Academic Transfer, Self-Selection, and Returns to Education

We investigate the type of self-selection arising in college transfer in Korea, and then estimate the returns to additional college education gained through transfers from junior colleges to four-year colleges or universities. In this paper, we show that academic transfer is consistent with a positive selection hypothesis, in a sense that students with characteristics correlated positively to productivity are more likely to transfer to four-year colleges from junior colleges. These empirical results also meet an underlying dispersion condition. In addition, we find that the transferred would make a statistically significant return to additional college education.