College choice and subsequent earnings. Results using Swedish sibling data

Abstract

We use data on 19 000 siblings to investigate whether earnings vary among students who graduated from different colleges in Sweden. We run separate within-family regressions for whole siblings, sisters and brothers. The results show that earnings vary significantly among students who have graduated from different colleges. The cross-sectional estimates are up to twice the within-family estimates, showing that a regression estimator of college effects that does not adjust properly for family characteristics will overestimate the earnings premium of college type as well as the differences in earnings after graduation from different colleges. There is a significant relationship between college type and earnings, even when we control for area of residence after college education. The paper also examines the extent to which differences among colleges, in the proportion of teachers with doctoral degrees, explain the differences in earnings premium. We find that the earnings premium of college type becomes insignificant when adding the proportion of teachers with doctoral degrees to the analysis.-