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How Large are the Social Returns to Education? Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Laws

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Author Info
Daron Acemoglu
Joshua Angrist

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Abstract

Average schooling in US states is highly correlated with state wage levels, even after controlling for the direct effect of schooling on individual wages. We use an instrumental variables strategy to determine whether this relationship is driven by social returns to education. The instrumentals for average schooling are derived from information on the child labor laws and compulsory attendance laws that affected men in our Census samples, while quarter of birth is used as an instrument for individual schooling. This results in precisely estimated private returns to education of about seven percent, and small social returns, typically less than one percent, that are not significantly different from zero.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 7444.

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Date of creation: Dec 1999
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7444

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

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References listed on IDEAS
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  2. Angrist, Joshua D & Krueger, Alan B, 1991. "Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 106(4), pages 979-1014, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Gary Chamberlain & Guido W. Imbens, 1996. "Hierarchical Bayes Models with Many Instrumental Variables," NBER Technical Working Papers 0204, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Acemoglu, Daron, 1996. "A Microfoundation for Social Increasing Returns in Human Capital Accumulation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(3), pages 779-804, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Mark Bils & Peter J. Klenow, 1998. "Does Schooling Cause Growth or the Other Way Around?," NBER Working Papers 6393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Joshua D. Angrist & Kathryn Graddy & Guido W. Imbens, 1995. "Non-Parametric Demand Analysis with an Application to the Demand for Fish," NBER Technical Working Papers 0178, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1992. "Does School Quality Matter? Returns to Education and the Characteristics of Public Schools in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 1-40, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Goldin, Claudia, 1998. "America's Graduation from High School: The Evolution and Spread of Secondary Schooling in the Twentieth Century," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 58(02), pages 345-374, June. [Downloadable!]
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  18. Topel, Robert, 1999. "Labor markets and economic growth," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 44, pages 2943-2984 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  21. Angrist, Joshua D & Krueger, Alan B, 1995. "Split-Sample Instrumental Variables Estimates of the Return to Schooling," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(2), pages 225-35, April.
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  23. Robert A. Margo & T. Aldrich Finegan, 1996. "Compulsory Schooling Legislation and School Attendance in Turn-of-the-Century America: A "Natural Experiment" Approach," NBER Historical Working Papers 0089, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  24. David Card, 1993. "Using Geographic Variation in College Proximity to Estimate the Return to Schooling," NBER Working Papers 4483, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  25. Antonio Ciccone & Giovanni Peri, 1999. "Human Capital and Externalities in Cities," Economics Working Papers 494, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Oct 2000. [Downloadable!]
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