Major-Occupation Match Quality: An Empirical Measure Based on Relative Productivity
-
Margaret Leighton
and
Jamin D. Speer
Abstract
The match quality between a worker’s field of study in college and her occupation is an important labor market outcome. Yet this match quality is difficult to define and measure. We propose a new measure of major-occupation match quality based on relative productivity. A worker is well-matched if graduates from her major, working in her occupation, have high earnings relative to other major-occupation pairs. We show that some majors can be very well-matched or very badly matched (e.g. nursing), while others are never very well- or badly matched (e.g. humanities). Our measure has two desirable features: it is continuous, and it can be estimated in any data set including field of study, wage, and occupation.
Acknowledgements
We thank Tugce Cuhadaroglu, two anonymous referees and the editor for helpful comments.
References
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Supplementary Material
This article contains supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/bejeap-2022-0254).
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Political Commitment, Policy Consequences, and Moral Beliefs: Survey Evidence on the Minimum Wage
- Managerial Delegation, Product R&D and Subsidies on R&D Investment Costs
- Counterfactual Decomposition of Health Care Expenditures: From Cost-Based Payment to a Global Budget System
- Legalizing Harmful Drugs: Government Participation and Optimal policies
- Subsidized Crop Insurance under Limited Access to Incomplete Financial Markets
- Network Effect, Business Dynamism and Wage Inequality in a Sharing Economy
- Letters
- Global Politico-Economic Dynamics during a Local Conflict: Reciprocal Patterns of Cooperation and Sanctions
- Welfare Effects of Socially Conscious Platforms in Two-Sided Markets
- Private Benefits of Control and the Core
- What is the Short-Term Impact of Decreasing the Speed Limit for Motor Vehicles on Bicycle Commuting? Evidence from French Cities during Covid-19 Pandemic
- Gone with the Flood: Natural Disasters and Children’s Schooling in Pakistan
- Major-Occupation Match Quality: An Empirical Measure Based on Relative Productivity
