Revisiting Selection in Heterogeneous Returns to College Education

再論大學教育之異質回報的選擇性

蔡淑鈴(Shu-Ling Tsai)

社會選擇 ； 自我選擇 ； 分類收益 ； 大學教育回報 ； 反事實（擬真）分析 ； social selection ； self-selection ； sorting gain ； college treatment effect ； counterfactual analysis

人文及社會科學集刊

27卷2期（2015 / 06 / 01）

323 - 360

英文

社會學家認為大學教育之異質性經濟回報是負向選擇的結果：最不可能上大學者，其回報最高。經濟學家則主張正向選擇：回報愈高者，愈可能上大學。本文說明：這兩個假設之所以看似矛盾對立，和「可觀察變數的選擇性」與「不可觀察變數的選擇性」之差別，息息相關。臺灣之實徵分析結果顯示：在九○年代初期，基於家庭背景的「負向社會選擇」與基於比較優勢原則的「正向自我選擇」可以並存，並非彼此互斥。然而，近二十年來大量擴展高等教育的結果，晚近的回報已顯著不如早期，自我選擇的分類收益有由正轉負的跡象，但負向的社會選擇依然如故。

Sociologists describe the pattern of selection in heterogeneous returns to college education as negative, in contrast to the positive selection proposed by economists. This article moves beyond such a conflicting contrast, suggesting that the contradictions between ＂selection on observables＂ and ＂selection on unobservables＂ are at the heart of the contradictions between these two selection hypotheses. Employing both sociological and econometric counterfactual approaches to estimate college treatment effects, this article shows that the negative pattern of social selection based on family background characteristics and the positive pattern of self-selection based on the principle of comparative advantage are not mutually exclusive-both patterns emerged in the early 1990s, when Taiwan's higher education systems were rationed with structural barriers. Since Taiwan's swift expansion in higher education over the last two decades, nevertheless, there have emerged signs of decline in the treatment effect for the treated, coupled with a sorting loss in the face of negative social selection.

1. Ministry of Education, ROC 2012 Educational Statistics of the Republic of China. Taiwan: Ministry of Education
2. Ashenfelter, Orley(ed.),Layard, Richard(ed.)(1986).Handbook of Labor Economics.Amsterdam:North Holland.
3. Becker, Gary S.(1964).Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education.New York:Columbia University Press.
4. Björklund, Anders,Moffitt, Robert(1987).The Estimation of Wage Gains and Welfare Gains in Self-Selection Models.The Review of Economics and Statistics,69(1),42-49.
5. Brand, Jennie E.,Xie, Yu(2010).Who Benefits Most from College? Evidence for Negative Selection in Heterogeneous Economic Returns to Higher Education.American Sociological Review,75(2),273-302.
6. Canton, Erik,de Jong, Frank(2005).The Demand for Higher Education in Netherlands: 1950-1999.Economics of Education Review,24(6),651-663.
7. Carneiro, Pedro,Hansen, Karsten T.,Heckman, James J.(2003).Estimating Distributions of Treatment Effects with an Application to the Returns to Schooling and Measurement of the Effects of Uncertainty on College Choice.International Economic Review,44(2),361-422.
8. Carneiro, Pedro,Heckman, James J.(2002).The Evidence on Credit Constraints in Post-secondary Schooling.The Economic Journal,112(482),705-734.
9. Carneiro, Pedro,Heckman, James J.,Vytlacil, Edward(2011).Estimating Marginal Returns to Education.American Economic Review,101(6),2754-2781.
10. Chan, Vei-lin,Chen, Lii-tarn,Hu, Sheng-cheng(1999).Implications of Technology and Education for Wage Dispersion: Evidence from Taiwan.The Political Economy of Taiwan's Development into the 21st Century,Chelrenham, UK:
11. Chuang, Yih-chyi,Lai, Wei-wen(2010).Heterogeneity, Comparative Advantage, and Return to Education: The Case of Taiwan.Economics of Education Review,29(5),804-812.
12. Goldin, Claudia,Katz, Lawrence F.(2008).The Race between Education and Technology.Cambridge:The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
13. Griliches, Zvi(1977).Estimating the Returns to Schooling: Some Econometric Problems.Econometrica,45(1),1-22.
14. Hanushek, Eric A.(ed.),Welch, Finis(ed.)(2006).Handbook of the Economics of Education.Amsterdam:North Holland.
15. Heckman, James J.(2001).Accounting for Heterogeneity, Diversity and General Equilibrium in Evaluating Social Programmes.The Economic Journal,111(475),F654-699.
16. Heckman, James J.(2005).The Scientific Model of Causality.Sociological Methodology,35(1),1-98.
17. Heckman, James J.(2005).Rejoinder: Response to Sobel.Sociological Methodology,35(1),135-150.
18. Heckman, James J.(2001).Micro Data, Heterogeneity, and the Evaluation of Public: Nobel Lecture.Journal of Political Economy,109(4),673-748.
19. Heckman, James J.,Robb, Richard(1986).Alternative Methods for Solving the Problem of Selection Bias in Evaluating the Impact of Treatments on Outcomes.Drawing Inferences from Self-Selected Samples,New York:
20. Heckman, James J.,Robb, Richard(1985).Alternative Methods for Evaluating the Impact of Interventions: An Overview.Journal of Econometrics,30(1-2),239-267.
21. Heckman, James J.,Urzua, Sergio,Vytlacil, Edward(2006).Understanding Instrumental Variables in Models with Essential Heterogeneity.Review of Economics and Statistics,88(3),389-432.
22. Heckman, James J.,Vytlacil, Edward(1999).Local Instrumental Variables and Latent Variable Models for Identifying and Bounding Treatment Effects.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,96(8),4730-4734.
23. Heckman, James J.,Vytlacil, Edward(2000).Local Instrumental Variables.Nonlinear Statistical Modeling: Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Symposium in Economic Theory and Econometrics: Essays in Honor of Takeshi Amemiya,Cambridge:
24. Heckman, James J.,Vytlacil, Edward(2005).Structural Equations, Treatment Effects, and Econometric Policy Evaluation.Econometrica,73(3),669-738.
25. Imbens, Guido W.,Angrist, Joshua(1994).Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects.Econometrica,62(2),467-476.
26. Liu, Jin-tan,Chou, Shin-yi,Liu, Jin-long(2006).Asymmetries in Progression in Higher Education in Taiwan: Parental Education and Income Effects.Economics of Education Review,25(6),647-658.
27. Lucas, Samuel R.(2001).Effectively Maintained Inequality: Education Transitions, Track Mobility, and Social Background Effects.American Journal of Sociology,106(6),1642-1690.
28. Mincer, Jacob(1974).Schooling, Experience, and Earnings.New York:Columbia University Press.
29. Morgan, Stephen L.,Winship, Christopher(2007).Counterfactuals and Causal Inference: Methods and Principles for Social Research.New York:Cambridge University Press.
30. Raftery, Adrian E.,Hout, Michael(1993).Maximally Maintained Inequality: Expansion, Reform, and Opportunity in Irish Education, 1921-75.Sociology of Education,66(1),41-62.
31. Roy, Andrew D.(1951).Some Thoughts on the Distribution of Earnings.Oxford Economic Paper,3(2),135-146.
32. Shavit, Yossi(ed.),Arum, Richard(ed.),Gamoran, Adam(ed.)(2007).Stratification in Higher Education: A Comparative Study.Stanford:Stanford University Press.
33. Sobel, Michael E.(2005).Discussion: The Scientific Model of Causality.Sociological Methodology,35(1),99-133.
34. Tsai, Shu-Ling,Kanomata, Nobuo(2011).Educational Expansion and Inequality of Educational Opportunity: Taiwan and Japan.Sociological Theory and Methods-Official Journal of the Japanese Association for Mathematical Sociology,26(1),179-195.
35. Tsai, Shu-Ling,Mai, Chao-Cheng(1998).Earnings Inequality in Taiwan: 1980-1992.Humanities and Social Sciences,8(4),706-718.
36. Tsai, Shu-Ling,Xie, Yu(2008).Changes in Earnings Returns to Higher Education in Taiwan since the 1990s.Population Review,47(1),1-20.
37. Tsai, Shu-Ling,Xie, Yu(2011).Heterogeneity in Returns to College Education: Selection Bias in Contemporary Taiwan.Social Science Research,40(3),796-810.
38. Willis, Robert J.,Rosen, Sherwin(1979).Education and Self-Selection.Journal of Political Economy,87(5),S7-36.
39. Xie, Yu,Brand, Jennie,Jann, Ben(2012).Estimating Heterogeneous Treatment Effects with Observational Data.Sociological Methodology,42(1),314-347.
40. Yang, Chih-hai,Lin, Chun-hung A.,Lin, Chien-ru(2011).Dynamics of Rate of Returns for Postgraduate Education in Taiwan: The Impact of Higher Education Expansion.Asia Pacific Education Review,12(3),359-371.

1. (2023)。Effects of Education-Job Match and Employee Competency on Labor Market Newcomers' Salary: A Multi-Level Analysis。教育科學研究期刊，68(4)，227-255。