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on Education |
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Issue of 2006‒11‒04
eight papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao Universidade da Beira Interior |
| By: | David N. Figlio; Lawrence Kenny |
| Abstract: | This paper is the first to systematically document the relationship between individual teacher performance incentives and student achievement using United States data. We combine data from the National Education Longitudinal Survey on schools, students, and their families with our own survey conducted in 2000 regarding the use of teacher incentives. This survey on teacher incentives has unique data on frequency and magnitude of merit raises and bonuses, teacher evaluation, and teacher termination. We find that test scores are higher in schools that offer individual financial incentives for good performance. Moreover, the estimated relationship between the presence of merit pay in teacher compensation and student test scores is strongest in schools that may have the least parental oversight. The association between teacher incentives and student performance could be due to better schools adopting teacher incentives or to teacher incentives eliciting more effort from teachers; it is impossible to rule out the former explanation with our cross sectional data. |
| JEL: | I2 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12627&r=edu |
| By: | Alexander Muravyev |
| Abstract: | The paper tests for the existence of human capital externalities, more precisely those stemming from higher education, using a micro-level approach: the Mincerian wage regression augmented with the average level of education in a local geographical area (city). To solve identification problems arising due to endogeneity of average education the study exploits a natural experiment provided by the process of economic transition in the former communist economies. We argue that the educational structure of cities under the central planning was determined by the government rather than the market; thus the average educational attainment in cities at the end of communism can be regarded as exogenous with respect to the wages prevailing after the start of transition. The identification strategy based on the use of the pre-transition average education is applied to data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, RLMS. Empirical results are consistent with the presence of significant human capital (educational) externalities in the Russian economy. According to the estimates, one percent increase in the college share in a city results in the increase of city residents' wages by about 1.5 percent. The result proves to be robust to several changes in the empirical specification. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital Externalities, Cities, Russia |
| JEL: | I2 J31 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp629&r=edu |
| By: | Florian Hoffmann; Philip Oreopoulos |
| Abstract: | This paper uses a new administrative dataset of students at a large university matched to courses and instructors to analyze the importance of teacher quality at the postsecondary level. Instructors are matched to both objective and subjective characteristics of teacher quality to estimate the impact of rank, salary, and perceived effectiveness on grade, dropout and subject interest outcomes. Student fixed effects, time of day and week controls, and the fact that first year students have little information about instructors when choosing courses helps minimize selection biases. We also estimate each instructor's value added and the variance of these effects to determine the extent to which any teacher difference matters to short-term academic outcomes. The findings suggest that subjective teacher evaluations perform well in reflecting an instructor's influence on students while objective characteristics such as rank and salary do not. Whether an instructor teaches full-time or part-time, does research, has tenure, or is highly paid has no influence on a college student's grade, likelihood of dropping a course or taking more subsequent courses in the same subject. However, replacing one instructor with another ranked one standard deviation higher in perceived effectiveness increases average grades by 0.5 percentage points, decreases the likelihood of dropping a class by 1.3 percentage points and increases in the number of same-subject courses taken in second and third year by about 4 percent. The overall importance of instructor differences at the university level is smaller than that implied in earlier research at the elementary and secondary school level, but important outliers exist. |
| JEL: | H52 I2 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12596&r=edu |
| By: | Colleen Donovan; David N. Figlio; Mark Rush |
| Abstract: | This paper is the first to explore the effects of school accountability systems on high-achieving students' long-term performance. Using exceptional data from a large highly-selective state university, we relate school accountability pressure in high school to a student's university-level grades and study habits. We exploit a change in the state's accountability system in 1999 that led to some schools becoming newlythreatened by accountability pressure and others becoming newly-unthreatened to identify the effects of accountability pressure. We find that an accountability system based on a low-level test of basic skills apparently led to generally reduced performance by high-achieving students, while an accountability system based on a more challenging criterion-referenced exam apparently led to improved performance in college on mathematics and other technical subjects. Both types of systems are associated with increased "cramming" by students in college. The results indicate that the nature of an accountability system can influence its effectiveness. |
| JEL: | I2 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12628&r=edu |
| By: | Rajan, Raghuram G; Zingales, Luigi |
| Abstract: | Why is underdevelopment so persistent? One explanation is that poor countries do not have institutions that can support growth. Because institutions (both good and bad) are persistent, underdevelopment is persistent. An alternative view is that underdevelopment comes from poor education. Neither explanation is fully satisfactory, the first because it does not explain why poor economic institutions persist even in fairly democratic but poor societies, and the second because it does not explain why poor education is so persistent. This paper tries to reconcile these two views by arguing that the underlying cause of underdevelopment is the initial distribution of factor endowments. Under certain circumstances, this leads to self-interested constituencies that, in equilibrium, perpetuate the status quo. In other words, poor education policy might well be the proximate cause of underdevelopment, but the deeper (and more long lasting cause) are the initial conditions (like the initial distribution of education) that determine political constituencies, their power, and their incentives. Though the initial conditions may well be a legacy of the colonial past, and may well create a perverse political equilibrium of stagnation, persistence does not require the presence of coercive political institutions. We present some suggestive empirical evidence. On the one hand, such an analysis offers hope that the destiny of societies is not preordained by the institutions they inherited through historical accident. On the other hand, it suggests we need to understand better how to alter factor endowments when societies may not have the internal will to do so. |
| Keywords: | human capital; institutions |
| JEL: | L10 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5867&r=edu |
| By: | Michel, BEINE; Frédéric, DOCQUIER (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Department of Economics); Hillel, RAPOPORT |
| Abstract: | The brain drain has long been viewed as a serious constraint on poor countries development. However, recent theoretical literature suggests that emigration prospects can raise the expected return to human capital and foster investment in education at home. This paper takes advantage of a new dataset on emigration rates by education level (Docquier and Marfouk, 2006) to examine the impact of brain drain migration on human capital formation in developing countries. We find evidence of a positive effect of skilled migration prospects on gross human capital levels in a cross-section of 127 developing countries. For each country we then estimate the net effect of the brain drain using counterfactual simulations. We find that countries combining relatively low levels of human capital and low skilled emigration rates are likely to experience a net gain, and conversely. There appears to be more losers than winners, and in addition the former tend to lose relatively more than what the latter gain. At an aggregate level however, and given that the largest developing countries are all among the winners, brain drain migration may be seen not only as increasing the number of skilled workers worldwide but also the number of such workers living in developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Brain drain, skilled migration, human capital formation, immigration policy, developing countries |
| JEL: | F22 J24 O15 |
| Date: | 2006–05–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvec:2006023&r=edu |
| By: | Frédéric, DOCQUIER (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Department of Economics); Oliver, Paddison; Pierre PESTIEAU (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)) |
| Abstract: | This paper considers a three-overlapping-generations model of endogeneous growth wherein human capital is the engine of growth. It first contrasts the ‘laissez-faire’ and the optimal solutions. Three possible accumulation regimes are distinguished. Then it discusses a standard set of tax-transfer instruments that allow for decentralization of the social optimum. Within the limits of our model, the rationale for the standard pattern of intergenerational transfers (the working-aged financing the education of the young and the pension of the old) is seriously questioned. On pure efficiency grounds, the case for generous public pensions is rather weak. |
| Keywords: | Endogenous growth, human capital, intergenerational transfers |
| JEL: | D90 H21 H52 |
| Date: | 2006–05–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvec:2006022&r=edu |
| By: | Hans-Friedrich Eckey; Christian Dreger; Matthias Türck |
| Abstract: | In this paper, the process of productivity convergence is investigated for the enlarged European Union using regional (NUTS-2) data. The Solow model extended by human capital is employed as a workhorse. Alternative strategies are proposed to control for spatial effects. All specifications confirm the presence of convergence with an annual speed between 3 and 3.5 percent towards regional steady states. Furthermore, a geographically weighted regression approach indicates a wide variation in the speed of convergence across the regions, where a higher speed is striking in particular in France and the UK. Clusters of convergence can be identified, where regions with high convergence also have high initial income levels. |
| Keywords: | Solow model, regional convergence, spatial lags, spatial filtering |
| JEL: | C21 O47 R11 R15 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp631&r=edu |