Education's Selfish and Social Returns
My forthcoming book, The Case Against Education, devotes Chapter 5 to education's selfish returns (more commonly known as "private returns") and Chapter 6 to education's social returns.
This is where I show my work.
For now, I only show the main results: selfish returns for my four ideal types (Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor Students), as well as social returns given my two main signaling scenarios.
Scenario #1 is Conservative Signaling, which assumes that sheepskin effects are signaling and all other effects are human capital.
Scenario #2 is Reasonable Signaling, which assumes that 80% of education's effects are signaling and the rest is human capital.
Please email me comments, questions, and especially corrections.
Note: Earlier versions of Excel may have a file conversion issue that prevents them from calculating negative rates of return. If any reported returns appear as "#NUM," you are experiencing this issue. Please contact me for the remedy.
Background Files
- The Selfish and Social Returns to Education, introductory slideshow.
- Technical Appendix A1: Completion Probabilities, explaining the derivation of students' probabilities of successfully completing years of education.
- Documentation File, explaining all variables and key assumptions for all spreadsheets.
- Meta, spreadsheet for generating main variables for private returns.
- Meta Social, spreadsheet for generating main variables for social returns.
- Crime, spreadsheet for generating supplemental crime-related variables.
Selfish Return Files
- Selfish Returns for Excellent Students
- Selfish Returns for Good Students
- Selfish Returns for Fair Students
- Selfish Returns for Poor Students
Social Return with Conservative Signaling Files
- Social Returns for Excellent Students (Conservative Signaling)
- Social Returns for Good Students (Conservative Signaling)
- Social Returns for Fair Students (Conservative Signaling)
- Social Returns for Poor Students (Conservative Signaling)