In Chapter 1 I investigate the supply of college majors and how this facet of institutional behavior influences student outcomes and costs in higher education. As a first contribution, I identify a decades-long trend in 4-year postsecondary education in the United States--the production of bachelor's degrees measured by their concentration across…

In this dissertation, I explore inequalities in higher education and at the intersection of higher education and the labor market. Chapter 1 explores the employment effects of strengthening anti-discrimination laws for minority workers in the context of two recent changes to the Missouri Humans Rights Act. First, I use data from Missouri's circuit…

This dissertation examines how past U.S. colonial education in the Philippines impacts the ways in which Filipino bodies are commodified and racialized under contemporary education and training systems in both the Philippines and the United States. This research project utilizes participatory action research and in-depth interviews with over 50…

This dissertation addresses several contemporary health challenges affecting the US population, drawing on methods and perspectives from health services research, social demography, and medical sociology. Paper 1 examines the pathways from educational attainment to difficulty with activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of…

This dissertation examines the role of information in influencing both individuals' college outcomes and the productivity of a higher education system. It focuses in particular on large-scale educational reforms that raise different mechanisms than those in the existing literature on the returns to college attendance and college quality. (Abstract…

The first chapter studies the effects of a teacher performance bonus program implemented in Brazil in 2008. The program covered all schools directly managed by the State of Sao Paulo government, and was based on a standardized test run by the state education authority. I use high-school exit exams organized by the federal government (ENEM) to…

Forty-three percent of doctoral students never complete their degree. This dropout is the highest among graduate and professional degree programs. Previous cross sectional studies of doctoral students' retention show the importance of financial aid in predicting degree completion. The studies however, do not estimate the labor market's effect on…

As concern over rapidly rising college costs and tuition sticker prices have increased, a variety of research has been conducted to determine potential causes. Most of this research has focused on factors unique to higher education. In contrast, cost disease theory attempts to create a comparative context to explain cost increases in higher…

This dissertation examines two related questions. First, it estimates the effect of growth in the demand for skilled and unskilled labor on rural household incomes and the rural wage structure. Second, it examines the effect of growth in household incomes and in labor market returns to education on household educational investment. The…

While society has begun its evolution from the industrial age to the information age, most teacher unions continue to pattern their behavior after the industrial model of unionism focusing almost exclusively on salary, benefits and working conditions. In some school systems, though, teacher unions and management are questioning the legitimacy of…

Universalism is critical to the development of science because it promotes the objectivity of knowledge. Particularism, on the other hand, evaluates scientists' contributions based on functionally irrelevant characteristics, including personal attributes and academic origins. Previous studies found a persistent significant correlation between…

This study investigates the recruitment and retention challenges, facing municipal government IT organizations in Southern California, by examining the relationships between worker demographics, competencies, experience levels, tenure, and training within the organizations. Utilizing a mixed method, non-experimental design, the study examines…

The purpose of this ex-post facto quantitative study was to evaluate the benefits of professional technical postsecondary education in Idaho. Human capital theory formed the basis of understanding the importance of acquiring education beyond high school, both for the individual and society. Interactions between entry earnings and cost of attending…

"Fortune" magazine's articulation of productivity during the period 1969 to 1972 was a skillfully crafted work of propaganda that mixed public perception about (a) the younger generation, (b) issues about the growing rate of inflation, (c) shifting employment sectors, (d) increasing nominal wages, and (e) declining rate of profit.…

This study focused on front-line supervisors in a union shop, steel-production plant and how they learn to successfully negotiate their role with in the corporation's division of labor. Negotiating their role means continued practice in how issues of standpoint, agency, power, oppression, habits, knowledge, related business concerns, mediating…