Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Leveraging Standardized Tests to Measure Noncognitive Skills and Their Effect on College and Labor-Market Outcomes

Skills other than intelligence and technical skills, sometimes known as “noncognitive skills,” such as industriousness, perseverance, and self-control, are important labor market outcomes and earnings determinants. Yet, understanding why noncognitive skills influence labor-market outcomes is limited. Moreover, it is difficult to measure these skills.

This research project will use an innovative methodology to measure noncognitive skills and study the channels through which these skills affect earnings and other labor market outcomes. Using administrative data, the researchers will measure noncognitive skills in high-school students and track them over time to assess how their noncognitive skills relate to their college outcomes and early adulthood labor market outcomes.

The project will provide a better understanding of the linkages between noncognitive skills and earnings. The results will provide insight for formulating policies aimed at increasing productivity and economic success in the U.S. The results of this research will lead to better matching and improved labor market performance, and thus increase economic growth and improve the wellbeing of American citizens.

There is increasing recognition among social scientists and policymakers that noncognitive skills are important predictors of earnings. However, the channels that mediate the relationship between these skills and labor-market success are not well understood. This project will provide a better understanding of the channels through which noncognitive skills influence labor-market outcomes.

This research will create a revealed-preference measure of noncognitive skill based on performance decline of high-school students in a college admission exams. The PIs will link the students’ measured noncognitive skills to a census of all college enrollees and an employee-employer matched dataset. Using these data, the researchers will study the predictive power of noncognitive skills for important outcomes, including college graduation, college quality, field of study, occupation, and firm characteristics.

The research will assess how each of these outcomes mediates the link between the measured noncognitive skill and earnings. The results of this project will produce valuable knowledge that may contribute to the design of policies that increase skills in the U.S. workforce and thereby promote productivity and economic growth. The results could lead to better matching and improved labor market performance, and thus increase economic growth and improve the wellbeing of American citizens.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.