18 65 22 Age 40,000 16,000 -5,000 Dollars/year Goes to College Quits After High School 0 A person...
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Transcript of 18 65 22 Age 40,000 16,000 -5,000 Dollars/year Goes to College Quits After High School 0 A person...
18 6522Age
40,000
16,000
-5,000
Dollars/year
Goes to College
Quits After High School
0
A person who quits school after getting his high school diploma can earn $16,000 per year from age 18 until the age of retirement.
If the person goes to college, she pays $20,000 in tuition and foregoes earning $64,000, but earns $40,000 per year between the ages of 18 and 22.
(24,000)(65–22) = $1,032,000 (benefit of education)
$20,000
The Schooling Decision
$64,000 + = $84,000 (total cost of education)
$64,000,
0 1 2 3
4 5 64 18
5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000
(1 0.2) (1 0.2) (1 0.2) (1 0.2)
40,000 40,000 40,000... $100,163
(1 0.2) (1 0.2) (1 0.2)
collegewomenPV
0 1 64 18
16,000 16,000 16,000... $95,982
(1 0.2) (1 0.2) (1 0.2)HS
womenPV
• The previous model ignores the discount rate
• The higher the discount rate, the less likely someone will invest in education since they are less future oriented
• The discount rate depends on:• The market rate of interest• “time preferences”
• Swann (2003) estimates the annual discount rate of women at r = 20%
The Schooling Decision
• Keane and Wolpin (1997) estimate the discount rate of young men at r = 28%
Do these two results explain why black women graduate from college at higher rates than black men?
0 1 64 18
16,000 16,000 16,000... $73,142
(1 0.28) (1 0.28) (1 0.28)HS
menPV
0 1 2 3
4 5 64 18
5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000
(1 0.28) (1 0.28) (1 0.28) (1 0.28)
40,000 40,000 40,000... $53,776
(1 0.28) (1 0.28) (1 0.28)
collegemenPV
The Schooling Decision
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
0 4 8 12 16 20
Years of schooling
Wage
• The slope indicates earnings increase in years of education, and the wage-schooling locus in concave
• The worker makes $33,600 graduating from JHS• The worker makes $41,600 graduating from HS• The worker makes $46,400 graduating from Univ
The Schooling Decision
(41,600-33,600)/33,600 = 23.8%
(46,400-41,600)/41,600 =11.5%
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
0 4 8 12 16 20
Years of schooling
mrr
• The Marginal Rate of Return (to an additional year of schooling) is the percent change in w given a one-year increase in s
− Finishing the 8th grade increases earnings by 8%− Finishing 12th grade increases earnings by 4.3%− Finishing college (rather than dropping out after your junior year)
increases earnings by 2%
The Schooling Decision
The Schooling DecisionEstimating MRR
• A typical study estimates a regression of the form:
Log(wi) = xi + si
• wi is the wage rate of the i th worker
• si is the years of schooling of the i th worker
• In log-linear models, coefficient represents the– percent increase in w (we took the log of its values) for a– 1 year increase in s (we did not take the log of its values):
– Hence is an estimate for the rate of return to an added year of schooling
MRR
( )ln %
1
w w
s
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
0 4 8 12 16 20
Years of schooling
mrr
The Schooling Decision
• A worker maximizes the present value of lifetime earnings by going to school until the marginal rate of return to schooling equals the discount rate.
• A worker with discount rate r = 4.3% goes to school for s* = 12 years.
r
s*
Years of Schooling
Years of Schooling
Rate of Interest
1616 1212
rBob
rAl
MRR
Dollars
wHS
wBS
The Schooling DecisionIndividuals with different discount rates
• Ace and Bob have the same discount rate (r) but each worker faces a different wage-schooling locus.
• Ace doesn’t go to college since his MRR = r after graduating HS,
• Bob graduates from college,
Years of Schooling
Years of Schooling
Rate of Interest
1612
r
MRRAce
MRRBob
1612
wBob
wAce
wAce
Bob
Ace
Dollars
The Schooling DecisionIndividuals with different abilities
BS
and earns wBOB.
and earns wACE.
• The wage differential between Bob and Ace arises both because
‾ We don’t observe either wage school locus‾ Bob goes to school for four more years because ‾ Bob is more able.
• As a result, this wage differential does not tells us by how much Ace’s earnings would increase if he were to complete high school.
Years of Schooling
1612
Bob
Ace
Slope is biased
Unbiased slope because ‘ability’ is accounted for in the regression
The Schooling DecisionIndividuals with different abilities
wBob
wAce
Dollars
• In studies of twins, presumably holding ability constant, valid estimates of rate of return to schooling can be estimated
• Generally, the rate of return to schooling is higher for workers who were born in states with well-funded education systems
The Schooling Decision
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
15 20 25 30 35 40
Pupil/teacher ratio
Rat
e of
ret
urn
to s
choo
ling
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
0.5 0.75 1 1.25 1.5 1.75 2
Relative teacher wage
Rat
e of
ret
urn
to s
choo
ling
Source: David Card and Alan B. Krueger, “Does School Quality Matter? Returns to Education and the Characteristics of Public Schools in the United States,” Journal of Political Economy 100 (February 1992), Tables 1 and 2. The data in the graphs refer to the rate of return to school and the school quality variables for the cohort of persons born in 1920-1929.
Education is a Signal
• Education reveals a level of attainment which signals a worker’s qualifications to potential employers
• Information that is used to allocate a workers in the labor market is called a signal
• There could be a “separating equilibrium”
– Low-productivity workers choose not to obtain X years of education, voluntarily signaling their low productivity
– High-productivity workers choose to get at least X years of schooling and separate themselves from the pack
• Workers get paid $200,000 if they get less than 4 years of college, and $300,000 if they get at least 4 years (w = 100,000 if college grad but w = 0 if not).
• Low-productivity workers find it expensive to invest in college and choose w = 0 and s = 0
• High-productivity workers find it inexpensive to invest in college and choose w = 100,000 and s = 4
• As a result, the worker’s education signals if he is a low-productivity or a high-productivity worker.
100,004
80,000
Dollars
Years of Schooling
Costs = 25,001 s
0
Dollars
Years of Schooling
Costs = 20,000 s
(a) Low-Productivity Workers
4 4
(b) High-Productivity Workers
0
100,000
0
100,000
0
Education is a Signal
Women
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
18 25 32 39 46 53 60
Age
Wee
kly
Earn
ings
Some college
High school graduates
College Graduates
High school dropouts
Men
200
500
800
1100
1400
1700
2000
18 25 32 39 46 53 60
Age
Wee
kly
Earn
ings
Some college
College Graduates
High school graduates
High school dropouts
Men
Women
Highly educated workers earn more than less educated workers
Earnings rise over time at a decreasing rate
The age-earnings profiles of different education cohorts diverge over time (they “fan outwards”)
Earnings increase faster for more educated workers
Education is an Investment in Human Capital
MR30
Human Capital Accumulation and Age
MC
MR20
Dollars
0 Q30 Q20
Efficiency Units
The marginal revenue of an efficiency unit of human capital declines as the worker ages because the younger you are the longer you have to ‘rent’ the additional Eunit
Hence, marginal revenue of a unit acquired at age 20 (MR20) lies above MR30
At each age, the worker equates the marginal revenue with the marginal cost, so that more units are acquired when the worker is younger.
At age 20, acquiring an additional Eunit is easier (less costly)
than it is at age 30
Diminishing returns to the accumulation of H explains the curvature of MC
On-The-Job Training
• Most workers augment their human capital stock through on-the-job training (OJT) after completing education investments
• Two types of OJT:
– General: training that is useful at all firms once it is acquired
– Specific: training that is useful only at the firm where it is acquired
• Firms only provide general training if they do not pay the costs
• If the firm and the worker share the returns to specific training the possibility of separation in the post-training period is eliminated
• Recall that human capital investments are more profitable the earlier they are taken
• The Mincer earnings function:
Log(wi) = si + x + t – t2
The “overtaking age” is t*, indicating the time when the worker slows down acquisition of human capital to collect the return on prior investments so as to “overtake” earnings of those that do not undertake similar investments
[ ]
Age-Earnings Profile
t (age)t*
s + x
Age-Earnings Profile
The age-earnings profile is concave and upward-sloping until age t*.
Older workers (prior to reaching age t*) earn more because they invest less in H and are collecting returns from earlier investments.
The rate of growth of earnings slows down as they get closer to age t* because workers accumulate less H as they age.
Log(wi) = s + x + t – t 2