本文在局部均衡及一般均衡的框架下，分析我国高校扩招对个人教育与劳动力市场表现的影响以及对劳动力市场本科—高中学历劳动力均衡工资差异的影响。本文第一章简要介绍中国始于1999年的高校扩招的背景。本文第二章及第三章是两篇实证研究。第二章利用高校扩招在不同年份、不同省份之间幅度差异中的外生部分构造“教育”的工具变量，研究教育与收入之间的因果关系。结果显示，高校扩招对样本的平均受教育水平、上大学及获取本专科文凭的概率、就业及稳定就业的概率以及收入均有显著的正向作用。本章用两阶段最小二乘法（2SLS）估算出的教育的年均回报率为11%～19%、大学本专科文凭的回报为59%～90%。第三章将传统的劳动力相对供给模型中加入了“具有相同教育水平但不同年龄的劳动力是不完全替代的”这一假设，估测特定年龄段的本科学历劳动力的相对供给、本科学历劳动力的相对总供给与相对总需求对特定年龄组的本科—高中学历劳动力的工资差距的影响。结果显示受过大学教育的劳动力的相对供给每增加1%，该年龄组的高等教育溢价将下降0.2%。全文第四章为总结及政策建议。

This paper evaluates the impacts of China’s higher education expansion program initiated in 1999 on both individuals’ labor market outcomes and the overall wage structure in the labor market. Chapter one introduces the policy background of the expansion. Chapter two and Chapter three use various sources of survey and administrative datasets to empirically evaluate the expansion program. More specifically, Chapter two employs a two-way fixed-effect model to estimate the expansion’s impacts on individuals’ education and labor market outcomes, and then uses the expansion-induced variation in college access as an instrument for college education to estimate causal returns to college. Returns to obtaining any postsecondary degrees are estimated to be 59–90 percent. Chapter three examines how cohort-specific relative supply of 4-year-college (BA)-educated labor affects the cohort-specific college wage premiums and the overall BA–high school (HS) wage gaps in the labor market. Results from my structural model suggest that a 1-percent increase in the relative supply of BA-educated workers within one’s own cohorts would depress cohort-specific BA–HS wage gap by 0.2 percent. Chapter four discusses the policy implications of my findings.