IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v123y2014i3p262-265.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measurement error in the AFQT in the NLSY79

Author

Listed:
  • Schofield, Lynne Steuerle

Abstract

Many promising efforts in the social sciences aim to measure future outcomes (such as wages or health outcomes) given some base level of human capital or ability. They typically fail to recognize the proxies for human capital are all measured with error, creating bias in regression analysis. Here I show how item level data offers the opportunity to improve a broad range of economic, social and psychometric studies, an opportunity now enhanced significantly by the new release of item response level data for the Armed Forces Qualifying Test in the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.

Suggested Citation

  • Schofield, Lynne Steuerle, 2014. "Measurement error in the AFQT in the NLSY79," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 123(3), pages 262-265.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:123:y:2014:i:3:p:262-265
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2014.02.026
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176514000901
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2014.02.026?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Griliches, Zvi & Mason, William M, 1972. "Education, Income, and Ability," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(3), pages 74-103, Part II, .
    2. R. Bock & Murray Aitkin, 1981. "Marginal maximum likelihood estimation of item parameters: Application of an EM algorithm," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 46(4), pages 443-459, December.
    3. Yingyao Hu & Susanne M. Schennach, 2008. "Instrumental Variable Treatment of Nonclassical Measurement Error Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(1), pages 195-216, January.
    4. Kevin Lang & Michael Manove, 2011. "Education and Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1467-1496, June.
    5. Klepper, Steven & Leamer, Edward E, 1984. "Consistent Sets of Estimates for Regressions with Errors in All Variables," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 163-183, January.
    6. Flavio Cunha & James J. Heckman & Susanne M. Schennach, 2010. "Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 883-931, May.
    7. Neal, Derek A & Johnson, William R, 1996. "The Role of Premarket Factors in Black-White Wage Differences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(5), pages 869-895, October.
    8. Brian Junker & Lynne Schofield & Lowell Taylor, 2012. "The use of cognitive ability measures as explanatory variables in regression analysis," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-19, December.
    9. Christopher R. Bollinger, 2003. "Measurement Error in Human Capital and the Black-White Wage Gap," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 578-585, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jacopo Mazza & Hans van Ophem, 2020. "Educational Choice, Initial Wage and Wage Growth," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 20-030/III, Tinbergen Institute.
    2. Eric R. Nielsen, 2019. "Test Questions, Economic Outcomes, and Inequality," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2019-013, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Benjamin Williams, 2019. "Identification of a nonseparable model under endogeneity using binary proxies for unobserved heterogeneity," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(2), pages 527-563, May.
    4. Jacob Loree, 2019. "Multidimensional Skill Specialization and Mismatch Over the Lifecycle," 2019 Meeting Papers 892, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    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. Lin, Dajun & Lutter, Randall & Ruhm, Christopher J., 2018. "Cognitive performance and labour market outcomes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 121-135.
    2. Brian Junker & Lynne Schofield & Lowell Taylor, 2012. "The use of cognitive ability measures as explanatory variables in regression analysis," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-19, December.
    3. Benjamin Williams, 2019. "Identification of a nonseparable model under endogeneity using binary proxies for unobserved heterogeneity," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(2), pages 527-563, May.
    4. Bond, Timothy N. & Lehmann, Jee-Yeon K., 2018. "Prejudice and racial matches in employment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 271-293.
    5. Susanne M. Schennach, 2012. "Measurement error in nonlinear models - a review," CeMMAP working papers 41/12, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    6. Brian Jacob & Jesse Rothstein, 2016. "The Measurement of Student Ability in Modern Assessment Systems," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 85-108, Summer.
    7. Lynne Schofield & Brian Junker & Lowell Taylor & Dan Black, 2015. "Predictive Inference Using Latent Variables with Covariates," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 80(3), pages 727-747, September.
    8. Limor Golan & Carl Sanders & Jonathan James, 2019. "What Explains the Racial Gaps in Task Assignment and Pay Over the Life-Cycle?," 2019 Meeting Papers 320, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Orazio Attanasio & Sarah Cattan & Emla Fitzsimons & Costas Meghir & Marta Rubio-Codina, 2020. "Estimating the Production Function for Human Capital: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial in Colombia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(1), pages 48-85, January.
    10. Javier Cano-Urbina & Patrick L. Mason, 2016. "Acculturation and the labor market in Mexico," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-29, December.
    11. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2014. "Black–White Differences in Intergenerational Economic Mobility in the U.S," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue Q I.
    12. Thompson, Owen, 2011. "Racial disparities in the cognition-health relationship," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 328-339, March.
    13. Martin Nordin & Dan‐Olof Rooth, 2009. "The Ethnic Employment and Income Gap in Sweden: Is Skill or Labor Market Discrimination the Explanation?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 111(3), pages 487-510, September.
    14. Daniel B. Jones & Werner Troesken & Randall Walsh, 2012. "A Poll Tax by any Other Name: The Political Economy of Disenfranchisement," NBER Working Papers 18612, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Attanasio, Orazio & Cattan, Sarah & Fitzsimons, Emla & Meghir, Costas & Rubio-Codina, Marta, 2015. "Estimating the Production Function for Human Capital: Results from a Randomized Control Trial in Colombia," IZA Discussion Papers 8856, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Dickerson, Andy & Ratcliffe, Anita & Rohenkohl, Bertha & Van de Sijpe, Nicolas, 2024. "Anticipated labour market discrimination and educational achievement," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 375-393.
    17. Romain Aeberhardt & Élise Coudin & Roland Rathelot, 2017. "The heterogeneity of ethnic employment gaps," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(1), pages 307-337, January.
    18. Piopiunik, Marc & Schwerdt, Guido & Simon, Lisa & Woessmann, Ludger, 2020. "Skills, signals, and employability: An experimental investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    19. Gil S. Epstein & Dalit Gafni & Erez Siniver, 2014. "Even Education and Experience Has Its Limits: Closing the Wage Gap," Working Papers 2014-14, Bar-Ilan University, Department of Economics.
    20. Jonah B. Gelbach, 2016. "When Do Covariates Matter? And Which Ones, and How Much?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(2), pages 509-543.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Measurement error; NLSY79; AFQT;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C1 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General
    • C8 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs

    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:eee:ecolet:v:123:y:2014:i:3:p:262-265. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.