Browse by title

Some regulatory reforms cannot be simply described by the change of a microeconomic signal, or macroeconomic instrument, leading to a specific marginal effect on social welfare. Rather, they should be represented by packages shifting a policy framework. The aim of this chapter is to discuss the theoretical foundations of the evaluation of policy framework reforms in network industries. Some potential interpretational pitfalls are identified and some guidance on carrying out econometric analyses is provided. Since the use of categorical variables has become widespread in the empirical evaluation of such reforms, methodological issues and conceptual errors that might be introduced when building numerical proxies of reforms are discussed. Some of these issues are key for the correct assessment of reforms and hence for formulating coherent policy recommendations.

The evaluation of the returns to investments in human capital has been at the core of the economics of education since the seminal work of Theodore Schultz published in 1961. The most significant methodological advances have come in parallel with more general developments in applied microeconometrics, such as the particular interest in issues of causality and unobserved heterogeneity. The new empirical findings document a widespread decline in rates of return to education over time. In this chapter we review some developments and present new international comparative results on the heterogeneity of returns to education. Apart from reviewing endogeneity and heterogeneity issues, we also pay attention to the main findings on return to early years education and returns to overeducation.