Just above the exam cutoff score: Elite college admission and wages in China

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jia, Ruixue; Li, Hongbin
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California San Diego; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Stanford University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104371
• 发表日期: 2021
• 关键词: Elite education; CHINA; College entrance exam; Government intervention in education

摘要

A burgeoning literature has documented the importance of elite colleges. Yet, little is known about access to elite education and its labor market implications in China, a country that produces one in every five college graduates in the world. College admission in China is governed by a single exam - the national college entrance exam, and the government sets admission cutoff scores for elite colleges. We examine the impacts of scoring above the elite-tier cutoff on a student's access to elite colleges and wage out-comes after graduation, using the discontinuity around the cutoff score. By employing hand-collected survey data, we find that scoring above the cutoff not only increases the chance of entering an elite col-lege but also raises a young person's first-job wages after graduation. We also find that those just above the cutoff have peers with higher scores and better social networks than those below the cutoff, but it is less clear whether the two groups use their time differently in college. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.