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on Education |
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Issue of 2006‒10‒14
thirteen papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao Universidade da Beira Interior |
| By: | Alexis Leon |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pit:wpaper:199&r=edu |
| By: | Duflo, Esther; Dupas, Pascaline; Kremer, Michael; Sinei, Samuel |
| Abstract: | The authors report results from a randomized evaluation comparing three school-based HIV/AIDS interventions in Kenya: (1) training teachers in the Kenyan Government ' s HIV/AIDS-education curriculum; (2) encouraging students to debate the role of condoms and to write essays on how to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS; and (3) reducing the cost of education. Their primary measure of the effectiveness of these interventions is teenage childbearing, which is associated with unprotected sex. The authors also collected measures of knowledge, attitudes, and behavior regarding HIV/AIDS. After two years, girls in schools where teachers had been trained were more likely to be married in the event of a pregnancy. The program had little other impact on students ' knowledge, attitudes, and behavior, or on the incidence of teen childbearing. The condom debates and essays increased practical knowledge and self-reported use of condoms without increasing self-reported sexual activity. Reducing the cost of education by paying for school uniforms reduced dropout rates, teen marriage, and childbearing. |
| Keywords: | Tertiary Education,Primary Education,Education For All,Population Policies,Teaching and Learning |
| Date: | 2006–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4024&r=edu |
| By: | Al-Samarrai, Samer; Bennell, Paul |
| Abstract: | Anecdotal evidence and generalisations abound concerning the employment outcomes of secondary school and university leavers, but there is very little solid, accurate information on what these groups in African countries do after they have completed their education. Using tracer surveys, this paper presents comprehensive time-series information on the activity profiles of representative samples of secondary school leavers and university graduates in Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The paper shows that much of the anecdotal evidence surrounding the labour market outcomes of these groups is spurious. While employment outcomes are generally much better than expected, the tracer surveys highlight the enormous challenges of educating and subsequently utilising secondary school leavers and university graduates in an efficient and effective manner in low-income African countries. In particular, given the paucity of new employment opportunities in the formal sector, much more needs to be done in order to ensure that both these groups are better prepared for productive self-employment, especially in high growth and higher skill activities. |
| Keywords: | education; labour markets; further education and training; tracer surveys |
| JEL: | I2 J62 J0 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:128&r=edu |
| By: | Budria, Santiago; Telhado-Pereira, Pedro |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the connection between education and wage inequality in nine European countries. We exploit the quantile regression technique to calculate returns to lower secondary, upper secondary and tertiary education at different points of the wage distribution. We find that in most countries returns to tertiary education are highly increasing when moving from the lower to the upper quantiles. This finding suggests that an educational expansion towards tertiary education is expected to increase overall within-groups inequality in Europe. In turn, returns to secondary education are quite homogeneous across quantiles, suggesting that an educational expansion towards secondary education is expected to have only a limited impact on within-groups dispersion. Using data from the last decades, we describe changes in the conditional wage distribution of the surveyed countries. A common feature in Europe is that over the last years wage dispersion increased within the high educated. |
| Keywords: | Returns to education; Quantile regression; Wage inequality |
| JEL: | C29 D31 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:91&r=edu |
| By: | Bell, Clive; Bruhns, Ramona; Gersbach, Hans |
| Abstract: | The AIDS epidemic threatens Kenya with a long wave of premature adult mortality, and thus with an enduring setback to the formation of human capital and economic growth. To investigate this possibility, the authors develop a model with three overlapping generations, calibrate it to the demographic and economic series from 1950 until 1990, and then perform simulations for the period ending in 2050 under alternative assumptions about demographic developments, including the counterfactual in which there is no epidemic. Although AIDS does not bring about a catastrophic economic collapse, it does cause large economic costs-and many deaths. Programs that subsidize post-primary education and combat the epidemic are both socially profitable-the latter strikingly so, due to its indirect effects on the expected returns to education-and a combination of the two interventions profits from a modest long-run synergy effect. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Primary Education,Education For All,Adolescent Health,Economic Theory & Research |
| Date: | 2006–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4025&r=edu |
| By: | Maluccio, John A.; Hoddinott, John; Behrman, Jere R.; Martorell, Reynaldo; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Stein, Aryeh D. |
| Abstract: | "Studies have shown that malnourished children in developing countries score lower on tests of cognitive function and fail to acquire fine motor skills at the normal rate. Do the effects of nourishment—good or bad—in early childhood linger into adolescence and adulthood, or do they fade away after a few years? This paper provides new evidence of the effects of early childhood nutritional interventions on adult outcomes, using longitudinal data and methods well suited to address the concerns that have been raised about earlier studies." from Text |
| Keywords: | malnutrition, Children, Education, Nutrition, |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:fcndbr:207&r=edu |
| By: | Juanna Schrøter Joensen; Helena Skyt Nielsen (School of Economics and Management, University of Aarhus, Denmark) |
| Abstract: | Outsourcing of jobs to low-wage countries has increased the focus on the accumulation of skills - such as Math skills - in high-wage countries. In this paper, we exploit a high school pilot scheme to identify the causal effect of advanced high school Math on labor market outcomes. The pilot scheme reduced the costs of choosing advanced Math because it allowed for at more flexible combination of Math with other courses. We find clear evidence of a causal relationship between Math and earnings for the students who are induced to choose Math after being exposed to the pilot scheme. The effect partly stems from the fact that these students end up with higher education. |
| Keywords: | Math, High School Curriculum, Instrumental Variable, Local Average Treatment Effect. |
| JEL: | I20 J24 |
| Date: | 2006–10–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:aarhec:2006-11&r=edu |
| By: | Larry Isaac; Rick Mattoon; Laura Melle |
| Abstract: | Richard K. Lester feels that colleges and universities, because they are immobile, can replace local institutions whose leadership has been eroded by globalization. However, university attempts to improve the regional economy must be well-planned. North Dakota clearly illustrates benefits of a strategic approach to university and college interaction with the economy. This paper examines the degree to which their Higher Education Roundtable fits into the specific model of engagement proposed by Lester. Much of the specificity of the North Dakota plan came in the implementation, which has been guided by specific accountability measures. Because such measures can not only reflect priorities but also set them, this paper evaluates the new initiatives in North Dakota with an independent set of metrics that assess university efforts to foster innovation. While the two sets of metrics are largely compatible, North Dakota University System does not evaluate qualitative goals throughout the university system. This paper argues that qualitative outputs from higher education are often under reported in assessments of economic and social benefits attributed to universities and colleges. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-06-08&r=edu |
| By: | Behrman, Jere R.; Murphy, Alexis; Quisumbing, Agnes; Ramakrishna, Usha; Young, Kathyrn |
| Abstract: | The ages of first union and of first parenting are of considerable interest, not only because of their implications for individual welfare and well-being over the life cycle, but also because they are strongly associated with fertility patterns that are thought to have important implications for the broader society. But the many positive associations between schooling attainment and ages of first union and first parenting do not mean that increasing education causes increases in ages of first union and first parenting. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the impact of schooling on ages of first union and first parenting using data collected over 35 years in Guatemala. It advances beyond the previous literature by (1) treating schooling as behaviorally-determined, which changes the estimated schooling impacts considerably in a number of cases, tending to result in stronger positive effects of schooling for females and weaker ones for males; (2) including other aspects of individuals ' human capital and parental family background, which in some cases changes the estimated impact of schooling attainment a fair amount; and (3) including outcomes, additional to ages of first union and first parenting, such as union partner ' s human capital and union partner ' s family ' s social and economic status, which enriches the understanding of the multiple effects that schooling attainment has on the processes under study. |
| Keywords: | Population & Development,Health Monitoring & Evaluation,Population Policies,Science Education,Scientific Research & Science Parks |
| Date: | 2006–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4023&r=edu |
| By: | Michael Creel; Montserrat Farell Ferrer |
| Abstract: | Abstract We re-examine the theoretical concept of a production function for cognitive achievement, and argue that an indirect production function that depends upon the variables that constrain parents' choices is both more tractable from an econometric point of view, and more interesting from an economic point of view than is a direct production function that depends upon a detailed list of direct inputs such as number of books in the household. We estimate flexible econometric models of indirect production functions for two achievement measures from the Woodcock-Johnson Revised battery, using data from two waves of the Child Development Supplement to the PSID. Elasticities of achievement measures with respect to family income and parents' educational levels are positive and significant. Gaps between scores of black and white children narrow or remain constant as children grow older, a result that differs from previous findings in the literature. The elasticities of achievement scores with respect to family income are substantially higher for children of black families, and there are some notable difference in elasticities with respect to parents' educational levels across blacks and whites. |
| Keywords: | education; cognitive achievement; test score gaps |
| JEL: | D13 I20 J15 J24 |
| Date: | 2006–10–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aub:autbar:670.06&r=edu |
| By: | Budria, Santiago |
| Abstract: | International research has shown that schooling enhances within-groups wage dispersion. This assessment is typically based on private sector data and, up to date, the inequality implications of schooling have not been documented for the public sector. This paper uses recent data from eight European countries to explicitly take into account differences between the private and public sectors. Using quantile regression, the paper describes the effects of schooling on the location and shape of the conditional wage distribution in each sector. While the average impact of schooling on wages is similar across sectors, the impact of schooling on within-groups dispersion is found to be substantially larger in the private sector than in the public sector. This finding warns that the effects of the European educational expansion on overall within-groups dispersion may be lower than previously thought. |
| Keywords: | Returns to schooling; Quantile regression; Within-groups wage inequality |
| JEL: | I21 D31 |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:90&r=edu |
| By: | Porzecanski, Arturo C. |
| Abstract: | Economists have always been interested in the workings of the financial markets, but most of them neither seek nor get the opportunity to work in a financial institution as a professional economist. Here we detail how (a minority of) economists became involved in the financial markets, and what that professional involvement has entailed, in order to come up with implications for economists who are considering working in the financial markets as well as for the universities that provide training for future economists. |
| Keywords: | Economists; financial markets; education |
| JEL: | A11 |
| Date: | 2006–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:106&r=edu |
| By: | MarkL. Hoekstra |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pit:wpaper:239&r=edu |