Recent research exploits a variety of natural experiments that create exogenous variation in annual school days to estimate the average effect of formal schooling on students' academic achievement. However, the extant literature's focus on average effects masks potentially important variation in...

This paper tests the specification of the typical (and a few atypical) models for estimating the relationship between educational resources and student achievement, using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988. Using specification tests which do not rely upon the existence...

This paper assesses the applicability of a dynamic discrete choice model in accounting for the observed OLS and IV estimates of the Mincer equation parameter on returns to education. I estimate a dynamic model of schooling and employment choices using an extended version of Keane and Wolpin...

Credible evidence from a variety of contexts suggests that student absences harm academic achievement. However, extant studies focus entirely on the average effects of student absences, and how those average effects vary by student, school, and absence type. This paper enhances our understanding...

Consider an observed binary regressor D and an unobserved binary variable D*, both of which affect some other variable Y. This paper considers nonparametric identification and estimation of the effect of D on Y , conditioning on D* = 0. For example, suppose Y is a person's wage, the unobserved D...

In this paper we provide an analytical review of previous estimates of the rate of return on schooling investments and measure how these estimates vary by country, over time, and by estimation method. We find evidence of reporting (or "file drawer") bias in the estimates and, after due account...

We partially identify population treatment effects in observational data under sample selection, without the benefit of random treatment assignment. We provide bounds both for the average and the quantile population treatment effects, combining assumptions for the selected and the non-selected...

This paper partially identifies population treatment effects in observational data under sample selection, without the benefit of random treatment assignment. Bounds are provided for both average and quantile population treatment effects, combining assumptions for the selected and the...

The paper proposes two estimation approaches for duration models that are subject to right censored observations and selection effects. Main focus is on accelerated duration models and the estimators that are of the limited information type, i.e. they are not based on a fully specified selection...

The paper proposes two estimation approaches for duration models that are subject to right censored observations and selection effects. Main focus is on accelerated duration models and the estimators that are of the limited information type, i.e. they are not based on a fully specified selection...