Cohort Effects and the Returns to Canadian Undergraduate Education

Abstract

We use Census and National Household Survey data to generate estimates of the private rate of return to a Canadian bachelor's degree that allow for differences in earnings determination, taxes, and tuition by birth cohort. Log-earnings equation estimates that allow for cohort effects suggest that earnings equations have shifted significantly across cohorts in ways that have increased the returns to education. These effects dominate the effect of changes to taxes and tuition across the 1927–1981 birth cohorts examined. The results suggest that rate-of-return estimates based on a single cross-sectional data set underestimate the rates of return of recent cohorts.