I have been somewhat sceptical about the use of twins as an economic model for some time. Just because its a good biological model doesn't mean that it will work for social sciences. Here is a paper that confirms my prejudices:
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| Sandewall, Örjan , Cesarini, David & Johannesson, Magnus
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| Twins-based estimates of the return to schooling feature prominently in the labor economics literature. The validity of such estimates hinges critically on the assumption that within-pair variation in schooling is explained by factors which are unrelated to wage earning ability. This paper develops a framework for testing this assumption, and finds, using a unique dataset of monozygotic twins, strong evidence against it. Differences in adolescent IQ test scores predict within-pair variation in educational attainment, and including IQ in the wage equation causes within-pair point estimates for the returns to schooling to decline significantly. Our results thus cast doubt on the validity of estimates derived from the co-twin literature. |
| http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0806&r=edu |
2 comments:
Thanks Kevin, very interesting. I've heard you mention this before. I hope this issue gets the attention it merits
One for the journal club, definitely.
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