Three Essays On Labor Economics And Public Policy PDF Download

This dissertation presents three essays in labor economics. Chapter 1 explores the effects of changes in the overall educational attainment of workers on wage and employment structure, exploiting a college education policy that has been implemented in Korea over the past 60 years. The Korean government determines a college enrollment quota for each year, which limits the number of college freshmen. The quota has been binding in all years. This study first estimates the causal effect of the relative supply of college workers to high school workers on the relative wage using the college enrollment quota as an exclusion restriction. It then develops and estimates a dynamic equilibrium model that explains the changes in educational attainment, wages, and employment structure simultaneously. Chapter 2 separately estimates the effects of kindergarten-entry age, age-at-test and schooling on cognitive skills using the new identification strategy. These three variables are considered to be perfectly multicollinear so that it is deemed that it is not possible to identify their effects separately. I exploit summer break as a period when age increases but schooling does not. The summer break and the variations in survey date in NLSY79-CS make it possible to resolve the multicollinearity problem. The main findings from the instrumental variable estimations are (1) kindergarten-entry age has a positive effect on math and reading scores; (2)the aging without schooling during summer break does not improve any test score; (3) schooling is the most important factor that improves the cognitive skills among the three factors. Chapter 3 investigates pecuniary and non-pecuniary returns to education exploiting regional variations in college attendance rate induced by the College Enrollment Quota Policy in Korea. The Korean government regulates the maximum number of college freshmen that each college can select for each year. This study employs the ratio of college enrollment quota to the number of 12th graders in the province of residence as an instrument for the years of education. The IV estimates show that an additional year of education increases hourly wage by 10.8-13.6 percent by specification. Education also increases fringe benefits, job satisfaction and life satisfaction.