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Title: Will Studying Economics Make You Rich? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of the Returns to College Major

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2020

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Abstract: We investigate the wage return to studying economics by leveraging a policy that prevented students with low introductory grades from declaring the major. Students who barely met the GPA threshold to major in economics earned $22,000 (46%) higher annual early-career wages than they would have with their second-choice majors. Access to the economics major shifts students' preferences toward business/finance careers, and about half of the wage return is explained by economics majors working in higher-paying industries. The causal return to majoring in economics is very similar to observational earnings differences in nationally representative data.

Url: http://zacharybleemer.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Return_to_Economics.pdf

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Authors: Bleemer, Zachary; Mehta, Aashish

Publisher: UC Berkeley

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Education, Other

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