Ability, academic climate, and going abroad for work or pursuing a PhD

We investigate whether highly able students are being creamed off from Dutch universities. Therefore, we examine the relation between ability and the destination of recent graduates of Dutch universities. Students can choose to continue their academic career by investing in a PhD degree instead of working, taking into account that both options can be realized in the Netherlands as well as abroad. Using a data set of workers and PhD students who recently graduated from Dutch universities, we simultaneously estimate two probit equations, one for the migration decision and one for the choice between working and pursuing a PhD. We take into account that both decisions can be affected by the climates in certain fields of study and universities to promote going abroad and starting a PhD. Our findings indicate that highly able graduates are significantly more likely than average graduates to go abroad. They also invest more often in a PhD programme, which is positively correlated with their likelihood to go abroad. The odds of going abroad and participating in a PhD programme are shown to be associated with control variables indexing the climates promoting going abroad and starting PhD study (JEL codes: F22, I23).