Who Gains More from Education? A Comparative Analysis of Business, Farm and Wage Workers in India
利用印度全国代表性调查数据，比较了商业、农业和工资劳动者三类人群的教育私人回报率，发现仅关注工资劳动者会高估商业和农业劳动者的回报率。
The economics literature on returns to education has focused largely on wage workers, thereby ignoring a sizable section of the workforce which is self-employed. This paper presents the estimates of private returns to education for business, farm and wage workers in India using a nationally representative household survey. The paper addresses the sample-selectivity issue arising due to endogenous sector allocation in the earnings equation using the multinomial-selection approach. Our results show that the average rate of return to education is higher for wage workers followed by business and farm workers. Focusing only on wage workers would provide an overestimate of returns by 30 per cent for business workers and by 40–50 per cent for farm workers. Further, the profile of returns across the education ladder varies perceptibly for the three type of workers with higher education being more rewarding for wage workers.