[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4067.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Estimating the Payoff to Schooling Using the Vietnam-Era Draft Lottery

Author

Listed:
  • Joshua D. Angrist
  • Alan B. Krueger
Abstract
Between 1970 and 1973 priority for military service was randomly assigned to draft-age men in a series of lotteries. Many men who were at risk of being drafted managed to avoid military service by enrolling in school and obtaining an educational deferment This paper uses the draft lottery as a natural experiment to estimate the return to education and the veteran premium. Estimates are based on special extracts of the Current Population Survey for 1979and 1981-85. The results suggest that an extra year of schooling acquired in response to the lottery is associated with6.6 percent higher weekly earnings. This figure is about 10 percent higher than the OLS estimate of the return to education in this sample, which suggests there is omitted-variable bias in conventional estimates of the return to education. Our findings are robust to a variety of assumptions about the effect of veteran status on earnings.

Suggested Citation

  • Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Krueger, 1992. "Estimating the Payoff to Schooling Using the Vietnam-Era Draft Lottery," NBER Working Papers 4067, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4067
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w4067.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Angrist, Joshua D, 1990. "Lifetime Earnings and the Vietnam Era Draft Lottery: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Records," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 313-336, June.
    2. repec:fth:prinin:304 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Joshua Angrist & Alan Krueger, 1989. "Why Do World War II Veterans Earn More Than Nonveterans?," Working Papers 634, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    4. Sherwin Rosen & Paul Taubman, 1982. "Changes in Life-Cycle Earnings: What Do Social Security Data Show?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 17(3), pages 321-338.
    5. Ashenfelter, Orley & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Estimates of the Economic Returns to Schooling from a New Sample of Twins," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1157-1173, December.
    6. Jon R. Crane & David A. Wise, 1987. "Military Service and Civilian Earnings of Youths," NBER Chapters, in: Public Sector Payrolls, pages 119-146, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Mark C. Berger & Barry T. Hirsch, 1983. "The Civilian Earnings Experience of Vietnam - Era Veterans," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 18(4), pages 455-479.
    8. Richard B. Freeman, 1975. "Overinvestment in College Training?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 10(3), pages 287-311.
    9. Angrist, Joshua & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Why Do World War II Veterans Earn More Than Nonveterans?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(1), pages 74-97, January.
    10. Hungerford, Thomas & Solon, Gary, 1987. "Sheepskin Effects in the Returns to Education," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(1), pages 175-177, February.
    11. Weiss, Yoram, 1971. "Ability and the Investment in Schooling: A Theoretical Note on J. Mincer's 'Distribution of Labor Income'," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 459-461, June.
    12. repec:fth:prinin:254 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Joshua D. Angrist, 1990. "The Draft Lottery and Voluntary Enlistment in the Vietnam Era," NBER Working Papers 3514, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Blackburn, McKinley L & Neumark, David, 1993. "Omitted-Ability Bias and the Increase in the Return to Schooling," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(3), pages 521-544, July.
    15. Orley Ashenfelter & Alan Krueger, 1992. "Estimates of the Economic Return to Schooling from a New Sample of Twins," Working Papers 683, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    16. Angrist, Joshua D, 1990. "Lifetime Earnings and the Vietnam Era Draft Lottery: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Records: Errata," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1284-1286, December.
    17. David A. Wise, 1987. "Public Sector Payrolls," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number wise87-1.
    18. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Keueger, 1991. "Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 979-1014.
    19. De Tray, Dennis, 1982. "Veteran Status as a Screening Device," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(1), pages 133-142, March.
    20. Griliches, Zvi, 1977. "Estimating the Returns to Schooling: Some Econometric Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(1), pages 1-22, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stephen R. Barley, 1998. "Military Downsizing and the Career Prospects of Youths," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 559(1), pages 141-157, September.
    2. Lauren L. Schmitz & Dalton Conley, 2016. "The Effect of Vietnam-Era Conscription and Genetic Potential for Educational Attainment on Schooling Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 22393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Angrist, Joshua & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Why Do World War II Veterans Earn More Than Nonveterans?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(1), pages 74-97, January.
    4. Thomas J. Kane & Cecilia E. Rouse, 1993. "Labor Market Returns to Two- and Four-Year Colleges: Is a Credit a Credit and Do Degrees Matter?," NBER Working Papers 4268, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Reizer, Balázs & Háló, Buda, 2020. "A sorkatonaság munkaerőpiaci hatásai Magyarországon [The effect of compulsory military service on wages in Hungary]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(9), pages 878-910.
    6. Saraswata Chaudhuri & Elaina Rose, 2009. "Estimating the Veteran Effect with Endogenous Schooling when Instruments are Potentially Weak," Working Papers UWEC-2009-07, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    7. Bäckström, Peter, 2023. "Swedish Veterans After Bosnia: The Relationship Between Military Deployment and Labour Market Marginalisation," Umeå Economic Studies 1011, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    8. Justin L. Tobias, 2003. "Are Returns to Schooling Concentrated Among the Most Able? A Semiparametric Analysis of the Ability–earnings Relationships," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(1), pages 1-29, February.
    9. Angel de la Fuente & Antonio Ciccone, 2003. "Human capital in a global and knowledge-based economy," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 562.03, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    10. Torun, Huzeyfe & Tumen, Semih, 2016. "The effects of compulsory military service exemption on education and labor market outcomes: Evidence from a natural experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 16-35.
    11. Joshua D. Angrist & Stacey H. Chen, 2007. "Long-term consequences of vietnam-era conscription: schooling, experience, and earnings," NBER Working Papers 13411, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Ayan, Davut, 2016. "Unemployment Among the Recent U.S. Veterans," MPRA Paper 117307, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. P. Routon, 2014. "The Effect of 21st Century Military Service on Civilian Labor and Educational Outcomes," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 15-38, March.
    14. Christos A. Makridis & Barry T. Hirsch, 2021. "The Labor Market Earnings of Veterans: Is Military Experience More or Less Valuable than Civilian Experience?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 303-333, December.
    15. Justin L. Tobias & Mingliang Li, 2004. "Returns to Schooling and Bayesian Model Averaging: A Union of Two Literatures," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(2), pages 153-180, April.
    16. Andrew Weiss, 1995. "Human Capital vs. Signalling Explanations of Wages," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 133-154, Fall.
    17. Hou, Benyufang & Liu, Hong & Wang, Sophie Xuefei, 2020. "Returns to military service in off-farm wage employment: Evidence from rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    18. Guido W. Imbens, 2022. "Causality in Econometrics: Choice vs Chance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(6), pages 2541-2566, November.
    19. Peter Hull & Michal Kolesár & Christopher Walters, 2022. "Labor by design: contributions of David Card, Joshua Angrist, and Guido Imbens," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(3), pages 603-645, July.
    20. Guido W. Imbens, 2020. "Potential Outcome and Directed Acyclic Graph Approaches to Causality: Relevance for Empirical Practice in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(4), pages 1129-1179, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H68 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Forecasts of Budgets, Deficits, and Debt
    • H69 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Other

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4067. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.