepli, 2020. "Horizontal mismatch and vocational education," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(32), pages 3464-3478, June.
    10. Hastings, Justine S. & Neilson, Christopher A. & Ramirez, Anely & Zimmerman, Seth D., 2016. "(Un)informed college and major choice: Evidence from linked survey and administrative data," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 136-151.
    11. Bender, Keith A. & Roche, Kristen, 2013. "Educational mismatch and self-employment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 85-95.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    higher education; specialization; Scotland; Britain;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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