education in China appear to be zero. We estimate an instrumental variables fixed effects model where share of college graduates … is instrumented by the number of universities with special status and find positive external returns to education of … rural, men, and low-educated workers. This finding provides the motivation for increasing education investment in rural …

Identification of the strength of human capital externalities at the aggregate level is still not fully understood. The … existing method may yield positive or negative externalities even if wages reflect marginal social products. We propose an … approach that yields positive average human capital externalities if and only if the marginal social product of workers with …