TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hamermesh,Daniel S.
AU  - Donald,Stephen G.
TI  - The Effect of College Curriculum on Earnings: Accounting for Non-Ignorable Non-Response Bias
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10809
PY  - 2004
Y2  - October 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10809
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10809.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Daniel S. Hamermesh
Department of Economics
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712-1173
Tel: 512/475-8526
Fax: 512/471-3510
E-Mail: hamermes@eco.utexas.edu

Stephen Donald
Dept. of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
E-Mail: donald@eco.utexas.edu
AB  - We link information on the current earnings of college graduates from many cohorts to their high-school records, their detailed college records and their demographics to infer the impact of college major on earnings. We develop an estimator to handle the potential for non-response bias and identify non-response using an affinity measure -- the potential respondent's link to the organization conducting the survey. This technique is generally applicable for adjusting for unit non-response. In the model describing earnings, estimated using the identified (for non-response bias) selectivity adjustments, adjusted earnings differentials across college majors are less than half as large as unadjusted differentials and ten percent smaller than those that do not account for selective non-response.
ER  -