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Seminar

Correcting Beliefs about Job Opportunities and Wages: A Field Experiment on Education Choices

  • Series
    Brown Bag Seminars General Economics
  • Speaker
  • Field
    Organizations and Markets
  • Location
    Erasmus University Rotterdam, E building, Kitchen/Lounge E1
    Rotterdam
  • Date and time

    June 12, 2025
    12:00 - 13:00

Abstract

We run a field experiment in which we provide information to students about job opportunities and hourly wages of occupations they are interested in. The experiment takes place within a widely-used career guidance program in the Netherlands and involves 28,267 pre-vocational secondary education students in 243 schools over two years. The information improves the accuracy of students' beliefs and leads them to change their preferred occupation to ones with better labor market prospects. Administrative data that cover up to four years after the experiment show that students choose (and remain in) post-secondary education programs with better job opportunities and higher hourly wages as a result of the information treatment. Joint work with Bart de Koning (Cornell University, United States) and Didier Fouarge (Maastricht University).