Michael J. Hilmer

Human Capital Attainment, University Quality, and Entry-Level Wages For College Transfer Students

This paper examines the returns to institutional quality for all institutions attended by college transfer students and asks whether such an analysis provides insight into the role of human capital accumulation in determining a college graduates entry-level earnings. Exploiting panel data techniques, I find that the quality of both a transfer students initial and graduation universities have significant, positive, and nearly identical effects on his or her future earnings. Such evidence suggests that the return to quality is similar across all institutions attended and thus can be consistent with the human capital theory of educational attainment.

On the Search for Talent in Academic Labor Markets: Easily Observable Later‐Graduate Study Outcomes as Predictors of Early‐Career Publishing, Placement, and Tenure

Three easily observed later‐graduate study outcomes, working with a prominent advisor, publishing while in graduate school, and coauthoring with the advisor are demonstrated to be significant determinants of early‐career publishing success for a sample of nearly 3,000 Ph.D. recipients from more than 100 domestic programs between 1990 and 1993. Out‐of‐sample predictions for 681 Ph.D. recipients from the class of 1994 indicate that these easily observed later‐graduate study signals dramatically improve our ability to forecast which students become prolific and which students fail to publish more than one article. Analyzing initial domestic tenure‐track economics placements indicates that hiring departments placed far more emphasis on Ph.D. program pedigree, leading to an initial tenure rate of less than 50% but eventually nearly three‐fourths currently hold tenured positions in the United States.

Dissertation advisors and initial job placements for economics PhD recipients

Using a unique data set that matches economics PhD recipients with their advisors, we find that after controlling for programme quality, the relative standing of a students dissertation advisor has a significant impact on his or her initial job placement.

Is There a Post-Graduation Earnings Penalty for Community College Transfer Students Who Eventually Receive Baccalaureate Degrees?

Recent evidence suggests that students are increasingly choosing community colleges as their point-of-entry to post-secondary education. An important question, therefore, is how community college attendance impacts a students economic future. This study is one of the first to examine early labor market outcomes for Baccalaureate degree recipients who transferred from a community college relative to those who did not. Selectivity corrected results for a sample of students drawn from the Baccalaureate and Beyond survey suggest that substantial earnings penalties exist for most community college transfers relative to non-transfers and university transfers. The notable exception is for Black students who are predicted to receive higher wages if they transfer from community colleges.

How does a 48-hour test-taking window affect performance? Results from a testing centre

This note examines the effect that different self-selected test-taking strategies have on a students performance in an introductory economics course. Due to the policies of a centralized testing centre, students are allowed to choose when in a 48-hour period they take each exam as well as how long they work on the exam. The results suggest that the relationship between completion time and exam score follows an inverted U-shape while the relationship between relative order and exam score follows a U-shape. In other words, students who turn in their exams in a relatively short or a relatively long time tend to perform worse while students who choose to take their exams relatively early or relatively late tend to perform better.

So You Want to Hire a Future Star? Student-Advisor Matching and Early Career Productivity for Economics Ph.D.S

This paper examines a unique data set containing information on a Ph.D. recipients dissertation advisor, graduate program, and early career research productivity. We ask whether the match between an economics Ph.D. student and his or her dissertation advisor provides additional information as to the students likelihood for early career success beyond the program from which the student graduated. Comparing the distributions of research productivity across reputation ranks suggests that substantial overlap exists, with top students from lower ranked programs outperforming a significant percentage of students from top ranked programs. It is further observed that the high performing students from less respected programs tend to work with advisors ranked higher among Coupes (2003) top 1000 global economists than the less productive students from elite programs. Regressions that control for both program reputation and advisor rank confirm that, all else equal, students working with ranked advisors are significantly more likely to publish in their early careers, especially in top 5 and top 36 journals, than students working with unranked advisors. Moreover, adding controls for advisor rank diminishes the estimated impact of the students Ph.D. program. Together these facts suggest that the student-advisor match provides an important signal of the students likelihood for early career publishing success.