Ability, Schooling Inputs and Earnings: Evidence from the NELS

Ozkan Eren

No 906, Working Papers from University of Nevada, Las Vegas , Department of Economics

Abstract: Utilizing the National Educational Longitudinal Study data, this paper examines the role of pre-market cognitive and noncognitive abilities, as well as schooling inputs, on young men's earnings. In addition to the conditional mean, we estimate the impacts over the earnings distribution using recently developed (instrumental) quantile regression techniques. Our results show that noncognitive ability is an important determinant of earnings, but the effects are not uniform across the distribution. We find noncognitive ability to be most effective for lower quantiles. Cognitive ability, on the other hand, shows a reversed pattern with more pronounced effects at the upper tail of the earnings distribution. We also find that, on average, pupil-teacher ratio is a significant determinant of earnings. However, similar to ability, the effects are not homogeneous

Keywords: Cognitive Ability; Instrumental Quantile Regression; Measurement Error; Noncognitive Ability; Pupil-Teacher Ratio (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C20 C21 I21 I28 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2009-03, Revised 2009-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nlv:wpaper:0906

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