Estimating the returns to education in Argentina using quantile regression analysis: 1992-2002

Abstract

There are countless estimates of the average returns to education which looks at the effect of an additional year of schooling on the conditional mean distribution of salaries. Recent international works suggest that there are variations from the average return to education across the population. That is why in this paper we examine this possibility for the case of Argentina over a ten year period. We estimate returns to schooling at different quantiles of the conditional distribution of wages using quantile regression method. We test whether there is individual heterogeneity in returns to education and find that: over time, while males have higher returns to schooling at the higher quantile, women's returns are highest at the lowest quantile. The evidence is suggesting that while lower ability women may benefit more from schooling the reverse is true for men. Our findings have potential implications for the expansion of educational opportunities in Argentina.