The Return to Education in the Mid-20th Century: Evidence from Twins

What was the return to education in the United States at mid-century? In 1940, the correlation between years of schooling and earnings was relatively low, less than it had been in 1915 or than it would be in later decades. In this paper, we estimate the causal return to schooling in 1940,

20世纪中期美国的教育回报率（return to education）究竟几何？1940年，受教育年限与收入所得之间的相关系数相对较低，不仅低于1915年的水平，亦不及此后数十年的相关程度。本文旨在估算1940年美国教育的因果回报率（causal return to schooling）。