IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/psewpa/halshs-00587884.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A large scale experiment: wages and educational expansion in France

Author

Listed:
  • Marc Gurgand

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PJSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Eric Maurin

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PJSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research)

Abstract

We evaluate the wage impact of the strong and rapid increase in schooling levels experienced by the cohorts born after WWII in France. In order to identify the causal effect of education, we exploit the fact that the small group of people graduating from elite education (Grandes Ecoles) remained stable, while the rest of the system experienced tremendous transformation. This provides a well defined control group. Using large scale labor force surveys for the 1990's, we find that the cohorts that received more education have a lower wage gap, relative to Grandes Ecoles. We show that such a large scale experiment measures a social return to schooling even in the presence of signaling, whereas strategies based on quasi-experiments are not necessarily robust to signaling. Our instrumental variable estimation finds returns to schooling very similar to the rest of the literature, which is a strong case against the signaling hypothesis.

Suggested Citation

  • Marc Gurgand & Eric Maurin, 2007. "A large scale experiment: wages and educational expansion in France," PSE Working Papers halshs-00587884, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-00587884
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00587884
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00587884/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daron Acemoglu & Joshua Angrist, 2001. "How Large Are Human Capital Externalities? Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Laws," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000, Volume 15, pages 9-74, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Acemoglu, Daron & Pischke, J. -S., 2001. "Changes in the wage structure, family income, and children's education," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 890-904, May.
    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. Marie Baguet & Céline Lecavelier des Etangs-Levallois, 2017. "Instrumenting education in France: Using May 1968 events as a natural experiment?," THEMA Working Papers 2017-13, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    2. Etilé, Fabrice & Jones, Andrew M., 2011. "Schooling and smoking among the baby boomers - An evaluation of the impact of educational expansion in France," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 811-831, July.
    3. Michele Raitano & Francesco Vona, 2015. "Measuring the link between intergenerational occupational mobility and earnings: evidence from eight European countries," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 13(1), pages 83-102, March.
    4. Francesco Vona, 2011. "Does the Expansion of Higher Education Reduce Educational Inequality? Evidence from 12 European Countries," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2011-12, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    5. Canaan, Serena, 2020. "The long-run effects of reducing early school tracking," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).

    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. Arnaud Chevalier & Colm Harmon & Vincent O’ Sullivan & Ian Walker, 2013. "The impact of parental income and education on the schooling of their children," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-22, December.
    2. Gordon Dahl, 2010. "Early teen marriage and future poverty," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 47(3), pages 689-718, August.
    3. Thu Hien DAO & Frédéric DOCQUIER & Mathilde MAUREL & Pierre SCHAUS, 2017. "Global Migration in the 20th and 21st Centuries: the Unstoppable Force of Demography," Working Paper 96d89f28-0e80-4703-9b33-6, Agence française de développement.
    4. Antonio Ciccone & Giovanni Peri, 2005. "Long-Run Substitutability Between More and Less Educated Workers: Evidence from U.S. States, 1950-1990," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(4), pages 652-663, November.
    5. Polina Bugakova & Ilya Prakhov, 2020. "Regional Accessibility Of Higher Education In Russia," HSE Working papers WP BRP 58/EDU/2020, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    6. Bruce Fallick & Charles A. Fleischman & James B. Rebitzer, 2006. "Job-Hopping in Silicon Valley: Some Evidence Concerning the Microfoundations of a High-Technology Cluster," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(3), pages 472-481, August.
    7. Akin Serife Nuray, 2012. "Immigration, Fiscal Policy, and Welfare in an Aging Population," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-45, July.
    8. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Tobias D. Ketterer, 2012. "Do Local Amenities Affect The Appeal Of Regions In Europe For Migrants?," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(4), pages 535-561, October.
    9. Costas Meghir & Mårten Palme, 2003. "Ability, parental background and educational policy: empirical evidence from a social experiment," IFS Working Papers W03/05, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    10. Manuel A. Hidalgo, 2010. "A Demand-Supply Analysis Of The Spanish Education Wage Premium," Revista de Economia Aplicada, Universidad de Zaragoza, Departamento de Estructura Economica y Economia Publica, vol. 18(3), pages 57-78, Winter.
    11. Chakraborty, Bidisha & Chakraborty, Kamalika, 2016. "Low Level Equilibrium Trap, Unemployment, School Quality, Child Labour and Human Capital Formation," MPRA Paper 74621, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Marco Manacorda, 2006. "Child Labor and the Labor Supply of Other Household Members: Evidence from 1920 America," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1788-1801, December.
    13. Daniele Checchi & Luca Flabbi, 2013. "Intergenerational Mobility and Schooling Decisions in Germany and Italy: The Impact of Secondary School Tracks," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, issue 3, pages 7-57, July-Sept.
    14. Rudolf Winter-Ebmer & Aniela Wirz, 2002. "Public funding and enrolment into higher education in Europe," Economics working papers 2002-02, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    15. Enrico Moretti, 2004. "Workers' Education, Spillovers, and Productivity: Evidence from Plant-Level Production Functions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 656-690, June.
    16. Caselli, Francesco, 2005. "Accounting for Cross-Country Income Differences," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 679-741, Elsevier.
    17. Daren, Conrad, 2007. "Education and Economic Growth: Is There a Link?," MPRA Paper 18176, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2009.
    18. Mendolicchio Concetta & Paolini Dimitri & Pietra Tito, 2012. "Asymmetric Information And Overeducation," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-29, October.
    19. Brian Bell & Rui Costa & Stephen Machin, 2015. "Crime, Compulsory Schooling Laws and Education," CEP Discussion Papers dp1374, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    20. Seeun Jung, 2015. "Does education affect risk aversion? Evidence from the British education reform," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(28), pages 2924-2938, June.

    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:hal:psewpa:halshs-00587884. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.