TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Brunello, Giorgio
AU  - Lucifora, Claudio
AU  - Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf
        TI  - The Wage Expectations of European College Students
        PY  - 2001/Jun/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 299
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp299
        AB  - Expected earnings and expected returns to education are seen by labor economists as a major determinant of educational attainment. In spite of this, the empirical knowledge about expectations and their formation is scarce. In this paper we report the results of the first systematic study of the wage expectations of European college students. Our data are based on the replies to the same questionnaire by more than 6000 college students all over Europe. We study the determinants of wage expectations and expected employment probabilities, the variability of these expectations within a field of study and their variation across universities and fields. We also examine the trade-off between expected starting wages and wage growth. In the final section of the paper, we contrast expected returns to education with actual returns estimated from country-specific micro-data. In line with U.S. studies we find that students overestimate returns to education.
        KW  - information processing
KW  - expectations formation
KW  - Returns to education
        ER  -