Methodology shift
This is the specific type of data that earlier studies primarily relied on, which measured data at a single point in time.
What is cross-sectional data?
like uniforms and supplies, are known as this type of cost.
What are private costs?
This is the research term for factors that were left out of older studies, like skill or quality.
What are omitted variables?
Early studies often used wage data that was considered limited and potentially unreliable, especially from this economic sector.
What is the public sector?
When ability and quality are included, the return specifically attributed to years of schooling does this.
What is declines (or decreases)?
Researchers began using these real-world events or policy changes to better prove the cause-and-effect of schooling.
What are natural experiments?
Failing to fully account for costs causes the estimated private rate of return to do this.
What is inflate?
A key factor now being controlled for that relates to a student's intrinsic intelligence or aptitude.
What are innate cognitive skills?
Early studies were criticized for having limitations related to this, which refers to the people the study was based on.
What are sample limitations?
Second-generation estimates are often described as being more this than earlier findings due to their improved methods.
What is refined (or rigorous)?
This country's 1973 school construction program is a key example of a natural experiment.
What is Indonesia?
This is the term for the wages a young person loses by staying in school instead of entering the workforce.
What are foregone earnings?
When researchers include controls for this, the estimated return to years of schooling often declines.
What is school quality?
This is the primary conclusion that both first- and second-generation estimates agree upon regarding education.
What is that education is a worthwhile investment?
The second generation confirmed that education is a worthwhile this (a six-letter word).
What is an investment?
The goal of using "natural experiments" is to better isolate this specific relationship between schooling and earnings.
What is the causal effect?
The estimated return is often broken down by this, showing different returns for primary versus tertiary levels.
What is the education level
This variable is included to account for the effectiveness of the school environment, teachers, and curriculum.
What is school quality?
Older estimates often suffered from this type of error because they failed to control for important student characteristics.
What is omitted variable bias?
The refined estimates often resulted in figures that were this compared to the inflated figures of earlier studies.
What is smaller?
This is the methodological weakness of using older data to try and understand how long-term earnings change.
What is approximating long-term trends
Second-generation estimates typically conclude that the overall rate of return to education is still this.
What is worthwhile?
Along with cognitive skills, this early-life factor is now sometimes controlled for in second-generation studies.
What is early-life nutrition?
The older data was limited because it was often drawn only from the formal or this type of sector.
What is public?
The overall process of using new methods to create better, more precise estimates of the rate of return is called this.
What is refinement (or estimation)?