We examine the effect of overeducation on wages by comparing two cohorts from the 1979 and 1997 U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth panels. Using an econometric technique uncommon to the literature, we allow for overeducation to have a disparate impact on wages across individuals by employing random slopes models. Overeducation has a positive marginal effect on wages. Yet, cohort comparisons reveal that the returns to overeducation declined dramatically over time. In the past, surplus schooling in full‐time jobs returned nearly as much as the correct level of education. Presently it returns approximately 50% less than in the past. The effect of undereducation and required education on wages changed as well, but by far less.

中文翻译：

---

重新审视过度教育和工资：两类比较和随机系数方法

我们通过比较1979年和1997年美国国家青年纵向调查小组的两个队列研究了教育过度对工资的影响。使用文献中不常见的计量经济学技术，我们允许采用随机斜率模型来进行过度教育，从而对个体之间的工资产生不同的影响。过度教育会对工资产生积极的边际影响。然而，队列比较显示，随着时间的流逝，过度教育的回报急剧下降。过去，全职工作中的过剩学校教育回报率几乎与正确的教育水平相当。目前，它的回报比过去减少了约50％。受教育程度不足和必需的教育对工资的影响也发生了变化，但变化不大。