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The increasing rate at which individuals, especially, females in Ghana are seeking higher education calls for an estimation of the returns to schooling and education in Ghana.

The study employs the Mincer equation to a representative cross-sectional micro-data from Ghana using OLS and instrumental variable (IV) methodologies. The paper uses spouse's education as instruments in the IV estimation.

Return to schooling was found to be higher for females than males, likewise, membership of an old student associations and location of the household. Returns to education increases as the level of education rises whilst the rate of returns initially increases but fall as labour market experience rises. The study also found that the rates of return to education were higher for Christian, followed by Muslim and believers of other lesser-known religion in Ghana.

Return to schooling was found to be higher for females than males. Likewise, individuals who are members of an old student association and are in urban areas were found to have a higher return to schooling than individuals who are not members of an old student association and are in rural areas. Returns to education increases as the level of education rises whilst the rate of returns initially increases but fall as labour market experience rises. The study also found that the rates of return to education were higher for Christian, followed by Muslim and believers of other lesser-known religion in Ghana.

Wage determination process is different for males and females, across religion and residency. The higher returns to schooling for females imply education is a good investment for women and girls and should be a development priority.

The higher returns to schooling for females imply an investment in girl's education should be a development priority.

The paper extends the existing literature by focussing on the role of religion, old student's association (alma mater) and gender on the differential earning returns to schooling.

Education system stimulates the development of human capital and provides informative signaling allowing to differentiate productivity of individuals. If education system is efficient then higher levels of education usually associated with greater returns on labor market. To evaluate the efficiency of Russian education system we aim to estimate the effect of vocational education and different levels of higher education on wages.

We use data on 8,764 individuals in the years 2019–2021. Our statistical approach addresses two critical issues: nonrandom selection into employment and the endogeneity of education choice. To tackle these problems, we employed Heckman’s method and its extension that is a structural model which addresses the issue of self-selection into different levels of education.

The results of the analysis suggest that there is a significant heterogeneity in the returns to different levels of education. First, higher education, in general, offers substantial wage premiums when compared to vocational education. Specifically, individuals with specialist’s and bachelor’s degrees enjoy higher wage premiums of approximately 23.59–24.04% and 16.43–16.49%, respectively, compared to those with vocational education. Furthermore, we observe a significant dis-parity in returns among the various levels of higher education. Master’s degree provides a substantial wage premium in comparison to both bachelor’s (19.79–20.96%) and specialist’s (12.64–13.41%) degrees. Moreover, specialist degree offers a 7.16–7.55% higher wage premium than bachelor’s degree.

We identify a hierarchical pattern in the returns associated with different levels of higher education in Russia, specifically “bachelor-specialist-master.” These findings indicate that each level of education in Russia serves as a distinct signal in the labor market, facilitating employers' ability to differentiate between workers. From a policy perspective, our results suggest the potential benefits of offering opportunities to transition from specialist’s to master’s degrees on a tuition-free basis. Such a policy may enhance access to advanced education and potentially lead to higher returns for individuals in the labor market.

There are many studies on returns to higher education in Russia. However, just few of them estimate the returns to different levels of higher education. Also, these studies usually do not address the issue of the endogeneity arising because of self-selection into different levels of education. Our structural econometric model allows addressing for this issue and provides consistent estimates of returns to different levels of education under the assumption that individuals with higher propensity to education obtain higher levels of education.

This study applies to German data a model in which the decision to attend higher education depends on the ratio of marginal cost and marginal return expected from higher education. If this ratio is below a certain threshold, the individual will choose to participate in higher education. In a simulation exercise, the impact of selected variables on this threshold, and thus on the participation probability, is quantified. The results suggests the presence of financial constraints binding participation in higher education and that the participation decision responds to some extent to return expectations in terms of labour market outcome and to financial incentives such as student support.

This paper aims to investigate whether the conventional approach to estimating the private and social rates of return to education generates reliable findings when used in economies with chronically depressed labour markets.

Conventional techniques (the Mincer earnings function and the discounting method) are used to provide initial estimates of the private and social returns to education in Kosovo. However, this study argues that in countries with chronically depressed labour markets, such as in Kosovo, the conventional approach is likely to significantly underestimate the private and social returns from achieving a higher level of educational attainment. This study extends the estimation approach to take into account the greater probability of more highly educated Kosovars being: employed, employed in the formal and public sectors and having longer job tenure.

The extended approach to estimating rates of return to schooling generates higher private and social rates of return to education than the conventional approach. Moreover, in contrast to the findings of the conventional approach, the revised approach suggests that private and social rates of return are highest from completion of upper secondary and tertiary education.

The results indicate that if governments in economies with chronically depressed labour markets decide upon their educational priorities based on unadjusted rates of return, then resources may be misallocated.

The analysis presented in this paper suggests that conventional approaches to estimating private and social rates of return to education are not suitable for use in economies with chronically depressed labour markets. In addition, the paper provides the first comprehensive analysis of the rates of return to education in Kosovo. These results are used to provide a critique of the Kosovo Government’s recent educational priorities.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the sheepskin effects in the returns to education in the Sri Lankan labor market by ethnicity.

The study is based on the latest Sri Lankan Consumer Finance and Socio‐economic Survey. The study employs the quantile regression method for each conditional quantile wage group, rather than the mean regression analysis used in most labor market analysis. The quantile regression technique fits hyperplanes through out the conditional wage and is ideal for characterizing the entire wage distribution. The standard Mincerian wage equation was estimated for the full sample of male workers and separately for the two main ethnic groups in Sri Lanka.

The empirical findings are broadly encouraging. Quantile regression results suggest that average returns to education for both ethnic groups differs significantly from the returns at the two extreme ends of the wage distribution. In general, the returns to education are positive for both groups, but the returns are higher for Sinhalese workers than for Tamil. An increasing trend in returns to education is evident for both ethnic groups when moving up wage distribution. Sinhalese workers experience higher returns to education than for Tamil especially at the bottom of the wage distribution, but the difference becomes less at the upper part of the distribution. Estimated results with spline in years of education suggest that returns to secondary education are higher for Sinhalese workers, but the returns to tertiary education are greater for Tamil workers at the upper part of the wage distribution. Findings indicate that returns to experience are also higher for Sinhalese workers than for Tamil workers.

This is the first study that examines sheepskin effects in the returns to education by ethnicity in Sri Lanka in a Mincerian framework, employing quantile regression models.

Education plays an important role in improving Chinese rural laborers’ non-farm incomes. However, in Chinese western rural area, the level of return to education is very low due to the underdeveloped economy and the condition of the education system. For improving the schooling returns level, Chinese central government is paying great attention to the condition of education in the rural western area. To date, no research has examined what educational style is more favorable for improving western rural laborers’ non-farm incomes. To answer this question, the purpose of this paper is to compare the treatment effect of high school education and secondary vocational education on their non-farm incomes. That will provide significant evidence for the government to carry out educational policy.

Base on the Mincer model, several methods is used to estimate the average return to a year education on western rural labors’ non-farm income, including OLS, IV and Heckman tow-steps method, to accounting for the ability endogenous and self-selection bias. And the propensity score matching method is used in estimate the treatment effects of high school education and secondary vocational education.

The results from Mincer model showed that the schooling returns in Chinese western rural area were estimated to range from 2.7 to 3.9 percent, that were lower than the average levels in Chinese whole rural area that are estimated in the other recent studies. By using propensity score matching to roll out the heterogeneous bias, show that the treatment effect from high school education was higher than that from secondary vocational education, indicating that the secondary vocational education is better.

Studies concerning the causal relationship between schooling (high school education and secondary vocational education) and non-farm earnings in the western region of China remain very limited, even empty. This paper will make an update contribution to the literature in the area of education earnings in China.

Russia has undergone tumultuous changes during the transition process. This has been nowhere more evident than within the labour market. The transition has now progressed to such an extent that it is possible to examine whether the issues of a re‐capitalisation and restructuring of human capital have been addressed. This paper uses the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey to assess rates of return to human capital investments for the years 1994‐1998. It utilises standard earnings functions to assess the returns to education as well as to specific levels of post‐compulsory education and training. This article places specific emphasis on firm level training and the role of the firm, for the purpose of this special issue. Results suggest, in the case of Russia, that significant and positive returns to education and training exist comparable in magnitude to those in other transition countries.

Utilizing work task data drawn from the OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills of 2011–2012 and 2014–2015, we derive a new skills-based indicator of graduate jobs, termed ISCO(HE)2008, for 31 countries. The indicator generates a plausible distribution of graduate occupations and explains graduates’ wages and job satisfaction better than hitherto existing indicators. Unlike with the traditional classifier, several jobs in major group 3 “Technicians and Associate Professionals” require higher education in many countries. Altogether, almost a third of labor is deployed in graduate jobs in the 31 countries, but with large cross-national differences. Industry and establishment-size composition can account for some of the variation. In addition, two indicators of the relative quality of the higher education system also contribute to the variation in the prevalence of graduate jobs across countries.