Miana Plesca

Post-Secondary Education in Canada: Can Ability Bias Explain the Earnings Gap between College and University Graduates?

Using the Canadian General Social Survey we compute returns to post-secondary education relative to high-school. Unlike previous research using Canadian data, our dataset allows us to control for ability selection into higher education. We find strong evidence of positive ability selection into all levels of post-secondary education for men and weaker positive selection for women. Since the ability selection is stronger for higher levels of education, particularly for university, the difference in returns between university and college or trades education decreases slightly after accounting for ability bias. However, a puzzling large gap persists, with university-educated men still earning over 20% more than men with college or trades education. Moreover, contrary to previous Canadian literature that reports higher returns for women, we document that the OLS hourly wage returns to university education are the same for men and women. OLS returns are higher for women only if weekly or yearly wages are considered instead, because university-educated women work more hours than the average. Nevertheless, once we account for ability selection into post-secondary education, we generally find higher returns for women than for men for all wage measures as a result of the stronger ability selection for men.

A General Equilibrium Evaluation of the Employment Service

This paper provides a general equilibrium evaluation of the Employment Service, also known as the Public Labor Exchange (PLX), a national program that facilitates meetings between job seekers and vacancies. The paper departs from the standard partial equilibrium framework of program evaluation by constructing a dynamic general equilibrium matching model with the PLX as a directed search channel and all other search methods as the other channel. In the calibrated model, the general equilibrium impacts of the PLX are different from the standard partial equilibrium ones, mainly because employers post more high-skill vacancies when both search channels operate.

Analyzing the Gender Wage Gap in Ontario's Public Sector

In this paper, we analyze the gender wage gap in Ontario?s public sector. Our analysis is based on the salaries of high earners in the public sector. Although these salaries are publicly available from Ontario?s Sunshine List, a key attribute is missing from the public data, the gender variable. We propose a 2-stage model to predict the gender based on the person?s first name, and we augment the data with the new variable. With the new database created, we analyze, present and discuss results for the gender wage gap in Ontario. The findings of this research are being used by Ontario?s provincial government to reassess and change current policies for pay equity.

Gender Wage Gap in the University Sector: A Case Study of All Universities in Ontario, Canada.

By analyzing salary data from the Ontario Sunshine List for the University Sector and combining it with productivity characteristics for research and teaching, we extend our understanding of the variables that contribute to the gender wage gap in Academia. Longitudinal analysis confirms that employees labelled as female are less represented in administration roles and full faculty positions. While the gender imbalance on the list is getting less extreme, with the proportion of women on the Sunshine List increasing from 11% in 1997 to about 40% nowadays, this increase in female representation is more likely to occur at incomes close to the access threshold of

Evaluating Multi-Treatment Programs: Theory and Evidence from the U.S. Job Training Partnership Act Experiment

100,000. While women do not achieve wage parity even when sorted by faculty position, within each academic rank the gender wage gap is smaller than the overall wage gap, which further confirms that, even in the ivory tower, men select into more lucrative positions than women. Controlling for productivity measures for research with h-index and for teaching with overall Rate My Professors (RMP) shows a modest effect of these productivity measures on wage formation and no effect on the wage gaps.