We study how the returns to higher education evolved in France during a period of educational expansion. We study possible changes in the mix of unobservable characteristics of the graduate population. Using a finite mixture model with latent types, we estimate type-specific log-wage, experience...

This study examines the impact of the Gaza blockade on private returns to education, with a focus on regional and gender disparities in the Palestinian territories. Using data from the Palestinian Labor Force Survey (2000-2014). Results show that, generally, education yields higher returns in...

The evidence underscores the need to shift attention from school attainment to actual learning. While the average global return to an additional year of schooling is about 10 percent, a one standard deviation increase in test scores raises earnings by 15 percent. Studies show that including...

We study the impact of racial representation among academic staff on university students' academic and labor market outcomes. We use administrative data on the universe of staff and students at all UK universities, linked to survey data on students' post-graduation outcomes, exploiting...

This paper presents the first analysis for Arkansas using 2024 CPS data to examine education's impact on earnings and returns to investment. Average returns are 7.7%, higher for women (9%). University education yields even more: 8.8% overall, 8.1% for men, and 10.8% for women. With full...

Do employers seek to attract individuals with more education because it enhances human capital or because it signals higher levels of pre-existing traits? We experimentally vary master's degree completion rates on applicant résumés and examine how this influences candidates' desirability and...

Using Israeli data, we establish that the interaction between school entrance age (SEA) policy and youth employment laws increases high school dropout rates among students who start school older - particularly males. This is because these students become eligible for employment at an earlier...

Do employers seek to attract individuals with more education because it enhances human capital or because it signals higher levels of pre-existing traits? We experimentally vary master’s degree completion rates on applicant résumés and examine how this influences candidates’ desirability...

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread disruptions to education, with school closures affecting over one billion children. These closures, aimed at reducing virus transmission, resulted in significant learning losses, particularly in mathematics and science. Using United States data from TIMSS,...

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread disruptions to education, with school closures affecting over one billion children. These closures, aimed at reducing virus transmission, resulted in significant learning losses, particularly in mathematics and science. Using United States data from TIMSS,...

Do employers seek to attract individuals with more education because it enhances human capital or because it signals higher levels of pre-existing traits? We experimentally vary master's degree completion rates on applicant r'esum'es and examine how this influences candidates' desirability and...

Using 182 estimates from 140 studies in 55 countries, this paper compares ordinary least squares (OLS) and instrumental variables (IV) estimates of the private returns to schooling. IV returns average 9.7 percent - 38 percent higher than OLS - and exceed OLS in nearly 80 percent of cases, with...

The criminal justice system primarily arrests and incarcerates people without high school diplomas. We estimate the causal effect of a high school diploma on criminal justice system contact for a set of people who previously exited high school but then attended The Excel Center (TEC), a network...

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread disruptions to education, with school closures affecting over one billion children. These closures, aimed at reducing virus transmission, resulted in significant learning losses, particularly in mathematics and science. Using data from TIMSS 2023, which...

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread disruptions to education, with school closures affecting over one billion children. These closures, aimed at reducing virus transmission, resulted in significant learning losses, particularly in mathematics and science. Using data from TIMSS 2023, which...

Using a unique panel survey of final-year undergraduates at six of the largest universities in Mozambique, we study the wage premium associated with completing an undergraduate degree. Conditional on a very rich set of controls, including pre-degree earnings, objective measures of ability, and...

There have been many studies estimating the causal effect of an additional year of education on earnings. The majority employ administrative changes in the minimum school leaving age as the mechanism allowing identification. Here we survey 66 such estimates. However, remarkably, while the...

Using linked records from the 1880 to 1940 full-count United States decennial censuses, we estimate the effects of parental exposure to compulsory schooling (CS) laws on the human capital outcomes of children, exploiting the staggered roll-out of state CS laws in the late nineteenth and early...

This paper studies how the type of education pursued at an early age affects family formation. I focus on a French reform that delayed the age of which students were tracked into either general or vocational education from age 11 to age 13. For the most part, tracking was replaced with grouping...

This paper examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the returns to education in the United States. Using data from the Current Population Survey 2011-2022, the analysis reveals that, after a period of decline, returns to education increased significantly because of COVID, particularly...

Using longitudinal data of college graduates in Colombia, we estimate labor market returns to postsecondary degrees and to various skills - including literacy, numeracy, foreign language, and field-specific skills. Graduates of academic programs and schools of higher reputation obtain higher...

China hosts the world's largest secondary education sector: more than 14 million adolescents enrol in secondary academic or vocational schools every year. Despite the large literature on returns to education, little evidence exists as to how these two streams compare in the country. Using 2013...

Using university admission cutoffs that generate exogenous variation in college-major choices, we provide causal evidence that enrollment in a business or economics program leads individuals to invest significantly more in the stock market, earn higher portfolio returns, and ultimately...

A school finance equalization program established in Mississippi in 1920 failed to help many of the state's Black students - an outcome that was typical in the segregated U.S. South (Horace Mann Bond, 1934). In majority-Black school districts, local decision-makers overwhelmingly favored white...

What are the economic returns to education in Australia? Using data from the 2018- 2022 waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, and taking account of existing estimates of ability bias and social returns to schooling, I estimate the economic return to various...

We assess the hypothesis that declining intergenerational economic mobility in Norway is attributable to a rising signaling value of education accompanied by more overeducation particularly among upperclass offspring. We identify five empirical facts that together point in this direction: •...

What are the economic returns to education in Australia? Using data from the 2018-2022 waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, and taking account of existing estimates of ability bias and social returns to schooling, I estimate the economic return to various...

This paper examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the returns to education in the United States. Using data from the Current Population Survey 2011-2022, the analysis reveals that, after a period of decline, returns to education increased significantly because of COVID, particularly...

New hand-collected school administrative data from 1870s Virginia, alongside linked individual US Censusrecords, reveals that temporary school closures had lasting effects on literacy and income in adulthood. Those affected by the closures had lower intergenerational economic mobility,...

Countries across Eastern Europe and Central Asia are in their third decade of independence. What impact does this have on the skills premium and does accession to the European Union have an impact on the returns to education? The returns to education in 28 transition and 20 non-transition...

This paper estimates the returns to education and their implications for wage inequality using data from the 2015/16 Namibia Income and Expenditure Survey. The paper employs recentred influence function regression to analyse the impact of education across the wage distribution and uses a...

Do returns to training differ if training is accompanied by technological innovations at the workplace? We analyze this potential heterogeneity of returns based on panel data from Germany that provide a unique measure for individuals' adoption of new technology at the workplace. In the preferred...

We study the choice of acquiring STEM and non-STEM college education using variation induced by the proximity to universities offering different types of programs. We adopt a novel methodology allowing the identification of the distribution of response types and treatment effects in a multiple...