The Path to College Education
The Role of Math and Verbal Skills
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10173093 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Esteban Aucejo, Jonathan James (0000-0002-8206-1637) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 129 |
| Issue | 10 |
| Pages | 2905-2946 |
| Publication date | 2021-05-14 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Political Economy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3808 • E-ISSN: 1537-534X |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/715417 |
| OpenAlex | W3047736460 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 14 |
| References cited | 25 |
This paper studies the formation of math and verbal skills during compulsory education and their impact on adult outcomes. We introduce a novel method to estimate dynamic, nested CES production functions. Using a rich panel database that follows a cohort of students in England from elementary school to university, we find that the production functions of math and verbal skills are inherently different, where cross-effects are only present in the production of math skills. Results on long-term outcomes indicate that verbal skills play a substantially greater role in explaining university enrollment than math skills. This finding, combined with the large female advantage in verbal skills, has key implications for gender gaps in college enrollment and field of study. Finally, we show that students stuck in low quality schools have lower skill levels at the end of compulsory education compared to students attending high quality schools, with these skill deficits leading to a 30 percentage point gap in college enrollment among these students. Simulation results show that about 15% of this gap is due to di erences in skill levels at the beginning of compulsory education while about 20% of this gap is attributable to the differences in school quality, which indicates that policies aiming to improve school quality could help to overcome initial skill disadvantages
Academic skills · Cohort · Compulsory education · Demographic economics · Economics · Gender gap · Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Point (geometry · Production (economics · Quality (philosophy · Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies · Labor market dynamics and wage inequality · Mathematics · Psychology · School Choice and Performance
Multi-Dimensional Skills and Gender Differences in STEM Majors
Gendered effects of labels on advanced course enrollment
It’s time to learn
Identification of dynamic latent factor models of skill formation with translog production
Teacher Bias and Evaluation Differences in Test Scores
College major choice and beliefs about relative performance
Disparate teacher effects, comparative advantage, and match quality
Do labour market outcomes influence why women are underrepresented in engineering
Can Educational Policy Influence Major Choices in Higher Education Through Changes in School Curriculum
On the Gender Gap of Soft-Skills
Family resources and children’s skills
On the economic prospects of non-Western migrants in Europe
The Impact of Centre‐based Childcare on Non‐cognitive Skills of Young Children
Trade-Offs of Attending Better Schools
Why Do New Technologies Complement Skills? Directed Technical Change and Wage Inequality
Capital-skill Complementarity and Inequality
Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation
The Effects of Cognitive and Noncognitive Abilities on Labor Market Outcomes and Social Behavior
The Benefit of Additional High-School Math and Science Classes for Young Men and Women
Does School Quality Matter? Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth
The Effect of High School Courses on Earnings
The Dynamics of Educational Attainment for Black, Hispanic, and White Males
The Career Decisions of Young Men
Returns to Education
The Role of Premarket Factors in Black-White Wage Differences
Effects of High School Course-Taking on Secondary and Postsecondary Success
Estimating the Association between Latent Class Membership and External Variables Using Bias-adjusted Three-step Approaches
The Growing Female Advantage in College Completion
| Unique citing works | 14 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,8 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 14 |