We describe procedures for Bayesian estimation and testing in cross sectional, panel data and nonlinear smooth coefficient models. The smooth coefficient model is a generalization of the partially linear or additive model wherein coefficients on linear explanatory variables are treated as...

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) we introduce and estimate various Bayesian hierarchical models that investigate the nature of unobserved heterogeneity in returns to schooling. We consider a variety of possible forms for the heterogeneity, some motivated by...

In this article we describe methods for obtaining the predictive distributions of outcome gains in the framework of a standard latent variable selection model. Although most previous work has focused on estimation of mean treatment parameters as the method for characterizing outcome gains from...

In this paper we describe methods for predicting distributions of outcome gains in the framework of a latent variable selection model. We describe such procedures for Student-t selection models and a finite mixture of Gaussian selection models. Importantly, our algorithms for fitting these...

Basic principles of Bayesian statistics and econometrics are reviewed. The topics covered include point and interval estimation, hypothesis testing, prediction, model building and choice of prior. We also review in very general terms recent advances in computational methods and illustrate the...

The decisions to attend college are analysed and nonparametric predictions compared to those obtained from the widely used logit model. The impacts of measured cognitive ability and proxies for high school quality on the decisions to attend college are examined for a sample of white and black...

Using data from both the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and High School and Beyond (HSB), we investigate if public high schools differ in the production of earnings and if rates of return to future education vary with public high school attended. Given evidence of such variation,...

In this paper, we review and unite the literatures on returns to schooling and Bayesian model averaging. We observe that most studies seeking to estimate the returns to education have done so using particular (and often different across researchers) model specifications. Given this, we review...

A broad literature seeks to assess the importance of schools, proxies for school quality, and family background on children's achievement growth using the education production function. Using rich data from the Philippines, we introduce and estimate a model that imposes little structure on the...