nep-edu New Economics Papers
on Education
Issue of 2006‒08‒26
34 papers chosen by
Joao Carlos Correia Leitao
Universidade da Beira Interior

  1. The Long Walk to School: International Education Goals in Historical Perspective By Michael Clemens
  2. EDUCATION AND SMOKING: WERE VIETNMA WAR DRAFT AVOIDERS ALSO MORE LIKELY TO AVOID SMOKING? By Franque Grimard,; Daniel Parent
  3. Rationalizing the E-Rate: The Effects of Subsidizing IT in Education By Michael R. Ward
  4. Building Schools for the Future in the United Kingdom By Mukund Patel
  5. Mind the Gap? Estimating the Effects of Postponing Higher Education By Holmlund, Bertil; Liu, Qian; Nordström Skans, Oskar
  6. Cohort Crowding: How Resources Affect Collegiate Attainment By John Bound; Sarah Turner
  7. Educational Homogamy: Preferences or Opportunities? By Helena Skyt Nielsen; Michael Svarer
  8. Creating 21st Century Learning Environments By Phan Pit Li; John Locke; Prakash Nair; Andrew Bunting
  9. Wages and the Education and Employment Choices of Young People: Empirical Analysis for Great Britain By Rice, Patricia
  10. Towards a New Consensus for Addressing the Global Challenge of the Lack of Education By Lant Pritchett
  11. Does Tax Evasion Affect Unemployment and Educational Choice? By Kolm, Ann-Sofie; Larsen, Birthe
  12. Italy's Intelligent Educational Training Station By Giorgio Ponti
  13. Ireland’s Refurbished St. John’s Central College By Sarah Mulrooney
  14. The National Maritime College of Ireland By Eamonn Greville
  15. Schooling Externalities, Technology and Productivity: Theory and Evidence from U.S. States By Giovanni Peri
  16. Structures for Learning in New Zealand By Bruce Sheerin
  17. The Return to English in a Non-English Speaking Country: Russian Immigrants and Native Israelis in Israel By Kevin Lang; Erez Siniver
  18. The Mawson Centre: Access for All to Education Services By Kelvin Trimper
  19. Planning, Designing and Managing Higher Education Institutions By William A. Daigneau; Mark S. Valenti; Sylvana Ricciarini; Stephen O. Bender; Nicole Alleyne; Michael Di Grappa; Josep M. Duart; Francisco Lupiáñez; Miguel Angel Ehrenzweig Sanchez
  20. School Property Funding in New Zealand By OECD
  21. School Facility Projects in Latin America By Jeffrey J. Berk; Rita de Cassia Alves Vaz; João Honorio; Jadille Baza; Ricardo Torres Origel; Fredys Gomez
  22. Post Occupancy Evaluation in Scotland By Chris Watson; Keith Thomson
  23. Evaluating Quality in Educational Facilities By Allen Abend; Sheila Walbe Ornstein; Emmanuel Baltas; Jaime de la Garza; Chris Watson; José Freire da Silva; Kurt Lange; Hannah von Ahlefeld
  24. The Social Capital Experience of International Students in Australia: The Wollongong Experience By Neri, Frank; Ville, Simon
  25. Ireland's Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions By Gerry O’Sullivan
  26. Social Interactions and Schooling Decisions By Rafael Lalive; Alejandra Cattaneo
  27. Dynamic Links between the Economy and Human Development By Gustav Ranis; Frances Stewart
  28. The Netherlands' Firebird School: Clusters for A Flexible Learning Environment By Susan Stuebing
  29. Towards statistical standards for children’s non economic work: A discussion based on household survey data By L.Guarcello; S.Lyon; F.Rosati; C. Valdivia
  30. Progress on Evaluating School Buildings in Scotland By Keith Thomson
  31. An Urban Renewal School Project in Italy By Giorgio Ponti
  32. Report on the external validation of the "Education and Employment Survey" on Russia By Eugeny Soroko; Dirk Konietzka
  33. School Grounds in Austria By OECD
  34. ICT and Educational Property Management By Gilbert Desmarais

  1. By: Michael Clemens
    Abstract: Raising school enrollment, like economic development in general, takes a long time. This is partly because, as a mountain of empirical evidence now shows, economic conditions and slowly- changing parental education levels determine children’s school enrollment to a greater degree than education policy interventions. A succession of international meetings has nevertheless adopted a litany of utopian international goals for universal school enrollment and gender parity in education based on the idea that a correct education policy backed by sufficient cash could achieve the goals in short order. The latest of these, the Millennium Development Goals, call for universal primary schooling and full gender parity by 2015. This work quantifies how long it has taken countries rich and poor to make the transition towards high enrollments and gender parity. There are three central lessons. First, there is a remarkable uniformity of experience in the rates of enrollment increases, a reality from which the various rounds of goals appear entirely detached. Second, many countries that have not raised enrollments fast enough to meet the goals have in fact raised enrollments extraordinarily rapidly by historical standards and deserve celebration rather than condemnation. The very few poor countries that have raised enrollment figures at the rates envisioned by the goals have done so in many cases by accepting dramatic declines in schooling quality, failing large numbers of students, or other practices that cast doubt on the sustainability or exportability of their techniques. Third, aid-supported education policies can help within limits, and their performance should be judged in the context of country-specific, historically-grounded goals. But a country’s broader development strategy outside the classroom matters much more than education policy. Length: 78 pages
    Keywords: school enrollment, parental education levels, Millennium Development Goals
    JEL: O15 I32 I21 I28
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:37&r=edu
  2. By: Franque Grimard,; Daniel Parent
    Abstract: We use the Vietnam War draft avoidance behavior documented by Card and Lemieux (2001) as a quasi-natural experiment to infer causation from education to smoking and find strong evidence that education, whether measured in years of completed schooling or in educational attainment categories, reduces the probability of smoking at the time of the interview, more particularly the probability of smoking regularly. However, while we find that more education substantially increases the probability of never smoking, there is little evidence that it helps people stop smoking, although the estimates are fairly imprecise. Potential mechanisms linking education and smoking are also explored.
    JEL: I2 I12
    Date: 2006–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcl:mclwop:2006-05&r=edu
  3. By: Michael R. Ward (University of Texas at Arlington)
    Abstract: Starting in 1998, the E-Rate program has provided $2.25 billion to subsidize Internet access in schools and libraries serving low income populations in the US. I analyze the effect of E-Rate subsidies on educational outcomes for Texas high schools over the 1994-2003 time period. Consistent with previous economic analyses, I find few, if any, improvements in student achievements. I do find evidence that experienced teachers are reallocated within districts toward schools receiving E-Rate grants. I also find evidence that the pool of college entrance exam takers is affected by E-Rate grants such that relying on average scores could lead to incorrect conclusions.
    Keywords: Education, Internet, Subsidy
    JEL: J22 L86 I22 H20
    Date: 2005–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:net:wpaper:0525&r=edu
  4. By: Mukund Patel
    Abstract: State-of-the-art school buildings can improve educational standards and have a positive effect on everyone who uses them. That is why England’s Department for Education and Skills (DfES) launched an ambitious five year strategy to improve educational facilities for all children in the country and create high quality resources for the whole community. The programme, Building Schools for the Future, is backed by a record level of investment in school infrastructure, takes into account changes needed in the educational built environment, and gives special attention to exemplar designs.
    Keywords: United Kingdom, design
    Date: 2005–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2005/2-en&r=edu
  5. By: Holmlund, Bertil (Department of Economics); Liu, Qian (Department of Economics); Nordström Skans, Oskar (Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation (IFAU))
    Abstract: This paper estimates the effects on earnings of “gap years” between high school and university enrollment. The effect is estimated by means of standard earnings functions augmented to account for gap years and a rich set of control variables using administrative Swedish data. We find that postponement of higher education is associated with a persistent and non-trivial earnings penalty. The main source of the persistent penalty appears to be the loss of work experience after studies. The reduction of lifetime earnings associated with two years postponement of higher education amounts to 40-50 percent of annual earnings at age 40.
    Keywords: timing of education; schooling interruptions; returns to work experience
    JEL: I23 J24 J31
    Date: 2006–08–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2006_017&r=edu
  6. By: John Bound; Sarah Turner
    Abstract: Analyses of college attainment typically focus on factors affecting enrollment demand, including the financial attractiveness of a college education and the availability of financial aid, while implicitly assuming that resources available per student on the supply side of the market are elastically supplied. The higher education market in the United States is dominated by public and non-profit production, and colleges and universities receive considerable subsidies from state, federal, and private sources. Because consumers pay only a fraction of the cost of production, changes in demand are unlikely to be accommodated fully by colleges and universities without commensurate increases in non-tuition revenue. For this reason, public investment in higher education plays a crucial role in determining the degrees produced and the supply of college-educated workers to the labor market. Using data covering the last half of the twentieth century, we find strong evidence that large cohorts within states have relatively low undergraduate degree attainment, reflecting less than perfect elasticity of supply in the higher education market. That large cohorts receive lower public subsidies per student in higher education explains this result, indicating that resources have large effects on degree production. Our results suggest that reduced resources per student following from rising cohort size and lower state expenditures are likely to have significant negative effects on the supply of college-educated workers entering the labor market.
    JEL: I23 H52
    Date: 2006–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12424&r=edu
  7. By: Helena Skyt Nielsen (Department of Economics, University of Aarhus); Michael Svarer (Department of Economics, University of Aarhus)
    Abstract: Individuals match on length and type of education. We investigate whether the systematic relationship between educations of partners is explained by opportunities (e.g. low search frictions) or preferences (e.g. complementarities in household production or portfolio optimization). We find that half of the systematic sorting on education is due to low search frictions in marriage markets of the educational institutions. The other half is attributed to complementarities in household production, since income properties of the joint income process show no influence on partner selection.
    Keywords: positive assortative matching on education; search frictions; hedging; complementarities in household production
    JEL: J12 J24
    Date: 2006–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuieca:2006_12&r=edu
  8. By: Phan Pit Li; John Locke; Prakash Nair; Andrew Bunting
    Abstract: What is involved in creating learning environments for the 21<sup>st</sup> century? How can school facilities serve as tools for teaching and meet the needs of students in the future? What components are required to design effective schools, and how does architecture relate to the purposes of schooling? These are some of the questions addressed at the seminar on “Creating 21<sup>st</sup> Century Learning Environments” organised by the United Kingdom’s Department for Education and Skills and the OECD Programme on Educational Building (PEB). The answers provided by four people with first-hand experience in building schools are summarised here. A development and management professional explains how the school building can serve as a three-dimensional learning tool. A school principal describes how his recently-built public school in New Zealand was designed to meet the learning needs of 21<sup>st</sup> century students. A building planner presents what he considers the essential components for developing effective facilities for tomorrow, supported by his own experience in planning schools. Finally, the director of an architectural firm defines the common purposes of secondary schooling and their relation to design.
    Keywords: environment, Australia, United States, New Zealand, design, planning, management, Singapore
    Date: 2005–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2005/10-en&r=edu
  9. By: Rice, Patricia
    Abstract: This paper examines the responsiveness of the education and employment choices of young people in Great Britain to the level of wages currently available to them in the labour market. Our results show that among young males in particular, the probability of continued participation in full-time education declines significantly as the expected wage increases. The effects for young women are smaller and not statistically significant in general. In addition, we find that the probability of being inactive – not in education, employment or training – increases also with the level of expected wage, particularly in the case of young males of lower academic ability. In the light of these findings, we assess the impact of the recent introduction of a national minimum wage for 16 and 17 year olds on education and employment decisions of young men in Great Britain Keywords; Education, employment, wages, young people JEL Classification: I21, I28
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stn:sotoec:0612&r=edu
  10. By: Lant Pritchett
    Abstract: This paper is part of the Copenhagen Consensus process, which aims to assess and evaluate the opportunities available to address the ten largest challenges facing the world. One of these ten challenges is the “lack of education.” This paper will define “lack of education,” in terms of enrollments, attainments and learning achievement. It provides an analytical framework to evaluate the various options that can be used to address this issue. Education can be described as equipping people with the range of competencies necessary to lead productive, fulfilling lives fully integrated into their societies and communities. Many of the international goals are framed exclusively around enrollment, which is merely a means towards creating competencies and learning achievement. This paper discusses the scope and options for improving people’s competencies, and describes the conditions for effective policy action.
    Keywords: education, Copenhagen Consensus process, enrollment
    JEL: O15 I21 I22
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:43&r=edu
  11. By: Kolm, Ann-Sofie (Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School); Larsen, Birthe (Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School)
    Abstract: While examining the macroeconomic effects of government tax and punishment policies, this paper develops a three-sector general equilibrium model featuring matching frictions and worker-firm wage bargaining. Workers are assumed to differ in ability, and the choice of education is determined endogenously. Job opportunities in an informal sector are available only to workers who choose not to acquire higher education. We find that increased punishment of informal activities increases the number of educated workers and reduces the number of unemployed workers. Considering welfare, we show it is optimal to choose punishment rates so to more than fully counteract the distortion created by the government’s inability to tax the informal sector.
    Keywords: Tax evasion; underground economy; education; matching; unemployment.
    JEL: H26 I21 J64
    Date: 2006–11–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cbsnow:2003_012&r=edu
  12. By: Giorgio Ponti
    Abstract: The Intelligent Educational Training Station has been developed in Italy to meet emerging school building needs. The project, for schools from the primary to upper secondary level, proposes flexible architecture for an “intelligent school” network, and was developed by CISEM, the Centre for Educational Innovation and Experimentation of Milan.
    Keywords: Italy, environment, design, energy savings
    Date: 2005–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2005/4-en&r=edu
  13. By: Sarah Mulrooney
    Abstract: St. John’s Central College, the third largest further education institution in Ireland, recently expanded and refurbished its facilities. The resulting site is more open to the community, and the new building spaces are designed in accordance with their social and academic functions.
    Keywords: tertiary, design, renovation, Ireland, vocational and technical training, further education
    Date: 2006–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2006/3-en&r=edu
  14. By: Eamonn Greville
    Abstract: The new National Maritime College of Ireland is regarded as the country’s most exciting and innovative development in maritime training and education and is the first tertiary institution to be built and operated under the government’s Public Private Partnership (PPP) model of procurement. The project is the outcome of a partnership between Cork Institute of Technology and the Irish Naval Service to deliver maritime training. Its building design reflects the studies’ sea-related theme, and the facilities allow the National Maritime College to meet the latest education requirements in the field. The college, in Ringaskiddy, County Cork, accepted its first cohort of students on 11 October 2004.
    Keywords: tertiary, financing, Ireland
    Date: 2005–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2005/7-en&r=edu
  15. By: Giovanni Peri
    Abstract: The recent literature on externalities of schooling in the U.S. is rather mixed: positive external effects of average education are hardly found at all, while often positive externalities from the share of college graduates are identified. This paper proposes a simple model to explain this fact and tests it using U.S. states data. The key idea is that advanced technologies, associated with high total factor productivity and high returns to skills, are complementary to highly educated workers, as opposed to traditional technologies, complementary to less educated. Our calibrated model predicts that workers with twelve years of schooling (high school graduates) are indifferent between traditional and advanced technologies, while more educated workers adopt the advanced technologies and benefit from the larger private and social returns associated to them. Only shifts in education above high school graduation are therefore associated with positive social returns stemming from more efficient technologies. The empirical analysis, using compulsory attendance laws, immigration of highly educated workers and the location of land-grant colleges as instruments confirm that an increase in the share of college graduates, but not an increase in the share of high school graduates, had large positive production externalities in U.S. States.
    JEL: J24 J31 O41 R11
    Date: 2006–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12440&r=edu
  16. By: Bruce Sheerin
    Abstract: The New Zealand Ministry of Education is undertaking a project to provide information that can assist schools to design quality environments that will improve student learning outcomes. The project started in 2004 with the ministry surveying boards of trustees, principals, teachers and students on what features of property design they believed were important to support students’ learning. As part of this project the ministry is identifying current design standards that need to be followed and publishing examples of best practice in design solutions. The objective of this is to encourage schools to network and learn from each other’s experience.
    Keywords: New Zealand, design
    Date: 2005–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2005/11-en&r=edu
  17. By: Kevin Lang; Erez Siniver
    Abstract: We use a unique sample of Russian immigrants and natives in Israel to examine the return to English knowledge. In cross-section estimates there is a significant return to English knowledge for both immigrants and natives with high levels of education. Language acquisition is an important element in immigrant/native earnings convergence, but most of this convergence is explained by factors other than language acquisition. These results are confirmed using panel data on wages and knowledge of Hebrew and English over time. The benefits of English knowledge vary across occupations in ways that are largely consistent with past evidence on language-skill complementarity. Natives and immigrants with high levels of education benefit similarly from knowing English. While immigrants with low levels of education do not benefit from knowledge of English, there is some evidence that native Israelis do. Conditional on occupation, the rate at which immigrants learn English and Hebrew are largely orthogonal. Therefore earlier work on the importance of knowledge of the host-country language (Hebrew) does not appear to be significantly biased by the absence of measures of English knowledge.
    JEL: J15 J24 Z13
    Date: 2006–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12464&r=edu
  18. By: Kelvin Trimper
    Abstract: In the knowledge society of the 21<sup>st</sup> century everyone – not only children but every person, enterprise and organisation – will need ongoing access to a full range of quality education and training services. This principle, often espoused by the OECD and endorsed by the ministers of education in its member countries, has driven the planning and delivery of education and training services at Mawson Lakes, a new development on the outskirts of Adelaide in South Australia. The access point for these services, The Mawson Centre, which opened in 2005, was designed for the community as a whole.
    Keywords: Australia, tertiary, design, community, campus
    Date: 2006–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2006/2-en&r=edu
  19. By: William A. Daigneau; Mark S. Valenti; Sylvana Ricciarini; Stephen O. Bender; Nicole Alleyne; Michael Di Grappa; Josep M. Duart; Francisco Lupiáñez; Miguel Angel Ehrenzweig Sanchez
    Abstract: Developed below is a selection of the ideas and case studies presented at the conference on “Planning, Designing and Managing Higher Education Institutions”, in San José, California (United States): Megatrends and myths which influence facilities management practices. The technology-enabled learning space. Natural hazard risk mitigation. The modernisation of Montreal’s Concordia University. An analysis of decision-making in integrating information and communications technology in Spanish universities. A network of library and information services units created by Mexico’s Veracruz University.
    Keywords: Mexico, Canada, security, technology, tertiary, design, libraries, Quebec, renovation, planning, management
    Date: 2005–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2005/15-en&r=edu
  20. By: OECD
    Abstract: New Zealand’s special funding system allows state schools a greater level of independence in managing their property compared to most other countries. Schools receive a fixed budget as an entitlement from the three “pots” of the educational property funding structure. The government’s unique use of accrual accounting together with a new Five-Year Property Plan agreement gives schools a high degree of certainty of the property funding available, as well as responsibility for deciding how to modernise their own buildings.
    Keywords: New Zealand, financing, maintenance, management
    Date: 2004–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2004/12-en&r=edu
  21. By: Jeffrey J. Berk; Rita de Cassia Alves Vaz; João Honorio; Jadille Baza; Ricardo Torres Origel; Fredys Gomez
    Abstract: Many Latin American countries are undertaking projects, in line with practices disseminated by PEB, to share school facilities with the local community, to adapt traditional schools for students with disabilities, and to collaborate with private companies to finance educational buildings. The articles below describe current initiatives in five countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Venezuela.
    Keywords: Mexico, Brazil, Chile, financing, community, architecture, Venezuela, Argentina, disabilities, public-private partnerships
    Date: 2004–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2004/15-en&r=edu
  22. By: Chris Watson; Keith Thomson
    Abstract: The Scottish Executive, the devolved government for Scotland, is engaging with stakeholders to achieve excellence in the school estate through Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE). Design of the school environment has a direct impact on teaching and learning, activities which can be supported or frustrated by many building elements. Through a collaborative process, evaluating new and existing facilities can benefit all those involved in educational building, from the school users, to the local authority, to designers.
    Keywords: evaluation, community
    Date: 2004–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2004/14-en&r=edu
  23. By: Allen Abend; Sheila Walbe Ornstein; Emmanuel Baltas; Jaime de la Garza; Chris Watson; José Freire da Silva; Kurt Lange; Hannah von Ahlefeld
    Abstract: In 2005, the OECD Programme on Educational Building (PEB) organised two international experts’ group meetings to discuss how countries define and evaluate quality in educational facilities. The research and experiences of six experts are presented in this article, in addition to the lessons learned from the experts’ group meetings. The director of a state construction programme describes the standards used to assess the educational adequacy of all public school facilities in the State of Maryland in the United States. A researcher presents a post-occupancy evaluation methodology used in schools in São Paulo, Brazil. Another researcher presents a data collection tool used to develop indicators on educational infrastructure in a number of municipalities in Greece. Two administrators discuss the development of norms to ensure minimum standards of quality and security in educational facilities in Mexico. Two architects present the results of a recent post-occupancy evaluation conducted in a new school in Pendão, Portugal. And an urban planner presents an international project to construct new schools in El Salvador using quality criteria.
    Keywords: Mexico, Greece, Portugal, United States, security, Brazil, standards, evaluation, post-occupancy, norms, El Salvador
    Date: 2006–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2006/1-en&r=edu
  24. By: Neri, Frank (University of Wollongong); Ville, Simon (University of Wollongong)
    Abstract: International university students arrive in their host country denuded of supporting social networks and confronting unfamiliar cultural and educational institutions, an experience that adversely impacts on their wellbeing and academic performance. Our study extends these general notions in the recent literature by investigating how, and to what extent, students renew their social networks. We adopt the social capital framework and conduct a participant survey in order to categorise and measure these different investments in clubs, employment, and friendships. Our results reveal a high degree of variability of social capital renewal between students and, among the more active, there remained a tendency to build close networks only with students from their own county of origin.
    Keywords: Social capital, international students, Wollongong Australia
    Date: 2006
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uow:depec1:wp06-19&r=edu
  25. By: Gerry O’Sullivan
    Abstract: The largest-ever evaluation of an Irish research programme has concluded that the PRTLI is “the beginning of a major and most beneficial transformation of the research landscape of Ireland that will help to install an innovation-driven economy”. The PRTLI, the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions, is managed by the country’s Higher Education Authority.
    Keywords: tertiary, financing, Ireland
    Date: 2005–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2005/3-en&r=edu
  26. By: Rafael Lalive (University of Zurich, IEW, CEPR, CESifo, IFAU and IZA Bonn); Alejandra Cattaneo (University of Zurich)
    Abstract: The aim of this paper is to study whether schooling choices are affected by social interactions. Such social interactions may be important because children enjoy spending time with other children or parents learn from other parents about the ability of their children. Identification is based on a randomized intervention that grants a cash subsidy encouraging school attendance among a sub-group of eligible children within small rural villages in Mexico. Results indicate that (i) the eligible children tend to attend school more frequently, (ii) but also the ineligible children acquire more schooling when the subsidy is introduced in their local village, (iii) social interactions are economically important, and (iv) they may arise due to changes in parents’ perception of their children’s ability.
    Keywords: peer effects, schooling, field experiment, PROGRESA
    JEL: C93 I21 I28
    Date: 2006–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2250&r=edu
  27. By: Gustav Ranis; Frances Stewart
    Abstract: This paper empirically confirms the significance of various links in each of two chains over time: from economic growth (EG) to human development (HD), including EG itself, income distribution, the social expenditure ratio and female education; from HD to EG, including HD itself, along with the investment ratio. Our most important conclusion concerns sequencing over time. EG, which is an important input into HD improvement, is itself not sustainable without such improvement, either prior or simultaneous. Therefore, traditional policy advice, which argues that HD improvements must wait until EG expansion makes it affordable, is likely to be in error.
    Keywords: human development, economic growth, comparative country studies
    JEL: O11 O15 O50
    Date: 2005–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:une:wpaper:8&r=edu
  28. By: Susan Stuebing
    Abstract: Innovative teaching methods and organisational change make new demands on our future learning environments. The Brink and the Laak Clusters are two related examples of a new type of building for a community in the Netherlands. The Firebird School (<i>Vuurvogel</i>), a primary school for students from ages 4 to 12, is currently housed in the Brink Cluster and will move to the Laak when it opens in 2006. The Firebird School’s needs and the resulting flexible building design are described here along with useful characteristics for creating flexibility in the learning environment.
    Keywords: Netherlands, flexibility, design
    Date: 2005–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2005/6-en&r=edu
  29. By: L.Guarcello; S.Lyon; F.Rosati; C. Valdivia
    Abstract: The study forms part of a broader research effort directed towards arriving eventually at an internationally acceptable consensus on the statistical definition of child labour. It looks specifically at children’s non-market activity, its classification (i.e., economic or non-economic), its impact on health and education outcomes, and at some of the issues linked to the inclusion of non-market activity in the definition of child labour. Study findings do not point to any clear causal relationship between hours in non-market activity and health status. But it was pointed out that the relationship between child work and health is very difficult to capture, both for theoretical reasons and because of lack of appropriate data, and that this finding should therefore be interpreted with caution. Findings based on panel data for China do, however, reveal a significant (negative) causal link between hours spend on non-market work and school attendance in the Chinese context. For additional countries where panel data was lacking, an experimental approach is presented for developing an "equivalence ratio", i.e., for combining hours spent on market and non-market activity based on the relative impact of each on children’s schooling. The equivalence ratio of the educational effect of market and non-market activity is found to vary substantially with the number of hours spent in each. It increased with the numbers of hours spent in non-market activity and decreased with the number of hours spent in market activities. This points to the complexity of using such an equivalence ratio for the purpose of a comprehensive definition of child labour.
    Date: 2005–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucw:worpap:16&r=edu
  30. By: Keith Thomson
    Abstract: In June 2004, the Scottish Executive published guidance on evaluating completed school building projects, <i>Building Our Future: Scotland’s School Estate</i>, as part of the School Estate Strategy; the guidance included a case study evaluation at an Edinburgh primary school (see <i>PEB Exchange</i>, no. 53, October 2004). The Executive is continuing to support evaluation work on the school estate by recently holding a post-occupancy evaluation (POE) workshop for local authorities and soon publishing a further demonstration case study, this time at secondary level, at Braes High School.
    Keywords: United Kingdom, evaluation, post-occupancy evaluation
    Date: 2006–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2006/4-en&r=edu
  31. By: Giorgio Ponti
    Abstract: The restoration of an historic school building in Battipaglia, Italy, will provide new public facilities and is hoped to boost urban renewal. The municipality of Battipaglia, in the province of Salerno, held an architectural competition for renovating the E. De Amicis Primary School and the surrounding area. The winning project, submitted by a group of Italian architects headed by Alfredo Amati, offers four main points of interest.
    Keywords: Italy, renovation
    Date: 2005–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2005/14-en&r=edu
  32. By: Eugeny Soroko (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Dirk Konietzka (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)
    Abstract: -
    Keywords: Russia, census data, data evaluation, demographic indicators, demographic surveys, economic sectors, fertility rate
    JEL: J1 Z0
    Date: 2006–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2006-028&r=edu
  33. By: OECD
    Abstract: The Austrian Institute for School and Sport Facilities (ÖISS), responsible for providing the country with guidelines, information and consultation in the field of school building, places special emphasis on school grounds. The ÖISS works to raise awareness of the importance of school grounds not only for physical activities and recreation, but also for learning, communication and the environment.
    Keywords: environment, Austria
    Date: 2005–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2005/13-en&r=edu
  34. By: Gilbert Desmarais
    Abstract: An international PEB seminar on “Information and Communications Technology and Educational Property Management” was held in Montreal, Canada, from 31 October to 3 November 2004. The aim of this seminar was to examine how information and communications technology (ICT) can be incorporated into educational property management by investigating three issues: how ICT can make educational spaces more functional and comfortable in a sustainable development perspective, how it can improve the security and protection of facilities and, lastly, how it can optimise their technical and administrative management. The participants had the opportunity to see the theories presented in each field illustrated concretely by visiting innovative institutions in Montreal and its suburbs. A brief summary of these visits is provided below.
    Keywords: Canada, technology, Quebec, management
    Date: 2005–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2005/1-en&r=edu

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