The Effect of Job–Education Vertical Mismatch on Wages Among Recent PhD Graduates: Evidence From an Instrumental Variable Analysis

Abstract

Existing studies suggest that recent PhD graduates with a job vertically mismatched with their education tend to earn lower wages than their matched counterparts. However, by being based on cross-sectional ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates, these studies raise endogeneity concerns and can only be considered evidence of a correlation between vertical mismatch and wages. This paper improves this literature by applying a heteroskedasticity-based instrumental variable estimation approach to analyzing Italian PhD holders’ cross-sectional micro-data. Our analysis suggests that previous empirical studies have provided slightly upward estimates of the impact of vertical mismatch on wages. Nevertheless, our results show that the effect of overeducation on wages is sizeable. However, no wage effect is found for overskilling. The heterogeneity of these findings by field of study and gender are also inspected.