TY  - RPRT
        AU  - New, Sonja C. de
AU  - Schurer, Stefanie
AU  - Leung, Felix
        TI  - Testing the Validity of Item Non-Response as a Proxy for Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills
        PY  - 2015/Feb/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 8874
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp8874
        AB  - Cognitive and non-cognitive skills are important determinants of labor market outcomes, but are often unobserved. We propose a proxy for these skills derived from item non-response information and a procedure to test its validity. Exploiting a unique data-collection feature of an Australian survey, we find that fraction answered on a self-completion questionnaire fulfils all necessary requirements to be a valid proxy for cognitive skills and outperforms alternative proxies derived from paradata. Fraction answered captures a third of the effect of cognitive ability on wages and education. We provide a simple solution to reduce omitted-variable biases by up to 11%.
        KW  - paradata
KW  - item non-response
KW  - proxy-variable approach
KW  - cognitive ability
KW  - non-cognitive skills
KW  - wages
KW  - education
        ER  -