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The causal effect of education on earnings
TL;DR: This paper surveys the recent literature on the causal relationship between education and earnings and concludes that the average (or average marginal) return to education is not much below the estimate that emerges from a standard human capital earnings function fit by OLS.
Abstract: This paper surveys the recent literature on the causal relationship between education and earnings. I focus on four areas of work: theoretical and econometric advances in modelling the causal effect of education in the presence of heterogeneous returns to schooling; recent studies that use institutional aspects of the education system to form instrumental variables estimates of the return to schooling; recent studies of the earnings and schooling of twins; and recent attempts to explicitly model sources of heterogeneity in the returns to education. Consistent with earlier surveys of the literature, I conclude that the average (or average marginal) return to education is not much below the estimate that emerges from a standard human capital earnings function fit by OLS. Evidence from the latest studies of identical twins suggests a small upward "ability" bias -- on the order of 10%. A consistent finding among studies using instrumental variables based on institutional changes in the education system is that the estimated returns to schooling are 20-40% above the corresponding OLS estimates. Part of the explanation for this finding may be that marginal returns to schooling for certain subgroups -- particularly relatively disadvantaged groups with low education outcomes -- are higher than the average marginal returns to education in the population as a whole.
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TL;DR: The authors investigated the determinants of high school students' academic attainment in mathematics, reading and science in the United States; focusing particularly on possible differential impacts of ethnicity and family background across the distribution of test scores.
Abstract: We investigate the determinants of high school students’ academic attainment in mathematics, reading and science in the United States; focusing particularly on possible differential impacts of ethnicity and family background across the distribution of test scores. Using data from the NELS2000 and employing quantile regression, we find two important results. First, the gaps in mathematics, reading and science test scores among ethnic groups vary across the conditional quantiles of the measured test scores. Specifically, Blacks and Hispanics tend to fare worse in their attainment at higher quantiles, particularly in science. Secondly, the effects of family background factors such as parental education and father’s occupation also vary across quantiles of the test score distribution. The implication of these findings is that the influence racial and family background factors may have on academic attainment, which are commonly identified on the basis of a conditional mean distribution of test scores, may not ...
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TL;DR: This article used the PIAAC Survey of Adult Skills to explore potential threats to causal identification of returns to skills, in terms of both higher wages and better employment chances, and found that least-squares estimates may provide a lower bound of the true returns to cognitive skills in the labor market.
Abstract: Ample evidence indicates that a person’s human capital is important for success on the labor market in terms of both wages and employment prospects. However, unlike the efforts to identify the impact of school attainment on labor-market outcomes, the literature on returns to cognitive skills has not yet provided convincing evidence that the estimated returns can be causally interpreted. Using the PIAAC Survey of Adult Skills, this paper explores several approaches that aim to address potential threats to causal identification of returns to skills, in terms of both higher wages and better employment chances. We address measurement error by exploiting the fact that PIAAC measures skills in several domains. Furthermore, we estimate instrumental-variable models that use skill variation stemming from school attainment and parental education to circumvent reverse causation. Results show a strikingly similar pattern across the diverse set of countries in our sample. In fact, the instrumental-variable estimates are consistently larger than those found in standard least-squares estimations. The same is true in two “natural experiments,” one of which exploits variation in skills from changes in compulsory-schooling laws across U.S. states. The other one identifies technologically induced variation in broadband Internet availability that gives rise to variation in ICT skills across German municipalities. Together, the results suggest that least-squares estimates may provide a lower bound of the true returns to skills in the labor market.
28 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the wage premium that foreign takeover firms pay for a type of worker on top of the wage before and after a foreign takeover, and found that the foreign targets do not pursue a different wage policy before ownership change compared to other indigenous firms.
Abstract: This study investigates the wage premium that foreign takeover firms pay for a type of worker on top of the wage before takeover. We apply Hungarian employee-employer matched data from 1992 until 2001, and find a nonlinear wage premium profile before and after a foreign takeover. Takeover targets do not pursue a different wage policy before ownership change compared to other indigenous firms. Then, there is a hike in the wage premium during the takeover year. Moreover, there is gradually building up a wage premium over the following years after the takeover. The later stylized fact helps discriminating bargaining theories of the foreign-investor wage premium from technology spillover theories.
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TL;DR: This article reviewed evidence that a greater education causes better outcomes in life, over and above the effects of having a higher-paying job and found that increased education, as measured by the time people spend in formal education or the qualifications they attain, may cause a reduction in cigarette smoking, anxiety disorders, anti-social disorders, suicide, crime, teenage pregnancies, unemployment and reliance on welfare benefits.
Abstract: This paper reviews evidence that a greater education causes better outcomes in life, over and above the effects of having a higher-paying job. Comparatively little has been written which draws together evidence on the wider (that is, wider than just earnings-related) benefits of education, although studies which ignore these benefits might considerably underestimate the total return from a additional year of education or an additional qualification. Research suggests that increased education, as measured by the time people spend in formal education or the qualifications they attain, may cause a reduction in cigarette smoking, anxiety disorders, anti-social disorders, suicide, crime, teenage pregnancies, unemployment and reliance on welfare benefits, at least when these outcomes are measured in young adulthood. Education may also have an effect on people’s health. The wider benefits of education are difficult to quantify, however, and the degree of uncertainty around them is considerable. Policy-makers would be unwise to rely too heavily on the existence of wider benefits when making decisions about public investment in education.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors used two sets of cross-country micro datasets to analyse individuals' participation in voluntary and community activities and organisations and found a consistently positive effect of years of education on participation with the marginal effect of an additional year being around 2 or 3%.
Abstract: This paper uses two sets of cross-country micro datasets to analyse individuals' participation in voluntary and community activities and organisations. Analysing countries in the International Adult Literacy Survey and focusing on the impact of human capital I find a consistently positive effect of years of education on participation with the marginal effect of an additional year being around 2 or 3% for most countries. The effects are somewhat higher in English speaking countries. However controlling for functional literacy reduces this significantly with literacy accounting for around half the marginal effect of education. Labour market effects are generally very weak Using instrumental variables for a subset of countries we test and are unable to reject the hypothesis that education is exogenous. Using Eurobarometer data yields higher estimated impacts of schooling for most countries. It is also shown how attitudes towards the ?hird sector?predict higher participation in some forms of volunteering while a measure of religiosity often predicts more altruistic volunteering.
28 citations