Estimates of the return to schooling in Sweden from a large sample of twins

Heritability of Lifetime Income

“…In Miller et al (1995, 1997) the earnings measure is the average full time income from the occupation of employment, measured at the level of 2-digit, gender-specific occupational groups (i.e., it is not measured at the level of individuals). Isacsson (1999) and Björklund et al (2005) use incomes from 3 years over a 7-year period and Cesarini (2010) from 3 years over a 5-year period. Benjamin et al (2012) use data from consecutive years.…”

“…8 As Table 1 shows, most of the prior work uses a single cross-section and short-term income measures, such as annual earnings or hourly salary. 9 Notable exceptions are Isacsson (1999) and Björklund et al (2005), which both use three years of earnings data on Swedish twins over a spell of seven years, and Benjamin et al (2012) who use up to 20 years of Swedish earnings data.…”

The Causal Effect of Education on Earnings

“…Among fraternal twins the correlation of schooling is lower: Ashenfelter and Krueger (1994) aud Isacsson (1997) both estimate a correlation for fraternal twins of about 0.55. Assuming R0 ~ 0.9 and p ~ 0.55, RA "-~ 0.8, so one would expect a 20% attenuation bias in the OLS estimate of ~' A for fraternal twins.…”

“…Finally, Isacsson (1997) analyses earnings and schooling differences among a large sample of Swedish twins (about one-half women). For a subsample of the data he has information on two measures of schooling: one in a register held by Statistics Sweden; another based on self-reported education qualifications.…”

Ability and rates of return to schooling—making use of the Swedish enlistment battery test

“…Studies performed on American data report a within-family difference estimate that is about 30 % smaller than the OLS estimated return to education (Ashenfelter & Rouse, 1998, Rouse, 1997. 5 Isacsson (1997) finds that the within-family estimate of the return to education for identical twins in Sweden is .023, or less than 50% of the OLS estimated return, .049.…”