Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/234678 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IDB Working Paper Series No. IDB-WP-01089
Publisher: 
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Washington, DC
Abstract: 
This paper shows that returns to education are not enough to capture all the returns to human capital. Using longitudinal data of all college graduates in Colombia, we estimate labor market returns to postsecondary degrees and to various skillsincluding literacy, numeracy, foreign language, field-specific, and non-cognitive skills. Graduates of longer programs, of private institutions, and of schools with higher reputation earn higher wages. Even after controlling for all the characteristics of the degree, a one standard deviation increase in each skill predicts an average wage increase of two percent. Returns to skills vary along the wage distribution, with tenure, with the field of specialization and the type of job obtained immediately after graduation.
Subjects: 
Returns to skills
Returns to education
Numeracy
Literacy
Foreign language
Specific skills
Non-cognitive
Colombia
JEL: 
I20
I24
J24
J31
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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