Summary
This paper uses data on the earnings and personal characteristics of a sample of 73,000 nonagricultural employees in 1977 to assess the returns to education and test one particular prediction of the screening hypothesis. The results indicate that in spite of the recent rapid postcompulsory increase in enrolments the returns to education are of a similar magnitude as in other countries, although they have been depressed at the secondary level. A distinction between private and public sector pay led to the detection of diverging experience earnings profiles in the profit-maximising sector, a finding that has been interpreted as running against the prediction of the screening hypothesis.
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Psacharopoulos, G. Education and the structure of earnings in Portugal. De Economist 129, 532–545 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01460438
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01460438