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The Rate of Return to Education in Iran

Author

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  • Ali Reza Oryoie

    (University of Tehran)

  • Atiyeh Vahidmanesh

    (University of Tehran
    Sharif University of Technology)

Abstract

There is no doubt that education is the key to development. An important step in evaluating the condition of education in a society is to estimate the rate of return to education in that society. This paper estimates the private rate of return to schooling for men born in 1951–1983 in Iran using a pseudo-panel fixed-effect model. This is the first study that measures unbiasedly the rate of return to schooling in Iran. We construct the pseudo-panel data using six repeated cross sections of Household Expenditures and Income Surveys between 2008 and 2013. Our estimates show that the overall rate of return is around 9% based on the pseudo-panel fixed-effect approach. The estimates reveal a downward bias in ordinary least squares with individual data. This study also evaluates the rate of return to education in rural and urban areas. The rate of return in urban and rural areas is about 7.8 and 10%, respectively.

Suggested Citation

  • Ali Reza Oryoie & Atiyeh Vahidmanesh, 2022. "The Rate of Return to Education in Iran," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 13(2), pages 813-829, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jknowl:v:13:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s13132-021-00760-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s13132-021-00760-7
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pseudo-panel; Return to schooling; Economics of education; Iran;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity

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