Tyler has probably just posted his best piece on educational signaling ever.  Unfortunately, I leave for vacation today, so I won’t write a detailed response.  My quick take: Tyler now tacitly admits the force of many of my arguments, so he’s retreating into meta issues that apply to all decision-making whatsoever. 

The point of my weirder hypotheticals is to open minds, not measure signaling.  When I talk about measuring private returns, I focus on normal practical decisions – what will happen to your productivity and earnings if you finish high school, college, etc.  When I talk about measuring social returns, I focus on normal policy decisions – what will happen to social output if education subsidies go up or down. 

I don’t know where these two approaches fit in Tyler’s typology, but maybe he’ll tell us.