Journal of Economic Perspectives
ISSN 0895-3309 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7965 (Online)
Priceless: The Nonpecuniary Benefits of Schooling
Journal of Economic Perspectives
vol. 25,
no. 1, Winter 2011
(pp. 159–84)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
Increasing wealth provides key motivation for students to forgo earnings and struggle through exams. But, as we argue in this paper, schooling generates many experiences and affects many dimensions of skill that, in turn, affect central aspects of individuals' lives. Schooling not only affects income, but also the degree to which one enjoys work, as well as one's likelihood of being unemployed. It leads individuals to make better decisions about health, marriage, and parenting. It also improves patience, making individuals more goal-oriented and less likely to engage in risky behavior. Schooling improves trust and social interaction, and may offer substantial consumption value to some students. We discuss various mechanisms to explain how these relationships may occur independent of wealth effects and present evidence that nonpecuniary returns to schooling are at least as large as pecuniary ones. Ironically, one explanation why some early school leavers miss out on these high returns is that they lack the very same decision-making skills that more schooling would help improve.Citation
Oreopoulos, Philip, and Kjell G. Salvanes. 2011. "Priceless: The Nonpecuniary Benefits of Schooling." Journal of Economic Perspectives 25 (1): 159–84. DOI: 10.1257/jep.25.1.159Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- I21 Analysis of Education
- I28 Education: Government Policy
- J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Social and Economic Stratification