Policy discussions in the United States on the link between college majors and earnings have under-appreciated the role of cognitive skills. This study uses the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, a unique data set that contains information on individual cognitive skills, college majors and earnings to investigate the relationships between them. The authors find that variation in numeracy and literacy skills is significantly associated with earnings for graduates of the same major. Also, there is an interactional effect between majors and cognitive skills to explain earnings. The findings shed light on the importance of considering cognitive skills when assessing the relationship between college majors and labour market outcomes.

中文翻译：

---

大学专业不够怎么办？认知能力与美国大学专业与收入的关系

美国关于大学专业与收入之间联系的政策讨论没有充分认识到认知技能的作用。本研究使用成人能力国际评估计划，这是一个独特的数据集，其中包含有关个人认知技能、大学专业和收入的信息，以调查它们之间的关系。作者发现，计算和识字技能的差异与同一专业毕业生的收入显着相关。此外，专业和认知技能之间存在交互作用来解释收入。研究结果阐明了在评估大学专业与劳动力市场结果之间的关系时考虑认知技能的重要性。