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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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01 Sep 2020
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors exploit the 1972 U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Wisconsin vs. Yoder, which exempts Amish children from compulsory high school education, as a policy shock to test several key predictions of the religious-club explanations.
Abstract: The Amish collective objection to high school education and refusal to comply with compulsory schooling laws can be interpreted with a religious-club-good framework. According to the religious-club interpretation, the Amish use the restriction on secular education as a religious prohibition and sacrifice to improve the welfare of sect members. I exploit the 1972 U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Wisconsin vs. Yoder, which exempts Amish children from compulsory high school education, as a policy shock to test several key predictions of the religious-club explanations. The evidence suggests that the successful restriction on high school education helped the Amish sect exclude individuals with low religious participation, lower members' shadow cost of time, and grow the sect through higher fertility.
2 citations
13 Apr 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a list of tables and figures from the Natural Nature of the Study of Science and its relationships to the present day, including a discussion of the relationships between them.
Abstract: ........................................................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgments........................................................................................................................ iv List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... ix List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... x CHAPTER I. NATURE OF THE STUDY...................................................................................
2 citations
06 Nov 2019
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify three hechos estilizados del mercado laboral rural Colombia that merecen atencion of forma prioritaria: (i) the participación laboral femenina is muy baja comparada with la de los hombres of las zonas rurales and the de las mujeres ubicadas in las cabeceras, and the tasa de desempleo femeninina is mas alta in las rurales que en las cabescas; (
Abstract: El mercado laboral rural Colombia difiere en forma importante del urbano no solo en la composicion del empleo, sino tambien en los problemas que enfrenta. En este trabajo se identificaron tres hechos estilizados del mercado laboral rural que merecen atencion de forma prioritaria: (i) la participacion laboral femenina es muy baja comparada con la de los hombres de las zonas rurales y la de las mujeres ubicadas en las cabeceras, y la tasa de desempleo femenina es mas alta en las zonas rurales que en las cabeceras; (ii) las tasas de informalidad laboral rural son significativamente mas altas que las urbanas y la cobertura pensional rural es precaria (inferior al 15% para todo el periodo analizado); y (iii) el trabajo infantil aun es una practica comun que, aunque ha disminuido en el tiempo, todavia una proporcion significativa de ninos y adolescentes trabajan de forma ilegal y, ademas, no asisten al colegio por estar trabajando.
2 citations
TL;DR: This article used a data set of twins and a recently developed econometric approach to show that within-family learning and family-specific effects are important determinants of voting preferences and preferences for redistribution.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the incidence and wage returns to employer supported course enrollment for men and women in Canada, using longitudinal data for Canada, and find that high-skilled workers show disproportionately higher rates of participation in employer-supported training, and observe no wage premiums for these types of workers.
Abstract: Using longitudinal data for Canada, we analyze the incidence and wage returns to employer supported course enrollment for men and women. Availability of confidential data, along with a relatively rich set of observable covariates, lead us to the estimation of difference-in-differences matching models of the effect of employer supported course enrolment on wages. The estimated average treatment effects on the treated range from 5.5 to 7.2 percent for men and 7.1 to 9.0 for women. While high-skilled workers show disproportionately higher rates of participation in employer-supported training, we observe no wage premiums for these types of workers. Statistically significant positive wage returns are found, on the other hand, for low-skilled workers.
2 citations