Estimating the university prestige effect in South Korea's labor market

This study investigates whether there exists a "University Prestige" effect in South Korea's labor market by using the Korean Labor and Income Panel Data. To estimate the degree of this effect, this study employed the unique empirical strategy, the residual analysis. The findings indicate that a university prestige effect exists on earnings, with the wage premium for the "name" of Seoul National University worth more than twice those of Korea and Yonsei Universities. The prestige effect for Seoul National University results in wages that are, on average, 12% higher than that of other universities.