John Burn-Murdoch
A few thoughts: 1) I definitely think it’s plausible that the signalling portion is stronger in UK than US. And I’m a big believer in the signalling argument more broadly (obvs it’s only partial, but I think very real and increasingly so). On the lag, the UK premium for new entrants (which I defined as grads aged 22-27 vs non-grads 19-24) had been falling at broadly the same page as for all workers *until the last few years* but is now falling much faster. 2) I think the much better performance of the US economy over the time period in question has to be playing a big role, too. UK grad premium is weak in part because our high-paying jobs are just not that high-paying. UK-US wage gap is far wider at the top than the bottom, and that’s the wage distribution grads and non-grads slot into (ofc the extent to which grads slot into the distribution vs shape it depends on how much is signalling vs training). It’s also my sense that there has been a lot more clamour both from firms and non-grads in the UK (vs US) to remove the graduate requirement from lots of lower-level white collar jobs. Which is partly UK firms saying they find a degree is an increasingly weak signal, but also I think an indication that the UK has an excess of grads relative to genuinely grad-worthy jobs such that grads (and the degree requirement) are stretching down into jobs that really can be done just as well by non-grads.