1 IntroductionJacob Mincer's human capital earnings function (Mincer, 1974) has become the “workhorse” of empirical research on the determination of earnings (Lemieux, 2006, p. 128), and continues to be frequently used. cited in the labor economics literature (Teixeira, 2007, p.133). Mincer's main idea was to include potential labor market experience in his model, in addition to age and education, as a way to explain earnings by continued investment in human capital after years of formal education. Human capital research has been challenged on several theoretical and methodological fronts since the 1970s (Teixeira, 2007, pp.62ff), but this article mainly limits its comments to the recurring assertion that additional variables must be included in the “Mincer equation” as a control. variables in its regression. The present study chooses a set of variables on theoretical grounds and then regresses the dependent variable (earnings) against them. We discuss the model and its results and conclude that the effect of education on earnings is limited. We conclude by describing alternative approaches to studying the relationship between education and earnings.2 Data and Methods The dataset is a subset of cross-sectional data from the United States National Longitudinal Survey and consists of a sample of 3,613 young men interviewed in 1976. The dependent variable (result) corresponds to earnings, expressed here as a natural logarithm of gross hourly wages in US dollars in 1976 (lnY); unrecorded values ​​are not taken into account further. The independent variables (predictors) are: the number of years of formal education in 1976 (S), the respondent's age in years in 1976, the number of years of education of each of the respondent's parents and the response ...... middle of article ......e Ability to explain the level and change of return to school', The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol.83, No.1, pp .1-12.Krein, Sheila Fitzgerald (1986), "Growing up in a single-parent family: The effect on young men's education and earnings", Family Relations, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 161-168. Lemieux, Thomas (2006), “The “Mincer Equation” Thirty Years After Education, Experience, and Earnings,” in Shoshana Grossbard, ed., Jacob Mincer: A Pioneer of Modern Labor Economics (New York: Springer), pp.127-148. Mincer, Jacob (1974), Education, Experience, and Earnings (KCL?) Stiglitz, Joseph E. (1975), “The “Screening” Theory of Education and Income Distribution,” The American Economic Review, Vol.65, No.3, pp.283-300.Teixeira, Pedro N. (2007), Jacob Mincer: A Founding Father of Modern Labor Economics (Oxford: Oxford University Press)