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Title: Expected Labor Outcomes and Choice of College Major: An Exploration of Trade Exposure and STEM Majors

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2021

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Abstract: This paper analyzes how increased trade exposure affects students' choice of STEM major. I first present a simple model to illustrate how trade exposure impacts students' utility functions through their self-beliefs about labor outcomes and then use assorted data to show that import competition positively affects the choice of STEM major. The associated effects are 1.05 and 0.72 percentage point increases in the probability of choosing STEM majors in the first and second parts of college, respectively. As for labor market outcomes, my results suggest that a rise in import competition leads to a pronounced negative effect on weekly wages, employment status, and full-time employment across STEM and non-STEM occupations from the late 1990s through the 2000s. STEM occupations, however, are less negatively impacted by import competition, which helps explain why a rise in import exposure increases the probability of students choosing STEM majors.

Url: http://econ.msu.edu/seminars/docs/JMP_Wu.pdf

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Authors: Wu, Yu-Siang

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Pages: 1-54

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Education, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

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