Estimating Distributions of Treatment Effects with an Application to the Returns to Schooling and Measurement of the Effects of Uncertainty on College

Pedro Carneiro (), Karsten T. Hansen and James J. Heckman

No 9546, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper uses factor models to identify and estimate distributions of counterfactuals. We extend LISREL frameworks to a dynamic treatment effect setting, extending matching to account for unobserved conditioning variables. Using these models, we can identify all pairwise and joint treatment effects. We apply these methods to a model of schooling and determine the intrinsic uncertainty facing agents at the time they make their decisions about enrollment in school. Reducing uncertainty in returns raises college enrollment. We go beyond the Veil of Ignorance' in evaluating educational policies and determine who benefits and who loses from commonly proposed educational reforms.

JEL-codes: C31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm and nep-lab
Date: 2003-03
Note: ED LS CH
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w9546.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9546

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w9546
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Address: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by ().