SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance
No 451:
The Effect of a Social Experiment in Education
Costas Meghir ()
and Marten Palme ()
Abstract: The impact of compulsory schooling laws as well as the
abolition of early selection by ability remain important issues in the
educational debate. These issues were the focus of a major education reform
in Sweden which was implemented in the 60s. The reform was preceded by a
``social experiment'' in which only a proportion of municipalities received
the new school system. We use survey data linked with tax records covering
10\%\ of one of the cohorts who were educated during the experimental
period, to evaluate the impact of the reform on educational attainment and
earnings. We find significant increases in the educational attainment of
individuals from poorer backgrounds. We also find that the largest impact
on earnings was for higher ability individuals from poorer backgrounds. In
addition we estimate the returns to education for those affected by the
reform. By exploiting the differential impact of the reform by county we
are able, in some cases, to distinguish its direct effect on earnings from
the effect it had by increasing the quantity of education. We find that the
main source of increased earnings came from increasing educational
attainment.
Keywords: Returns to education; LATE; Propesity score matching.; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: I21; I28; J24; J31; (follow links to similar papers)
53 pages, June 6, 2001
Before downloading any of the electronic versions below
you should read our statement on
copyright.
Download GhostScript
for viewing Postscript files and the
Acrobat Reader for viewing and printing pdf files.
Full text versions of the paper:
hastef0451.pdf 
(382kB)
Download Statistics
Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Helena Lundin ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ()
or Helena Lundin ().
Programing by
Design by Joachim Ekebom
