Non-Cog Skills Are Important

Below is an excellent episode of "This American Life" which focuses on Heckman's work on non-cognitive skills, or soft skills, or personality, or whatever you would like to call it on life outcomes. Among the many gems in the episode includes some great insight into the failures of the historical ways in which we removed kids from the classroom for "special-ed".

One Percent

Do you want to join the one percent? Getting a degree from the college of business increases your chances. The NYT breaks down the top one percent by undergraduate degree.

Privatizing Education

Steve Yamarik helps to make the case for privatizing education. Schooling offers no positive externalities .

Estimating Returns to Schooling from State-Level Data: A Macro-Mincerian Approach

In this paper, we use information from U.S. states to determine the social return to schooling. We estimate a macro-Mincerian model where aggregate earnings (or income) depend upon physical capital, labor, average years of schooling and average labor force experience. We find that the social return to U.S. schooling is 9 to 16 percent, which matches estimates of the private return found in the labor literature. Our results therefore provide evidence that U.S. schooling is indeed productive, but generates no positive externalities.