Things Have Changed.

This study examines the developments in educational attainment and education returns of wage earners in Thailand over the period 1994-2002. In so doing, several potential weaknesses of previous studies on the topic -- as well as, more generally, applied econometrics analyses -- are addressed. One contribution of this paper is to gather and re-emphasize the importance of several important estimation issues frequently overlooked by researchers. The results imply that the returns to education in Thailand over the period are substantial, peaking in 2000. Taking into account the possible endogeneity of education using household fixed effects, education returns are substantially dampened, relative to the baseline ordinary least squares estimates. This indicates that previous studies for Thailand and elsewhere -- when not taking endogeneity into account -- may have overestimated the returns to education substantially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]