We provide new approaches to examining the returns to college majors and institutional selectivity. Using unique resume data, we devise new groupings of majors and use these to construct five measures that characterize majors. Applying these measures to the National Survey of College Graduates, we find that majors that lead to jobs that are math-intensive or writing-intensive have higher earnings and also a higher return to selectivity. Majors that are occupationally specific also have higher earnings but have a lower return to institutional selectivity. We find that the value of selectivity relative to major increases as selectivity rises.

中文翻译：

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为什么大学专业和选择性很重要：专业分组、职业特殊性和工作技能

我们提供了新的方法来检查大学专业的回报和院校的选择性。使用独特的简历数据，我们设计了新的专业分组，并使用它们构建了五个表征专业的衡量标准。将这些措施应用于全国大学毕业生调查中，我们发现，从事数学密集型或写作密集型工作的专业收入更高，选择性回报也更高。特定职业的专业也有较高的收入，但机构选择性的回报较低。我们发现，随着选择性的提高，选择性相对于主要的值也会增加。