Handbook of the economics of education : volume 4 What is the value of an education Volume 4 of the Handbooks in the Economics of Education combines recent data with new methodologies to examine this and related questions from diverse perspectives. School choice and school competition educator incentives the college premium and other considerations help make sense of the investments and returns associated with education. Volume editors Eric A. Hanushek (Stanford) Stephen Machin (University College London) and Ludger Woessmann (Ifo Institute for Economic Research Munich) draw clear lines between newly emerging research on the economics of education and prior work