Schooling, Literacy and Individual Earnings (Highlights) - ARCHIVED

Direct measures of skill attainment such as the International Adult Literacy Survey are used to assess the importance of educational outcome skills such as literacy in determining labour market outcomes such as earnings. Policy makers also use them to direct resources most efficiently. However, these skill measures are the product of complex statistical procedures. This paper examines the mathematical robustness of the International Adult Literacy Survey measures against other possibilities in estimating the impact of literacy on individual earnings.