Returning to returns: Revisiting the British education evidence

We revisit the question of what is the rate of return to education in Great Britain. We make two contributions. Firstly, we re-assess the robustness of Harmon and Walker (1995), Oreopoulos (2006) and Devereux and Hart (2010) to equation specification and estimation method. Secondly, we generalize the previous IV approaches by using the month of birth in the calculation of a more accurate IV exploiting the 1947, 1963 and 1972 UK School Leaving Age reforms. Our results highlight the importance of equation specification and they provide a robust case for a 6% Rate of Return to Education for men.