Research module

Traditionally economists have emphasized the role of cognitive ability for the formation of human capital. However, influential recent work has challenged that view and promoted a more nuanced picture whereby other skills and character traits - such as motivation and resilience – have a very important role to play. Human capital can hence be broadly defined to comprise every part of the human body and mind that affects economic decision-making or yields economic returns, including skills, personality, character traits and preferences. A recent strand of literature has focused on the formation of human capital and has documented that early-in-life interventions in this dimension may be effective policies to reduce later inequality. In the course, we will follow the development of this important debate and acquire the necessary skills in order to conduct our own research in the area. For further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

At each meeting, we will tackle a new issue with an introductory lecture and then review several supporting papers in student-led presentations. We will peer-review our presentations using the grading rubric available here.

Please use the table of content to navigate the rest of the material.

1. Meetings
2. Iterations

Meetings

Generalized Roy model

• Eisenhauer, P. (2012). Issues in the economics and econometrics of policy evaluation: Exploration using a factor structure model. Unpublished manuscript.

• Carneiro, P., Heckman, J. J., & Vytlacil, E. J. (2011). Estimating marginal returns to education. American Economic Review, 101(6), 2754–2781.

• Heckman, J. J., and Vytlacil, E. J. (2007a). Econometric evaluation of social programs, part I: Causal effects, structural models and econometric policy evaluation. In Heckman, J. J., and Leamer, E. E., editors, Handbook of Econometrics, volume 6B, pages 4779–4874. Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

• Heckman, J. J., and Vytlacil, E. J. (2007b). Econometric evaluation of social programs, part II: Using the marginal treatment effect to organize alternative economic estimators to evaluate social programs and to forecast their effects in new environments. In Heckman, J. J. and Leamer, E. E., editors, Handbook of Econometrics, volume 6B, pages 4875–5144. Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Returns to Education

• Heckman, J. J., Lochner, L. J., & Todd, P. E. (2006). Earnings functions, rates of return and treatment effects: The Mincer equation and beyond. In Hanushek, E. & Welch, F., editors, Handbook of the Economics of Education, volume 1, pages 307–458. Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Supporting Papers

• Bhuller, M., Mogstad, M., & Salvanes, K. G. (2017). Life-cycle earnings, education premiums, and internal rates of return. Journal of Labor Economics, 35(4), 993–1030.

• Carneiro, P., & Heckman, J. J (2002). The evidence on credit constraints in post‐secondary schooling. The Economic Journal, 112(482), 705-734.

• Cunha, F., Heckman, J. J., & Navarro, S. (2005). Separating uncertainty from heterogeneity in life cycle earnings. Oxford Economic Papers, 57(2), 191-261.

• Eisenhauer, P., Heckman, J. J., & Mosso, S. (2015). Estimation of dynamic discrete choice models by maximum likelihood and the simulated method of moments. International Economic Review, 56(2), 331-357.

Labor Market Returns of Noncognitive Skills

• Heckman, J. J., Stixrud, J., & Urzua, S. (2006). The effects of cognitive and noncognitive abilities on labor market outcomes and social behavior. Journal of Labor Economics, 24(3), 411–482.

Supporting Papers

• Heineck, G., & Anger, S. (2010). The returns to cognitive abilities and personality traits in Germany. Labour Economics, 17(3), 535-546.

• Piatek, R., & Pinger, P. (2010). Maintaining (locus of) control? Data combination for the identification and inference of factor structure models. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 31(4), 734–755.

Malleability of Skills

• Heckman, J. J., Moon, S. H., Pinto, R., Savelyev, P. A., & Yavitz, A. (2010). The rate of return to the HighScope Perry Preschool Program. Journal of Public Economics, 94(1-2), 114–128.

Supporting Papers

• Calero, C., Gonzales Diez, V., Soares, Y. S. D., Kluve, J., & Corseuil, C. H. (2016). Can arts-based interventions enhance labor market outcomes among youth? Evidence from a randomized trial in Rio de Janeiro. Labour Economics, 45, 131-142.

• Kosse, F., Deckers, T., Pinger, P., Schildberg-Hörisch, H., & Falk, A. (2019). The formation of prosociality: Causal evidence on the role of social environment. Journal of Political Economy (forthcoming).

Production of Skills

• Cunha, F., Heckman, J. J., & Schennach, S. M. (2010). Estimating the technology of cognitive and noncognitive skill formation. Econometrica, 78(3), 883–931.

Supporting Papers

• Pfeiffer, F., & Reuß, K. (2008). Age-dependent skill formation and returns to education. Labour Economics, 15(4), 631-646.

Introduction to NLSY and Data Analytics

• Zagorsky, J. L., & White, L. (1999). NLSY79 User’s guide: A guide to the 1979–1998 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Data. US Department of Labor, Washington, DC.

• McKinney, W. (2012). Python for data analysis: Data wrangling with Pandas, NumPy, and IPython. O'Reilly Media, Inc., Sebastopol, CA.

Iterations

• Winter Quarter 2019, Graduate Program at the University of Bonn, please see here for details.

• Winter Quarter 2018, Graduate Program at the University of Bonn, please see here for details.