Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/20480 
Year of Publication: 
2003
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 726
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper develops a multi-period model, in which workers are matched with jobs according to imperfect educational signals and in which their subsequent productivities depend on both their inherent ability and on the quality of the job match. It outlines a sequential process, in which underpaid employees reveal their true productivities and overpaid employees are detected by the firm until every match is perfect. The model produces a time path of the returns to educational signals that is concave, a feature that earlier studies used to dismiss educational signaling. Using a synthetic panel data set from the Current Population Survey the theoretical result is then substantiated empirically. The paper contributes to the literature by establishing the possibility of increasing returns to education over part of a workers life within the signaling framework theoretically and empirically.
Subjects: 
returns to education
signaling
job matching
information
JEL: 
J41
I20
D8
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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