This is one of the most important, and least understood, details in the value of higher education - it's benefits are reaped very differently by rich and poor students.

This depressing new NBER working paper finds that while the returns to a college education are still clearly positive for everyone, the benefits for students from lower-income families have declined over time due to fewer resources going to regional institutions.

Important paper by Bleemer and Quincy: Since 1960, the college wage premium has become less equal. Lower-income students now get far less out of college than their higher-income peers.

www.nber.org/papers/w33797

New study: The relative wage premium for going to college has halved for low-income Americans since 1960.

What is to blame? Rising selectivity? Tuition hikes? State disinvestment? We decompose changes in the premium since 1900 to find out.

🧵#EconTwitter nber.org/papers/w33797

Why are wages in Paris or NYC higher than in other cities?

In a new WP with @paulinecarry.bsky.social & @bennykleinman.bsky.social, we decompose spatial disparities btw “location effects” and the local composition of workers and establishments.

New data on firm mobility + double-mover design.

🧵⬇️

We are hiring an education researcher to join the @capolicylab.bsky.social and @berkeleycshe.bsky.social teams. You'll work on projects using administrative data relating to California higher education. Here's more information: capolicylab.org/careers/rese...

**New working paper**

How does the under-representation of females in Economics affect the career trajectory of female Ph.D. students?

Sahar Parsa and I look at this in a new working paper by exploring sabbatical leaves taken by female professors at top-50 US Econ departments.

I will discuss recent trends in meritocracy, access, and the allocation of US higher education on a livestreamed ASSA panel tomorrow (Sunday) at 8 am PST, 11 EST.

Livestream here: www.aeaweb.org/conference/l...

Black and Hispanic college graduates have been steadily earning degrees in relatively lower-paying majors since 2000. The main reason is new GPA-based restrictions on major choice, from Zachary Bleemer and Aashish Mehta https://www.nber.org/papers/w33269

TLDR: A new and IMPORTANT study finds that GPA cutoffs for high paying majors (like engineering and business) not only fail to improve student outcomes, but have also disproportionately driven minorities away from high-paying fields since the 1990s.

BRUH. #econsky #blacksky #science

Calling young applied microeconomists: come hang out at Princeton for a few days in March for a great conference! Papers due Dec. 22.

irs.princeton.edu/news/2024/nl...

#Econtwitter

Non-college US employment has declined by over 1,000,000 since 2000 because average employer healthcare premiums have doubled, making middle-income workers not worth hiring.

A great new (job market!) paper by Jessica Min tells the story. 🧵

jessica-min.com

#EconTwitter