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Journal Articles
August 2011 (Blackwell Publishing)
Article
Recent Developments in the Identification and Estimation of Production Functions of Skills
Type: Journal Articles
Authors: Flávio Cunha
ISSN: Print 0143-5671 Online:1475-5890
Volume, issue, pages: Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 297-316
JEL classification: A12
Keywords: cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills, dynamic factor analysis, endogeneity of inputs, anchoring test scores

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This paper summarises the literature on the estimation of production functions governing the process of skill formation. This literature focuses on attacking three problems. The first is the endogeneity of measures of investments. The second is the measurement error in skills and investments that are widely used in the literature. Endogeneity and measurement error

produce, in general, inconsistent estimates. The third problem is the lack of a metric for tests designed to measure skills. The fact that scores have no cardinal meaning implies that the coefficients of the production function have no economic meaning. We show that anchoring test scores on outcomes that have a natural metric produces estimates that are economically interpretable.

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