IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5835.html

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

Author

Listed:
  • John Bound
  • David A. Jaeger

Abstract

In an important and provocative paper, `Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?', Angrist and Krueger use quarter of birth as an instrument for educational attainment in wage equations. To support a causal interpretation of their estimates, they argue that compulsory school attendance laws alone account for the association between quarter of birth and earnings. In this note we present evidence that the association between quarter of birth and earnings is too strong to be fully explained by compulsory school attendance laws in the samples studied by Angrist and Krueger. Moreover, while the association between quarter of birth and educational attainment was weaker for more recent cohorts, we found no evidence that the strength of the relationship between quarter of birth and earnings was also weaker in those cohorts. In addition, we present evidence that suggests the association between quarter of birth and earnings or other labor market outcomes existed for cohorts that were not bound by compulsory school attendance laws. Our results call into question the validity of any causal inferences based on Angrist and Krueger's estimates regarding the effect of education on earnings.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5835
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5835.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    2. Angrist, J.D. & Imbens, G.W., 1992. "Average causal response with variable treatment intensity," Discussion Paper 1992-34, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    3. Richard B. Freeman, 1975. "Overinvestment in College Training?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 10(3), pages 287-311.
    4. Solon, Gary, 1992. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 393-408, June.
    5. 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.
    6. Griliches, Zvi, 1977. "Estimating the Returns to Schooling: Some Econometric Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(1), pages 1-22, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Peter Ebbes & Michel Wedel & Ulf Böckenholt & Ton Steerneman, 2005. "Solving and Testing for Regressor-Error (in)Dependence When no Instrumental Variables are Available: With New Evidence for the Effect of Education on Income," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 365-392, December.
    2. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Krueger, 1991. "Estimating the Payoff to Schooling Using the Vietnam-era Draft Lottery," Working Papers 670, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    3. John Bound & David A. Jaeger & Regina Baker, 1993. "The Cure Can Be Worse than the Disease: A Cautionary Tale Regarding Instrumental Variables," NBER Technical Working Papers 0137, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Niels-Hugo Blunch & Nabanita Datta Gupta, 2020. "Mothers’ health knowledge for children with diarrhea: who you are or who you know?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 1131-1164, December.
    5. Feng Yao & Junsen Zhang, 2015. "Efficient kernel-based semiparametric IV estimation with an application to resolving a puzzle on the estimates of the return to schooling," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 253-281, February.
    6. Maluccio, John A., 1998. "Endogeneity of schooling in the wage function," FCND discussion papers 54, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    7. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4924 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Berger, Johannes & Strohner, Ludwig, 2020. "Documentation of the PUblic Policy Model for Austria and other European countries (PUMA)," Research Papers 11, EcoAustria – Institute for Economic Research.
    9. 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.
    10. Mona Said & Fatma El-Hamidi, 2008. "Taking Technical Education Seriously in MENA: Determinants, Labor Market Implications and Policy Lessons," Working Papers 450, Economic Research Forum, revised 09 Jan 2008.
    11. Klein, Roger & Vella, Francis, 2006. "Estimating the Return to Endogenous Schooling Decisions for Australian Workers via Conditional Second Moments," IZA Discussion Papers 2407, IZA Network @ LISER.
    12. Heckman, James J. & Lochner, Lance J. & Todd, Petra E., 2006. "Earnings Functions, Rates of Return and Treatment Effects: The Mincer Equation and Beyond," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 7, pages 307-458, Elsevier.
    13. Jennifer Castle & David Hendry, 2010. "Automatic Selection for Non-linear Models," Economics Series Working Papers 473, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    14. Tomas Havranek & Zuzana Irsova & Lubica Laslopova & Olesia Zeynalova, 2020. "Skilled and Unskilled Labor Are Less Substitutable than Commonly Thought," Working Papers IES 2020/29, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Sep 2020.
    15. Harmon, Colm & Hogan, Vincent & Walker, Ian, 2003. "Dispersion in the economic return to schooling," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 205-214, April.
    16. Sandewall, Örjan & Cesarini, David & Johannesson, Magnus, 2014. "The co-twin methodology and returns to schooling — testing a critical assumption," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 1-10.
    17. Marno Verbeek, 2017. "Using linear regression to establish empirical relationships," World of Labour, LISER, pages 336-336, February.
    18. 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.
    19. Long, Mark C., 2008. "College quality and early adult outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 588-602, October.
    20. Kazamaki Ottersten, Eugenia & Mellander, Erik & Meyerson, Eva M. & Nilson, Jörgen, 1994. "Pitfalls in the Measurement of the Return to Education: An Assessment Using Swedish Data," Working Paper Series 414, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    21. Graciela Sanromán, 2006. "Returns to schooling in Uruguay," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 1406, Department of Economics - dECON.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    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:nbr:nberwo:5835. 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/nberrus.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.