@techreport{Jacobson2004Estimating,
abstract = {Studies show that high-tenure displaced workers typically incur substantial long-term
earnings losses. As these losses have become increasingly apparent, policy makers have
significantly expanded resources for retraining, much of which takes place in regular
community college classes. To analyze the effectiveness of such training, we link
administrative earnings records with the community college transcript records of workers
displaced from jobs during the first half of the 1990s in Washington State. We explore several
issues of statistical specification for regression models quantifying the impact of community
college credits on earnings. These include (i) how to allow for a transition period immediately
after the end of workers? schooling when their earnings may be temporarily depressed, (ii)
whether earnings gains are strictly proportional to credits earned, and (iii) how to model
worker-specific unobserved heterogeneity. In our preferred specification, we find that the
equivalent of an academic year of community college schooling raises the long-term earnings
of displaced workers by an average of about 9 percent for men and about 13 percent for
women. However, these average returns mask substantial variation in the returns associated
with different types of courses. On the one hand, we estimate that an academic year of more
technically oriented vocational and academic math and science courses raise earnings by
about 14 percent for men and 29 percent for women. On the other hand, we estimate that
less technically oriented courses yield very low and possibly zero returns. About one third of
the increase in earnings associated with more technically oriented vocational and academic
math and science courses is estimated to be due to increases in wage rates, with the
remainder attributable to increased hours of work.},
author = {Louis Jacobson and Robert LaLonde and Daniel G. Sullivan},
copyright = {http://www.econstor.eu/dspace/Nutzungsbedingungen},
keywords = {J31; 330; unemployment; training; schooling; evaluation; K\"{u}ndigung; Weiterbildung; Umschulung; Bildungsertrag; Washington; Vereinigte Staaten},
language = {eng},
number = {1017},
title = {Estimating the Returns to Community College Schooling for Displaced Workers},
type = {IZA Discussion paper series},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10419/20252},
year = {2004}
}
