Return to Education and Work Experience in Bangladesh: An Instrumental Variable Quantile Regression Approach
- By Al Mamun; Md. Arfanuzzaman; Nusrat Jahan Nishat; Muhammad Enamul Haque; Navila Khan
- Returns to education; work experience; wage distribution; econometrics (IVQR); gender & rural–urban wage disparities; policy implications
📌 1. Project Title
Return to Education and Work Experience in Bangladesh: An Instrumental Variable Quantile Regression Approach
CPER Working Paper Series No. 06 (Published on 17 July 2025).
📊 2. Sample Size / Data Used
- Data Source: Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2016–2017 (Bangladesh)
- Type of data: Secondary, nationally representative household survey microdata
- Sample size: 9,833 observations
🤝 3. Partners
- Center for Policy and Economic Research (CPER) – the research is self‑funded and implemented independently by CPER.
👩🔬 4. Personnel (Authors / Researchers)
The project was conducted by a team of researchers:
- Al Mamun – Lead author
- Md. Arfanuzzaman – Co‑researcher
- Nusrat Jahan Nishat – Co‑researcher
- Muhammad Enamul Haque – Co‑researcher
- Navila Khan – Co‑researcher
🧠 5. Topics Covered
The study focuses on returns to education and work experience in Bangladesh with an advanced econometric approach:
- Human capital and wage outcomes: Evaluates how education and work experience influence individual earnings.
- Heterogeneity across wage distribution: Uses an Instrumental Variable Quantile Regression (IVQR) framework to capture distributional effects beyond average returns.
- Endogeneity correction: Addresses potential biases in estimating returns to schooling using parental education as an instrument.
- Gender and rural–urban wage gaps: Investigates differential effects of human capital across gender and location groups.
- Policy implications for labor markets and education: Offers evidence relevant for skills, education investment, and inequality policy.
📍 6. Location
- Bangladesh — the research uses national household survey data and analyzes wage and human capital outcomes across the country.