The Effect of Schooling on Cognitive Skills

Magnus Carlsson; Gordon B. Dahl; Björn Öckert; Dan-Olof Rooth

doi:10.1162/rest_a_00501

The Effect of Schooling on Cognitive Skills

Magnus Carlsson¹; Gordon B. Dahl²; Björn Öckert^3,4; Dan-Olof Rooth¹

¹ Linnaeus University · ² UC San Diego Health System · ³ Uppsala University · ⁴ Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2015

To identify the causal effect of schooling on cognitive skills, we exploit conditionally random variation in the date Swedish males take a battery of cognitive tests in preparation for military service. We find an extra ten days of school instruction raises scores on crystallized intelligence tests (synonyms and technical comprehension tests) by approximately 1% of a standard deviation, whereas extra nonschool days have almost no effect. In contrast, test scores on fluid intelligence tests (spatial and logic tests) do not increase with additional days of schooling but do increase modestly with age.

DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00501
Volume: 97 (3)
Pages: 533-547
Language: en
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