Soft skills are important determinants of labour market outcomes. Existing studies have underscored their significance, emphasized their malleability during young adulthood and their persistent undersupply in the labour market. Despite these findings, the production function of soft skills remains under explored. This paper investigates whether international student mobility, during university studies, can work as an effective technology to produce soft skills. I compile a new data source at the graduate-occupation-employer level using administrative data augmented with the importance of both hard and soft skills across occupations. My identification strategy instruments the decision to become mobile by exploiting exogenous variation in exposure to past mobility through a fine degree by cohort level. My results show that international student mobility works as an effective technology to shape soft skills by allowing mobile graduates to sort themselves into jobs where soft skills are relevant. Being mobile during university studies helps graduates find jobs where communication (+9.7%), creativity (+13.1%), team working (+9.1%) and problem solving (+9.4%) skills are more important. I characterize the complier subgroup responding to my exposure instrument and show this is made of graduates coming from a negatively selected socio-economic background.
Presented by:
Luca Favero (ISER, University of Essex)
Date & time:
24 Apr 2024 12:30 pm - 24 Apr 2024 13:30 pm
Venue:
2N2.4.16 (to join us online, please contact the seminar series organisers at iserseminars@essex.ac.uk)
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