Code for: High school majors and future earnings

We study how high school majors affect adult earnings using a RD design and Swedish data. Students are admitted to majors based on preference rankings and ninth grade GPA. We find Engineering, Natural Science, and Business majors yield higher earnings than Social Science and Humanities, but with major-specific returns also varying based on next-best alternatives. There is either a zero return or a negative return to completing an academic program for students with a second-best non-academic major. Most of the differences in adult earnings can be attributed to differences in occupation, and to a lesser extent, college major.