Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
In their recent paper “(Un)informed College and Major Choice: Evidence from Linked Survey and Administrative Data,” Hastings, Neilson, Ramirez, & Zimmerman (2016) provide an informal costly-information model, linking family background to students’ beliefs about educational costs and benefits. They verify predictions of their model using a data set of beliefs about college institutions and majors among Chilean college applicants and students. I test some of those same predictions using a data set of beliefs about college institutions and different levels of college education among high school students in the United States. I verify their predictions, with some exceptions, supporting the use of their costly-search model.