Brand Jennie E, Xie Yu
University of California - Los Angeles.
Am Sociol Rev. 2010 Apr 1;75(2):273-302. doi: 10.1177/0003122410363567.
We consider how the economic return to a college education varies across members of the U.S. population. Based on principles of comparative advantage, positive selection is commonly presumed, i.e., individuals who are most likely to select into college benefit most from college. Net of observed economic and non-economic factors influencing college attendance, we conjecture that individuals who are least likely to obtain a college education benefit most from college. We call this theory the negative selection hypothesis. To adjudicate between the two hypotheses, we study the effects of completing college on earnings by propensity score strata using an innovative hierarchical linear model with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. For both data sources, for men and for women, and for every observed stage of the life course, we find evidence suggesting negative selection. Results from auxiliary analyses lend further support to the negative selection interpretation of the results.
我们研究了美国不同人群接受大学教育的经济回报差异。基于比较优势原则，通常认为存在正向选择，即最有可能选择上大学的个人从大学中受益最多。在排除影响大学入学的可观察到的经济和非经济因素后，我们推测最不可能获得大学教育的个人从大学中受益最多。我们将这一理论称为负向选择假说。为了在这两种假说之间做出判断，我们使用创新的分层线性模型，利用1979年全国青年纵向调查和威斯康星纵向研究的数据，按倾向得分分层研究完成大学教育对收入的影响。对于这两个数据源、男性和女性以及人生历程中每个可观察阶段，我们都发现了支持负向选择的证据。辅助分析的结果进一步支持了对结果的负向选择解释。
