The Race between Education and Technology: The Regional Version

• In Event: Poster Session 1
  In Poster Session: Economics, Finance, and Policy Posters

Abstract

Goldin and Katz model the determinants of college wage premium in their book The Race between Education and Technology. They apply fundamental cross sectional regression and highly aggregated national data, but come to a strong support for their suggestion of using mass higher education as the solution to income inequality. In this study, I try to replicate this study at the less aggregated regional level, the nine Census divisions. I employ similar model and data sets. The model works well for four regions, but fails to approximate the real college premium in the other five regions. I argue that the main reason for the model’s heterogeneous explaining power is its oversimplification of the determinants of college wage premium.

Author

• Haogen Yao, Teachers College, Columbia University