Do superstar firms influence students?

• 19 Jul 2018

Superstar firms like Facebook and Tesla make a substantial difference to overall industry productivity. In his research, Dong Lou asks whether they also impact students’ choices of degree majors. Using data on students' college major choices and the stock returns and media coverage of relevant companies in the US, he shows that firm performance had a positive effect on encouraging students to choose relevant majors. But the relevant labour demand in those industries has not risen accordingly, which has depressed wages.