The Causal Effect of Education on Wages Revisited*. (21st June 2012)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dickson, Matt
• Is Part Of: Oxford bulletin of economics and statistics. Volume 75:Number 4(2013:Aug.)
• Page Start: 477
• Page End: 498
• Publication Date: 2012-06-21
• Subjects: Economic history -- Periodicals; Great Britain -- Economic conditions -- Periodicals; 330.9
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0084.2012.00708.x
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0305-9049

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" xml:lang="en"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>This study estimates the return to education in Britain using two instrumental variable (IV) estimators: one exploits variation in schooling associated with early smoking, the other uses the raising of the school leaving age; both affect a sizeable proportion of the sample. Early smoking is found to be a strong and valid IV and unlike previous IV strategies uses variations in education at numerous points across the distributions of (i) education, and (ii) ability. Thus whilst still a 'local average treatment effect' the estimate is closer to the average effect of additional education, akin to least squares but corrected for endogeneity.</p> </abstract>