Title: The Long-Run Efficiency Consequence of Unfair School Matching: Evidence from China College Student Survey

Speaker: Associate Professor Xiaohan Zhong, Tsinghua University

Time: December 26th, 2016 13:30–15:00 

Venue: Conference Room 106B, Zhonghui Building (College of Economics, JNU)

Abstract:

In this paper, we address empirically the issue how unfair match between colleges and students would affect the long-run efficiency of the college admission system, measured by total wage offer among college graduates. Using data from China College Student Survey, we find that unfair match tends to increase the total wage offer. In addition, it leads to a higher average return to college education. We use both OLS and RD method and the results are robust. The implication is that student ability and school quality are substitutes rather than complements, at least among mismatched students. We also find some evidence that unfair match leads to higher total human capital investment on English skill, leadership, and double major, but not on high GPA. We interpret this as unfair match, by increasing the ability inequality within a college, encourages diversified human capital investment instead of monotonic competition, which indicates possible channels of efficiency improvement.