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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: In this paper, an estimación of the rendimientos marginales of la educación superior (ES) in Mexico and its efecto on the salarios of individuos that concluyeron una carrera profesional o un posgrado was presented.
Abstract: En esta investigacion se estima los rendimientos marginales de la educacion superior (ES) en Mexico y se evalua su efecto en los salarios de los individuos que concluyeron una carrera profesional o un posgrado. La estimacion de los rendimientos se realiza mediante el procedimiento sugerido por Heckman et al (2000 y 2001). La informacion utilizada para la estimacion emplea una muestra de la Encuesta Nacional de Ingresos y Gastos de los Hogares (ENIGH) 2006 que incluye solo individuos que aun viven con sus padres. El procedimiento de estimacion propuesto corrige los problemas asociados con la heterogeneidad y la autoseleccion de los individuos. El principal resultado de esta investigacion, apoyado por la evidencia empirica, es que los rendimientos marginales de la ES y el efecto en los ingresos son ambos positivos.
8 citations
Dissertation•
07 Jul 2011
TL;DR: Evidence of the impact of birth weight on the risk of dying not only in infancy but also during childhood, which remains strong and significant in all countries even after controlling for potential confounding factors is found.
Abstract: Child health remains a priority area for health policy in sub-Saharan Africa Disparities in child mortality between and within countries have persisted and widened considerably during the last few decades While researchers have devoted considerable attention to the impact of individual-level factors on child mortality, less is known about how community characteristics and institutions affect health outcomes for children, even though they have a prominent role in theoretical models The aim of this thesis is to identify individual and contextual effects of child mortality by using data from the latest round of Demographic Health Surveys for all countries in sub-Saharan Africa Two sets of questions are addressed in this researchFirst, we evaluate the impact of contextual factors on the risk of dying before age 5 net of the effect of individual factors The results indicate that some attributes of the community influence the mortality risks of children, over and above the intermediate factors included in this investigation For instance, in half of the countries under study a 1% increase in the proportion of children fully immunized in the community is associated with a decrease of 17-79% in the odds of dying before age 5 The proportion of women in the community completing secondary school also significantly increases child survival This effect is, in some countries, in addition to the positive individual-level effect of the child’s own mother being educated Net of individual and household characteristics, higher community-level ethnic homogeneity is associated with decreased odds of dying before age 5 in some countries Overall, the results of this study therefore suggest that the challenge to reduce under-five mortality goes beyond addressing individual factors, and requires a better understanding of contextual factors Second, the study exploits recent national survey data for nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa to investigate the association of LBW and mortality not only in infancy but also during childhood, using a standardized methodology to adjust missing birth weight data from household surveys while accounting for unobserved family-level factors (genetic or behavioral) that may modify the relationship between birth weight and under-five-years mortality We find evidence of the impact of birth weight on the risk of dying not only in infancy but also during childhood, which remains strong and significant in all countries even after controlling for potential confounding factors The main policy implication of our findings is that reducing the incidence of LBW may be an important prevention strategy to combating child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa countries
8 citations
TL;DR: Using a simple Cobb-Douglas-type Constant Returns to Scale (CRS) production function with South Korean educational data, the authors found that there are positive spillover effects from tertiary education in South Korea.
Abstract: This article investigates a positive college education externality in South Korea. Using a simple Cobb–Douglas-type Constant Returns to Scale (CRS) production function with South Korean educational data, we find that there are positive spillover effects from tertiary education in South Korea. According to our model prediction, new college graduates increase the income per worker without college education by approximately US$1000 in 2008.
8 citations
01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: An earlier version of this paper was discussed at a meeting of the Panel on the Role of Government in June 2003 as discussed by the authors, where the authors discussed the role of government in a variety of issues.
Abstract: An earlier version of this paper was discussed at a meeting of the Panel on the Role of Government in June 2003. I thank Michael Coelli for excellent research assistance, and Ron Daniels, Morley Gunderson, Bill Robson, Arthur Sweetman and Michael Trebilcock, for their comments and suggestions. I however am responsible for the contents of this report. C op y fo r a rc hi ve p ur po se s. P le as e co ns ul t o rig in al p ub lis he r f or c ur re nt v er si on .
8 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the relationship between career status, labour market experience and returns to human capital accumulation in the context of a two-tier, career and non-career labour market.
8 citations