Working Paper: NBER ID: w30088
Authors: Johnathan G. Conzelmann; Steven W. Hemelt; Brad Hershbein; Shawn M. Martin; Andrew Simon; Kevin M. Stange
Abstract: This paper introduces a new measure of the labor markets served by colleges and universities across the United States. About 50 percent of recent college graduates are living and working in the metro area nearest the institution they attended, with this figure climbing to 67 percent in-state. The geographic dispersion of alumni is more than twice as great for highly selective 4-year institutions as for 2-year institutions. However, more than one-quarter of 2-year institutions disperse alumni more diversely than the average public 4-year institution. In one application of these data, we find that the average strength of the labor market to which a college sends its graduates predicts college-specific intergenerational economic mobility. In a second application, we quantify the extent of “brain drain” across areas and illustrate the importance of considering migration patterns of college graduates when estimating the social return on public investment in higher education.
Keywords: Labor Markets; Economic Mobility; Higher Education; Graduate Migration
JEL Codes: H41; I23; J24; J61
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| robust labor market connections of colleges (J49) | facilitate upward mobility for graduates from low-income backgrounds (I24) |
| understanding migration patterns of college graduates (J61) | estimating social return on public investment in higher education (I26) |
| social benefits of public investment in higher education (H40) | disproportionately accrue to high-wage urban and suburban areas (R23) |
| average strength of the labor market associated with a college (D29) | intergenerational economic mobility (J62) |
| 10% increase in average wage of labor market associated with a college (J31) | likelihood of a student from the bottom income quintile reaching the top quintile (I24) |