Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/159567 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
Quaderni - Working Paper DSE No. 726
Publisher: 
Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche (DSE), Bologna
Abstract: 
This paper argues that assortative matching may explain over-education. Education determines individuals' income and, due to the presence of assortative matching, the quality of the partner, who can be a colleague or a spouse. Thus an individual acquires some education to improve the expected partner's quality. But since everybody does that, the partner's quality does not increase and over-education emerges. Tax progression to correct over-education has ambiguous effects on the educational incentives according to the individuals' ability. We test the model using the British Household Panel Survey. The empirical results support our theoretical findings.
JEL: 
I21
J12
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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