Gaining more education does lead to higher wages

Economists have long been asking whether increasing education leads to higher wages. In his recently published work, Matt Dickson exploits the relationship between smoking as a teenager and education choice to tease out the causal relationship. He finds that, across the distribution of education levels and the ability range, getting more education does result in a higher wage. For policy, this means that raising the participation age is a good move and – if properly enforced – should lead to tangible benefits for those affected.