TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
... [Show More] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
Chapter 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 2 Earnings Effect of College Education: IV Estimates Based on
China’s Higher Education Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.4 Data Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.5 IV Estimation Based on 1999 Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.6 IV Estimation Based on Admission Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Chapter 3 Effects of Cohort Size on College Premium: Evidence from China’s
Higher Education Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.2 Theoretical Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.3 Empirical Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.4 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.5 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.6 Robustness Checks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Chapter 4 Education-Occupation Match and the Trends in the College Earnings
Premium by Age Groups in Urban China, 1995-2013 . . . . 77
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.2 Data Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4.3 Decomposition Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.4 Cohort Size Effect on College Premium by Occupation Categories . . 83
4.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Vita . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
iv
LIST OF TABLES
2.1 Summary Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.2 Summary Statistics for the Sample Including all College and High School
Graduates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.3 Validity Test for Joint Significance of Baseline Covariates . . . . . . . . . 35
2.4 First Stage and Reduce Form Estimations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.5 OLS and RD-IV Estimates of College and 4-year College Premiums . . . 37
2.6 Estimated Effects of IVs on Years of Education, College Attendance and
Log Annual Earnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.7 OLS and IV Estimates of Rate of Returns to Higher Education . . . . . 39
2.8 OLS and IV College Premium Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.1 Summary Statistics: Male Workers Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.2 Birth Year Fixed Effects on College Premium and Relative Size . . . . . 69
3.3 Basic Estimates for Effects of Age Specific Relative Size of CollegeWorkers
on College Premiums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.4 Heterogeneous Relative Size Effects across Age Groups . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.5 The Results to Sample including only High-School and 4-Year College
Workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.6 Testing Assumption: Identical Elasticity of Substitution for College and
Non-College Workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.7 Results Using Individual Data Controlling for Province, Occupation and
Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.8 Robustness of The Results to Female Sample and Pooled Sample Including
both Male and Female . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.9 Robustness of The Results to Several Alternative Specifications . . . . . 76
4.1 List of Approaches to Determining b . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.2 Summary Statistics: Male Workers Only in CHIP Urban Data . . . . . . 96
4.3 Summary Statistics: Higher-Skilled Occ. Distribution by Education, Year,
and Age Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.4 Summary Statistics: High-Skill Occ. Distribution by Education, Year,
and Age Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
4.5 Decomposition Results by Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition . . . . . . . . 99
4.6 Basic Estimates for Effects of Age Specific Relative Size of CollegeWorkers
on College Premiums: Lower-Skilled Occupations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
4.7 Basic Estimates for Effects of Age Specific Relative Size of CollegeWorkers
on College Premiums: Higher-Skilled Occupations . . . . . . . . . . . . [Show Less]