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Author: Winship, Christopher
Resulting in 2 citations.
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Korenman, Sanders D. Winship, Christopher |
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A Reanalysis of The Bell Curve NBER Working Paper No. 5230, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1995. Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w5230 Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79 Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Keyword(s): Crime; Family Background and Culture; I.Q.; Marriage; Parents, Single; Siblings; Socioeconomic Status (SES); Welfare In The Bell Curve Herrnstein and Murray argue that a youth's intelligence (IQ) is a more important determinant of social and economic success in adulthood than is the socioeconomic status (SES) of his or her parents. Herrnstein and Murray base this conclusion on comparison of effects of IQ score (measured at ages 15 and 23) and the effects of an index of parents' SES from models of economic status, marriage, welfare use, involvement in crime, as well as several outcomes for young children. Reviewers of The Bell Curve have questioned whether Herrnstein and Murray's estimates of the effects of IQ are overstated by their use of a rather crude measure of parents' SES. Comparisons of siblings in the Herrnstein and Murray sample, a more complete and accurate way to control for family background, reveal little evidence that Herrnstein and Murray's estimates of the effects of IQ score are biased by omitted family background characteristics (with the possible exception of outcomes for young children). However, there is evidence of substantial bias due to measurement error in their estimates of the effects of parents' socioeconomic status. In addition, Herrnstein and Murray's measure of parental SES fails to capture the effects of important elements of family background (such as single-parent family structure at age 14). As a result, their analysis gives an exaggerated impression of the importance of IQ relative to parents' SES, and relative to family background more generally. Estimates based on a variety of methods, including analyses of siblings, suggest that parental family background is at least as important, and may be more important than IQ in determining socioeconomic success in adulthood. This paper is available in PDF (1578 K) format: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W5230.pdf |
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Bibliography Citation
Korenman, Sanders D. and Christopher Winship. "A Reanalysis of The Bell Curve." NBER Working Paper No. 5230, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1995. |
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Winship, Christopher |
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Education's Effect on Mental Ability Presented: Atlanta, GA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, May 2002 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: Population Association of America Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Cognitive Ability; College Education; High School Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. I use novel methods to estimate the effects of additional high school and college education on respondents' mental ability. Using the NLSY, I construct synthetic cohorts of individuals with different years of final schooling. I then use longitudinal methods to estimate what their mental ability as measured by the AFQT would have been if they had remained in school an additional year. Surprising results are obtained. For individuals in 12th grade, an additional year of schooling would increase their AFQT scores by .208 standard deviations, consistent with previous research. However, 60% of this effect is due to being presently in school, whereas on 40% is "permanent." I conclude that mental ability, at least as measured by the AFQT, appears to be like some kinds of music and athletic ability - there are large innate differences, training is critical to performance, and being "in shape" has a substantial effect on performance. |
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Bibliography Citation
Winship, Christopher. "Education's Effect on Mental Ability." Presented: Atlanta, GA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, May 2002. |