I used this and your book as a springboard when I gave a university lecture at the University of Regina in 2013. The title of the lecture was, “I didn’t learn a thing as an undergraduate.“
Economics can teach what system of social organization enables us to live better together (Boettke). The answer is capitalism and the market price system. Unfortunately, our textbooks and curriculum are almost pro socialist; a wise central planner can adjust taxes, regulations, and subsidies to achieve optimal output and to maximize social welfare. The fact that it is impossible for a central planner to have this information is rarely mentioned.
There's also the networking correlation. Many people get higher paying jobs because they met someone at college that went on to work there first, or were directly recruited on campus, etc.
"In the signaling story, what matters is how much education you have compared to competing workers. When education levels rise, employers respond with higher standards; when education levels fall, employers respond with lower standards."
This is a bad summary of signaling models. In those models, education levels are an endogenous variable, so asking how employers respond to rising levels is reasoning from a price change. Their response depends on why equilibrium education levels are rising, i.e., what is the exogenous shock.
Furthermore, what matters is not the relative levels of education but rather how differences in productivity are related to differences in the cost of achieving a given level of education.
Some examples will illustrate the problem. Assume there are two types, high productivity and low productivity. High types have a lower cost of completing education.
Example 1: The proportion of high types increases. Average education levels increase, and employers continue to pay the same high wages to educated workers.
Example 2: The cost of education falls for both types, with no change to their underlying productivity. Assuming we remain in a separating equilibrium, average education levels rise, but employers respond by requiring more education to achieve a given wage.
While I agree that my undergrad doesn’t have many translatable and observable value, it did give me an incredible baseline for thinking clearly and Socratic-ally; especially to a level peers could not match
I used this and your book as a springboard when I gave a university lecture at the University of Regina in 2013. The title of the lecture was, “I didn’t learn a thing as an undergraduate.“
Economics can teach what system of social organization enables us to live better together (Boettke). The answer is capitalism and the market price system. Unfortunately, our textbooks and curriculum are almost pro socialist; a wise central planner can adjust taxes, regulations, and subsidies to achieve optimal output and to maximize social welfare. The fact that it is impossible for a central planner to have this information is rarely mentioned.
There's also the networking correlation. Many people get higher paying jobs because they met someone at college that went on to work there first, or were directly recruited on campus, etc.
"In the signaling story, what matters is how much education you have compared to competing workers. When education levels rise, employers respond with higher standards; when education levels fall, employers respond with lower standards."
This is a bad summary of signaling models. In those models, education levels are an endogenous variable, so asking how employers respond to rising levels is reasoning from a price change. Their response depends on why equilibrium education levels are rising, i.e., what is the exogenous shock.
Furthermore, what matters is not the relative levels of education but rather how differences in productivity are related to differences in the cost of achieving a given level of education.
Some examples will illustrate the problem. Assume there are two types, high productivity and low productivity. High types have a lower cost of completing education.
Example 1: The proportion of high types increases. Average education levels increase, and employers continue to pay the same high wages to educated workers.
Example 2: The cost of education falls for both types, with no change to their underlying productivity. Assuming we remain in a separating equilibrium, average education levels rise, but employers respond by requiring more education to achieve a given wage.
While I agree that my undergrad doesn’t have many translatable and observable value, it did give me an incredible baseline for thinking clearly and Socratic-ally; especially to a level peers could not match