A Model of Skill Acquisition: An Inquiry into the Effect of Skill Variety on Educational Choice

Abstract

While numerous studies have specifically examined the role of education as an investment, a signal, or a consumption, this paper addresses another important aspect of education: it provides people with prospects for their future. Through education, people become able to obtain information about their own abilities and aptitudes, which facilitates their choice of a field in which they can excel. A skill-acquisition mechanism based on this aspect of education is presented, in which people who are uncertain about their educational outcomes are sorted into distinct skill-learning paths. An educational choice depends not only on what one can expect from acquiring a particular skill, but also on the variety of skills and the proximity among skills.