Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
Using administrative data for college graduates, we model earnings and employment probabilities as functions of a credit-weighted index of the occupational specificity of college coursework, decomposed into within-major, within-discipline (but outside the major), and nondisciplinary components. We define the occupational specificity of each college field as the likelihood that a student majoring in that field subsequently works in an occupation requiring specific skills acquired in the field. We find that occupationally-specific, non-disciplinary courses are strongly associated with earnings; e.g., a five percentage-point shift among English majors from their least occupationally-specific courses outside the humanities to computer science is associated with a 0.055 increase in log-earnings.