Posted Content•
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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Book Chapter•
01 Jan 2005
1 citations
01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used the NHANES III (1988-1994) data set with national representation in the US to study the possibility of overcoming these difficulties using the possibility to overcome the difficulties of finding the causal relationship between nutrition and education.
Abstract: The fact that nutrition affects education outcomes is accepted by researchers and by policy makers. It is simple. Children cannot learn if they are hungry. The validity of the empirical approaches used to show a causal relationship from nutrition to education is an issue of debate. The presence of unobserved characteristics that influence both variables is the main concern of researchers. The goal of this paper is to study the possibility of overcoming these difficulties using the NHANES III (1988-1994), a cross-section data set with national representation in the US. A set of school outcomes and a dummy that accounts for the "food-insecurity" condition of each child's family are the central variables here. Based on a IVs procedure, it looks for variables that can be used as instruments for the "food-insecurity" condition. The preliminary results indicate that child's height and mother's body mass index are no good instruments to do so. Further research in needed to construct other variables that might turn to be good instruments for food-insecurity.
1 citations
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: In this article, the effects of parental education and household resources on the education of children were examined using cross-sectional data from the 1992 and 1999 Ghana living standards surveys to examine the effects.
Abstract: This study uses cross-sectional data from the 1992 and 1999 Ghana living standards surveys to examine the effects of parental education and household resources on the education of children The results show that parental education and household resources exert positive impacts on children's school attendance While parental schooling impact appears to have fallen over time, the impact of school quality variables, notably, availability of school buildings and trained teachers has increased over time The paper concludes that education matters and has an intergenerational effect Arguably, any sustainable poverty reduction approach cannot ignore the role of education and implications for employment, earnings and social development
1 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors integrate currently discussed determinants of wage distribution and unemployment into a common context, labor unions and qualification differences in labor supply are introduced to an OLG-model with heterogeneous agents to generate skill specific unemployment rates and a wage dispersion affected by production technology, wage setting procedure and qualification structure of labor supply.
Abstract: As a consequence of falling relative demand for low skilled labor in the OECD, people with no or minor qualification experience a deterioration of their economic situation. While flexible labor markets have led to higher wage differentials in the USA, the major problem of most European countries is the high rate of unemployment of the low skilled. To integrate currently discussed determinants of wage distribution and unemployment into a common context, labor unions and qualification differences in labor supply are introduced to an OLG-model with heterogeneous agents. The model generates skill specific unemployment rates and a wage dispersion affected by production technology, wage setting procedure, and qualification structure of labor supply. As an application of the model, the relative importance of wage dispersion, unemployment, and lifelong learning for economic growth and income distribution can be evaluated.
1 citations
Posted Content•
01 Jan 2012
TL;DR: In this article, the authors summarise the results from two projects that investigated skills in New Zealand businesses, The Impact of Skills on New Zealand Firms, which combined three different surveys to investigate the availability of skills and skilled workers both within the firm and their ability to source them from the market.
Abstract: This paper summarises the results from two projects that investigated skills in New Zealand businesses. The first – The Impact of Skills on New Zealand Firms – combined three different surveys to investigate the availability of skills and skilled workers both within the firm and their ability to source them from the market. The second – Management Matters in New Zealand – benchmarked management practices in medium and large New Zealand manufacturers against their peers in 16 other countries.
1 citations