<p>This paper estimates the marginal returns to college for individuals induced to enroll in college by different marginal policy changes. The recent instrumental variables literature seeks to estimate this parameter, but in general it does so only under strong assumptions that are tested and found wanting. We show how to utilize economic theory and local instrumental variables estimators to estimate the effect of marginal policy changes. Our empirical analysis shows that returns are higher for individuals more likely to attend college. We contrast the returns to well-defined marginal policy changes with IV estimates of the return to schooling. Some marginal policy changes inducing students into college produce very low returns.</p>
Authors
Research Fellow University College London
Pedro is a Professor of Economics at University College London and an economist in the IFS' Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice (cemmap).
Research Associate University of Chicago
James is a Research Associate of the IFS and the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago.
NYU
Working Paper details
- DOI
- 10.1920/wp.cem.2010.2910
- Publisher
- IFS
Suggested citation
P, Carneiro and J, Heckman and E, Vytlacil. (2010). Estimating marginal returns to education. London: IFS. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/estimating-marginal-returns-education (accessed: 1 July 2024).
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