(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-12-10)
Churkina, Olga
The dissertation examines the concept of skills, and and their impact on charitable giving behavior, labor market outcomes, and marital choices. The first essay conducts a controlled laboratory experiment, investigating the relationship between worker performance and their pro-social behavior in the context of charitable contributions. The second essay estimates the employment premium associated with online certificates in data science through a randomized field experiment. The third essay expands on a multi-period microeconomics model of educational and marital choices in developing countries. The outcomes of this study address questions that are shared concern for the academic community and policy-makers.
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-03-21)
Zullo, Matteo
The dissertation includes three essays contributing to our understanding of human capital development and student talent allocation. The first essay provides insights into the impact of algorithmic student advising programs, while the second essay highlights the role of higher education agencies in promoting international student mobility. The third essay evaluates the cognitive development trade-offs entailed by technical coursework. The first essay discusses the Graduation and Progression (GPS) program, which is an algorithmic student advising platform implemented by Georgia State University. The study analyzes the impact of this program on student course-taking by comparing GPS-advised students with those who did not receive advising. The study failed to credit the program to have increased graduation rates by improving academic fit but found that marginal students tended to leave college earlier. Also, the study provides evidence of assortative matching between students and course selection, albeit only for STEM Computational majors. The second essay examines the relationship between the 1996-2016 expansion of the German agency DAAD's outbound offices and international student enrollment in Germany. The findings suggest that an increase in the number of DAAD offices has a positive impact on international student enrollment in Germany, and that the first office foundation has the largest effect. The study concludes by discussing the policy implications of these findings for countries competing in the global race for talent. The third essay evaluates cognitive development trade-offs between numeracy and literacy skills. The study uses PISA data and analyzes the educational and financial gains from technical education versus the potential underdevelopment of verbal skills. The study finds that the technical track outperforms the Liberal Arts track due to greater educational production efficiency, which overcompensates for worse educational production inputs. The findings suggest that the STEM advantage is linked to the four additional instructional units in math and physics, and that there are no secondary effects due to differences in preexisting levels of student skills.