IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mcm/cilnwp/29.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Roles of Education, Skill and Parental Income in Determining Wages

Author

Listed:
  • Isaac C. Rischall

Abstract

This study attempts to examine how much of the correlation in incomes across generations can be explained by education and skill. I find two different answers to this question depending on how I instrument for years of schooling. Using quarter of birth and proximity to a local college as instruments, I find high returns to schooling, low returns to skill, and most of the intergenerational mobility coefficient explained. However, these instruments are poorly correlated with years of education. Thus, the estimates are imprecise and potentially biased. Furthermore, using family background variables as instruments, I find the opposite results.

Suggested Citation

  • Isaac C. Rischall, "undated". "The Roles of Education, Skill and Parental Income in Determining Wages," Canadian International Labour Network Working Papers 29, McMaster University.
    • Handle: RePEc:mcm:cilnwp:29
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/rsrch/papers/CILN/cilnwp29.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Willis, Robert J & Rosen, Sherwin, 1979. "Education and Self-Selection," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 7-36, October.
    2. Nelson, Charles R & Startz, Richard, 1990. "Some Further Results on the Exact Small Sample Properties of the Instrumental Variable Estimator," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(4), pages 967-976, July.
    3. David Card, 1994. "Earnings, Schooling, and Ability Revisited," Working Papers 710, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    4. Behrman, Jere & Tarbman, Paul, 1985. "Intergenerational Earnings Mobility in the United States: Some Estimates and a Test of Becker's Intergenerational Endowments Model," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(1), pages 144-151, February.
    5. John Bound & David A. Jaeger, 1996. "On the Validity of Season of Birth as an Instrument in Wage Equations: A Comment on Angrist & Krueger's "Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Scho," NBER Working Papers 5835, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Griliches, Zvi, 1979. "Sibling Models and Data in Economics: Beginnings of a Survey," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 37-64, October.
    7. Nelson, Charles R & Startz, Richard, 1990. "The Distribution of the Instrumental Variables Estimator and Its t-Ratio When the Instrument Is a Poor One," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(1), pages 125-140, January.
    8. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    9. Neal, Derek A & Johnson, William R, 1996. "The Role of Premarket Factors in Black-White Wage Differences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(5), pages 869-895, October.
    10. Orley Ashenfelter & David J. Zimmerman, 1997. "Estimates Of The Returns To Schooling From Sibling Data: Fathers, Sons, And Brothers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(1), pages 1-9, February.
    11. A. Abigail Payne & Aloysius Siow, 1998. "Estimating the Effects of Federal Research Funding on Universities using Alumni Representation on Congressional Appropriations Committees," Working Papers siow-99-02, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    12. Solon, Gary, 1992. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 393-408, June.
    13. Orley Ashenfelter & Cecilia Rouse, 1998. "Income, Schooling, and Ability: Evidence from a New Sample of Identical Twins," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(1), pages 253-284.
    14. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Keueger, 1991. "Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 979-1014.
    15. Zimmerman, David J, 1992. "Regression toward Mediocrity in Economic Stature," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 409-429, June.
    16. Ashenfelter, Orley & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Estimates of the Economic Returns to Schooling from a New Sample of Twins," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1157-1173, December.
    17. Isaac C. Rischall, "undated". "The Effect of High School Effort on Future Earnings," Canadian International Labour Network Working Papers 30, McMaster University.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kevin Denny, 2002. "New methods for comparing literacy across populations: insights from the measurement of poverty," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 165(3), pages 481-493, October.
    2. Colm Harmon & Hessel Oosterbeek & Ian Walker, 2003. "The Returns to Education: Microeconomics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(2), pages 115-156, April.
    3. Denny, K.J. & Harmon, C.P., 2000. "Education Policy Reform and the Return to Schooling from Instrumental Variables," Papers 00/12, College Dublin, Department of Political Economy-.
    4. Tamar Khitarishvili, 2010. "Assessing the Returns to Education in Georgia," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_608, Levy Economics Institute.
    5. Isaac C. Rischall, "undated". "The Effect of High School Effort on Future Earnings," Canadian International Labour Network Working Papers 30, McMaster University.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Angel de la Fuente & Antonio Ciccone, 2003. "Human capital in a global and knowledge-based economy," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 562.03, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    2. Bound, John & Solon, Gary, 1999. "Double trouble: on the value of twins-based estimation of the return to schooling," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 169-182, April.
    3. Jean-Louis ARCAND & Béatrice D'HOMBRES & Paul GYSELINCK, 2004. "Instrument Choice and the Returns to Education: New Evidence from Vietnam," Working Papers 200422, CERDI.
    4. Regan, Tracy L. & Burghardt, Galen & Oaxaca, Ronald L., 2006. "A Human Capital Model of the Effects of Abilities and Family Background on Optimal Schooling Levels," IZA Discussion Papers 1927, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Maluccio, John A., 1998. "Endogeneity of schooling in the wage function," FCND discussion papers 54, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    6. Guilhem Bascle, 2008. "Controlling for endogeneity with instrumental variables in strategic management research," Post-Print hal-00576795, HAL.
    7. Lisa Barrow & Cecilia Elena Rouse, 2005. "Do Returns to Schooling Differ by Race and Ethnicity?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 83-87, May.
    8. Card, David, 2001. "Estimating the Return to Schooling: Progress on Some Persistent Econometric Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1127-1160, September.
    9. Chalfin, Aaron & Deza, Monica, 2019. "The intergenerational effects of education on delinquency," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 553-571.
    10. Matt Dickson, 2013. "The Causal Effect of Education on Wages Revisited," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 75(4), pages 477-498, August.
    11. Colm Harmon & Hessel Oosterbeek, 2000. "The Returns to Education: A Review of Evidence, Issues and Deficiencies in the Literature," CEE Discussion Papers 0005, Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE.
    12. repec:ucn:wpaper:10197/1099 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Robert J. Lemke & Isaac C. Rischall, 2003. "Skill, parental income, and IV estimation of the returns to schooling," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(5), pages 281-286, April.
    14. William N. Evans & Edward Montgomery, 1994. "Education and Health: Where There's Smoke There's an Instrument," NBER Working Papers 4949, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Holmlund, Helena, 2007. "A Researcher's Guide to the Swedish Compulsory School Reform," Working Paper Series 9/2007, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
    16. Dorothe Bonjour & Lynn F. Cherkas & Jonathan E. Haskel & Denise D. Hawkes & Tim D. Spector, 2003. "Returns to Education: Evidence from U.K. Twins," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1799-1812, December.
    17. Mwangi S. Kimenyi & Germano Mwabu & Damiano Kulundu Manda, 2006. "Human Capital Externalities and Private Returns to Education in Kenya," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 493-513, Summer.
    18. Bekker, Paul A. & Lawford, Steve, 2008. "Symmetry-based inference in an instrumental variable setting," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 28-49, January.
    19. Balestra, Simone & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2017. "Heterogeneous returns to education over the wage distribution: Who profits the most?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 89-105.
    20. Cai, Zongwu & Fang, Ying & Su, Jia, 2012. "Reducing asymptotic bias of weak instrumental estimation using independently repeated cross-sectional information," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 180-185.
    21. Rahman, Mustafizur & Al-Hasan, Md., 2018. "Returns to Schooling in Bangladesh Revisited: An Instrumental Variable Quantile Regression Approach," Bangladesh Development Studies, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), vol. 41(02), pages 27-42, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mcm:cilnwp:29. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demcmca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.