Mapping the UCLA Anderson School's Global Impact

Maps can be powerful tools for conveying information.  This map  highlights that the UCLA Anderson School of Management has had an international impact.  I like how it nudges people to participate in this social network by nominating themselves or a friend to provide information about this new person's accomplishments.  I'm sure that this creates a domino effect as more people sign up.

I am a professor at the Anderson School.  If I could survey, all of our graduates over the last 30 years and learn their current salary and work location, it would interest me to test for nation and city size effects.  Intuitively, in which nations does the same degree (an Anderson MBA) offer the highest payoff and how does this payoff vary as a function of economic sector (i.e finance vs. consulting vs. industry) and city size.   For those nations and industries with high "economic returns", is it the case that new Anderson graduates are moving to those cities?  So, I am imagining an economic study that examines both the geographic migration decision of MBAs and their earnings in the city and industry they choose to work in.

Labor economists always face the challenge that in the typical data set, we may observe that a person has a "college degree" or a "graduate degree" but we do not know from what type of school.  If you focus on a specific population (those with an Anderson MBA), this would help to measure the returns to human capital.

For an example of the type of study I envision, here is a very nice paper that uses survey data from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business.    They have a 31% response rate to their survey.  Relative to the typical survey, that is an outstanding response rate but the usual concerns about bias arise.  I would need the Dean of the Business School to use her influence to help me have a 100% response rate from the Universe of Anderson graduates!