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on Education |
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Issue of 2006‒11‒25
fifteen papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao Universidade da Beira Interior |
| By: | Andrea M. Weber (Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre (Department of Economics), Technische Universität Darmstadt (Darmstadt University of Technology)) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines educational outcomes of pupils selected to secondary school types by different tracking regimes in a German state: The traditional regime of streaming pupils after fourth grade of elementary school is compared to a regime in which pupils are selected into different secondary school tracks after sixth grade. Descriptive evidence demonstrates that the proportion of pupils reaching the highest level of secondary education is relatively small for those who attended later tracking schools. Additionally, the incidence of track modification is relatively frequent for schools with a high proportion of incoming pupils from the later tracking regime. However, less favorable educational outcomes of the later tracking schools are due to self-selection of relative low performers into these schools: The downward bias in estimating tracking regime effects is reduced considerably by controlling for a broad variety of socio-economic background characteristics. Corresponding regression results mainly indicate that there are no negative effects of later tracking on observed educational outcomes measured in the middle of secondary school. Regression analyses for different sub-groups suggest that the reading performance of immigrant pupils is better under the later tracking regime compared to the early tracking system. |
| Keywords: | education, segregation, streaming, tracking, identification, immigration |
| JEL: | I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tud:ddpiec:176&r=edu |
| By: | John Maluccio; John Hoddinott, International Food Policy Research Institute; Jere R. Behrman, University of Pennsylvania; Reynaldo Martorell, Emory University; Agnes R. Quisumbing, International Food Policy Research Institute; Aryeh D. Stein, Emory University |
| Abstract: | Early childhood nutrition is thought to have important effects on education, broadly defined to include various forms of learning. We advance beyond previous literature on the effect of early childhood nutrition on education in developing countries by using unique longitudinal data begun during a nutritional experiment during early childhood with educational outcomes measured in adulthood. Estimating an intent-to-treat model capturing the effect of exposure to the intervention from birth to 36 months, our results indicate significantly positive, and fairly substantial, effects of the randomized nutrition intervention a quarter century after it ended: increased grade attainment by women (1.2 grades) via increased likelihood of completing primary school and some secondary school; speedier grade progression by women; a one-quarter SD increase in a test of reading comprehension with positive effects found for both women and men; and a one-quarter SD increase on nonverbal cognitive tests scores. There is little evidence of heterogeneous impacts with the exception being that exposure to the intervention had a larger effect on grade attainment and reading comprehension scores for females in wealthier households. The findings are robust to an array of alternative estimators of the standard errors and controls for sample attrition |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:0614&r=edu |
| By: | Mohammad Niaz Asadullah (SKOPE, Department of Economics, University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents the regional divide in educational facilities between East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and West Pakistan between 1947 and 1971. During this period, the total number of primary schools in East Pakistan declined, leading to overcrowding of existing schools and classrooms. On the other hand, despite being endowed with fewer schools, West Pakistan surpassed East Pakistan in the total number of primary schools, and in teacher–student ratios. This evident educational disparity, we argue, cannot be attributed to regional differences in school age population, school types, the quality and unit cost of schooling. Rather, this problem is examined in terms of the hypothesis of ‘discrimination’ as an alternate explanation. |
| JEL: | I20 N35 N95 |
| Date: | 2006–11–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nuf:esohwp:_063&r=edu |
| By: | Christian Belzil (GATE CNRS); Marco Leonardi (Università di Milano) |
| Abstract: | Using unique Italian panel data, in which individual differences in behavior toward risk are measured from answers to a lottery question, we investigate if (and to what extent) risk aversion can explain differences in schooling attainments. We formulate the schooling decision process as a reduced-form dynamic discrete choice. The model is estimated with a degree of flexibility virtually compatible with semiparametric likelihood techniques. We analyze how grade transition from one level to the next varies with preference heterogeneity (risk aversion), parental human capital, socioeconomic variables and persistent unobserved (to the econometrician) heterogeneity. We present evidence that schooling attainments decrease with risk aversion, but despite a statistically significant effect, differences in attitudes toward risk account for a modest portion of the probability of entering higher education. Differences in ability(ies) and in parental human capital are much more important. in the most general version of the model, the likelihood function is the joint probability of schooling attainments, and post-schooling wealth and risk aversion. |
| Keywords: | dynamic discrete choices, éducation, human capital, risk aversion |
| JEL: | J24 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:0607&r=edu |
| By: | Barnett, W. Steven; Belfield, Clive R. |
| Abstract: | Steven Barnett and Clive Belfield examine the effects of preschool education on social mobility in the United States. They note that under current policy three- and four-year-old children from economically and educationally disadvantaged families have higher preschool attendance rates than other children. But current programs fail to enroll even half of poor three-and four-year olds. Hispanics and children of mothers who drop out of school also participate at relatively low rates. The programs also do little to improve learning and development. Barnett and Belfield point out that preschool programs raise academic skills on average, but do not appear to have notably different effects for different groups of children, and so do not strongly enhance social mobility. In such areas as crime, welfare, and teen parenting, however, preschool seems more able to break links between parental behaviors and child outcomes. Increased investment in preschool, conclude Barnett and Belfield, could raise social mombility. Program expansions targeted to disadvantaged children would help them move up the ladder, as would a more universal set of policies from which disadvantaged children gained disproportionately. Increasing the educational effectiveness of early childhood programs would provide for greater gains in social mobility than increasing participation rates alone. The authors observe that if future expansions of preschool programs end up serving all children, not just the poorest, society as a whole would gain. Benefits would exceed costs and there would be more economic growth, but relative gains for disadvantaged children would be smaller than absolute gains because there would be some (smaller) benefits to other children. |
| Keywords: | early childhood education; social mobility; benefit/cost analyses; income disparity; disadvantaged children |
| JEL: | I28 H31 J6 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:858&r=edu |
| By: | Monteiro, Henrique; Ferreira Lopes, Alexandra |
| Abstract: | In this article we perform a comparative analysis of the study plans of Economics undergraduate degrees between Portugal and the best European institutions, for the school year 2004-2005. The analysis indicates a lower flexibility of Portuguese undergraduate courses, with a greater proportion of required disciplines and less electives offered. The study provides significant evidence on the essential courses to include in the study plans of future undergraduate Economics degrees in Portugal, with a reduced length of three years and about their required or optional nature. |
| Keywords: | Economics Education; Bologna Process; Study Plans' Flexibility; Portugal; Europe |
| JEL: | A12 A22 |
| Date: | 2005–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:770&r=edu |
| By: | Betsey Stevenson |
| Abstract: | Previous research has found that male high school athletes experience better outcomes than non-athletes, including higher educational attainment, more employment, and higher wages. Students self-select into athletics, however, so these may be selection effects rather than causal effects. To address this issue, I examine Title IX which provides a unique quasiexperiment in female athletic participation. Between 1972 and 1978, U.S. high schools rapidly increased their female athletic participation rates (to approximately the same level as their male athletic participation rates) in order to comply with Title IX. This paper uses variation in the level of boys' athletic participation across states before Title IX as an instrument for the change in girls' athletic participation over the 1970s. Analyzing differences in outcomes for both the pre- and post-Title IX cohorts across states, I find that a 10 percentage point rise in state-level female sports participation generates a 1 percentage point increase in female college attendance and a 1 to 2 percentage point rise in female labor force participation. Furthermore, greater opportunities to play sports leads to greater female participation in previously male-dominated occupations, particularly for high-skill occupations. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2006-44&r=edu |
| By: | John Maluccio; John Hoddinott, International Food Policy Research Institute; Jere R. Behrman, University of Pennsylvania; Reynaldo Martorell, Emory University; Erica Soler-Hampejsek, University of Pennsylvania; Aryeh D. Stein, Emory University; Emily L. Behrman, University of Pennsylvania; Manuel Ramirez-Zea, Institute of Nutrition for Central America and Panama |
| Abstract: | Most investigations of the importance of and the determinants of adult cognitive skills assume that (a) they are produced primarily by schooling and (b) schooling is statistically predetermined. But these assumptions may lead to misleading inferences about impacts of schooling and of pre-schooling and post-schooling experiences on adult cognitive skills. This study uses an unusually rich longitudinal data set collected over 35 years in Guatemala to investigate production functions for adult (i) reading-comprehension and (ii) nonverbal cognitive skills as dependent on behaviorally-determined pre-schooling, schooling and post-schooling experiences. Major results are: (1) Schooling has significant and substantial impact on adult reading comprehension (but not on adult nonverbal cognitive skills)—but estimates of this impact are biased upwards substantially if there are no controls for behavioral determinants of schooling in the presence of persistent unobserved factors such as genetic endowments and/or if family background factors that appear to be correlated with genetic endowments are included among the first-stage instruments. (2) Both pre-schooling and post-schooling experiences have substantial significant impacts on one or both of the adult cognitive skill measures that tend to be underestimated if these pre- and post-schooling experiences are treated as statistically predetermined—in contrast to the upward bias for schooling, which suggests that the underlying physical and job-related components of genetic endowments are negatively correlated with those for cognitive skills. (3) The failure in most studies to incorporate pre- and post-schooling experiences in the analysis of adult cognitive skills or outcomes affected by adult cognitive skills is likely to lead to misleading over-emphasis on schooling relative to these pre-and post-schooling experiences. (4) Gender differences in the coefficients of the adult cognitive skills production functions are not significant, suggesting that most of the fairly substantial differences in adult cognitive skills favoring males on average originate from gender differences in schooling attainment and in experience in skilled jobs favoring males. These four sets of findings are of substantial interest in themselves. But they also have important implications for broader literatures, reinforcing the importance of early life investments in disadvantaged children in determining adult skills and options, pointing to limitations in the cross-country growth literature of using schooling of adults to represent human capital, supporting hypotheses about the importance of childhood nutrition and work complexity in explaining the “Flynn effect” of substantial increases in measured cognitive skills over time, and questioning the interpretation of studies that report productivity impacts of cognitive skills without controlling for the endogeneity of such skills. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:0615&r=edu |
| By: | Cuong Le Van (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne); Manh-Hung Nguyen (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne); Laurent Thai Bao Luong (CEPN, Université Paris 13) |
| Abstract: | We consider a developing country with three sectors in economy : consumption goods, new technology and education. Productivity of the consumption goods sector depends on new technology and skilled labor used for production of the new technology. We show that there might be three stages in the process of economic growth. In the first stage the country concentrates on production of consumption goods ; in the second stage it requires the country to import both physical capital to produce consumption goods and new technology capital to produce new technology ; and finally, the last stage is one where the country needs, additionally to investment activities in the previous stage, to invest the training and education of high skilled labor. |
| Keywords: | Optimal growth model, new technology capital, human capital, developing country. |
| JEL: | D51 E13 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:wpsorb:b06065&r=edu |
| By: | Betsey Stevenson |
| Abstract: | This paper considers how divorce law alters the incentives for couples to invest in their marriage, focusing on the impact of unilateral divorce laws on investments in new marriages. Differences across states between 1970 and 1980 provide useful quasi-experimental variation with which to consider incentives to invest in several types of marriage-specific capital: spouse's education, children, household specialization, and home ownership. I find that adoption of unilateral divorce--regardless of the prevailing property-division laws--reduces investment in all types of marriage-specific capital considered except home ownership. In contrast, results for home ownership depend on the underlying property division laws. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2006-43&r=edu |
| By: | Yaz Terajima |
| Abstract: | The author quantitatively studies the interaction between education and occupation choices and its implication for the relationship between the changes in earnings inequality and the changes in wealth inequality in the United States over the 1983–2001 period. Among households whose head is a college graduate, the ratio of average household earnings between the self-employed and workers increased by 57 per cent. At the same time, the ratio of the average household wealth increased by 137 per cent. These findings suggest that both earnings and wealth inequality increased over this period. Did this change in relative average earnings lead to the change in relative average wealth? The author builds on a model of wealth distribution to include education and occupation choices, where earnings opportunities are dictated by productivity processes that are education-occupation specific. By calibrating these productivity processes to match the earnings observations separately for 1983 and 2001, the author quantitatively derives the model-implied changes in wealth inequality between different education-occupation groups of households. The results show that this exercise leads to one-third of the change in the relative average wealth between college self-employed and college worker households. |
| Keywords: | Economic models; Labour markets |
| JEL: | D31 I21 J23 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:06-40&r=edu |
| By: | Sullivan, Paul |
| Abstract: | This paper examines career choices using a dynamic structural model that nests a job search model within a human capital model of occupational and educational choices. Individuals in the model decide when to attend school and when to move between firms and occupations over the course of their career. Workers search for suitable wage and non-pecuniary match values at firms across occupations given their heterogeneous skill endowments and preferences for employment in each occupation. Over the course of their careers workers endogenously accumulate firm and occupation specific human capital that affects wages differently across occupations. The parameters of the model are estimated with simulated maximum likelihood using data from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The structural parameter estimates reveal that both self-selection in occupational choices and mobility between firms account for a much larger share of total earnings and utility than the combined effects of firm and occupation specific human capital. Eliminating the gains from matching between workers and occupations would reduce total wages by 30%, eliminating the gains from job search would reduce wages by 19%, and eliminating the effects of firm and occupation specific human capital on wages would reduce wages by only 2.7%. |
| Keywords: | occupational choice; job search; human capital; dynamic programming models |
| JEL: | I21 J62 J24 |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:861&r=edu |
| By: | Christopher H. Wheeler; Elizabeth A. La Jeunesse |
| Abstract: | Human capital tends to have significant external effects within local markets, increasing the average income of individuals within the same metropolitan area. However, evidence on both human capital spillovers and peer effects in neighborhoods suggests that these effects may be confined to relatively small areas. Hence, the distribution of income gains from average levels of human capital should depend on how that human capital is distributed throughout a city. This paper explores this issue by documenting the extent to which college graduates are residentially segregated across more than 165000 block groups in 359 U.S. metropolitan areas over the period 1980-2000. Using three different metrics, we find that the segregation of college graduates rose between 1980 and 2000. We also find that cities which experienced larger increases in their levels of segregation also experienced larger increases in income inequality, although our results suggest that inequality and segregation likely influence each other. |
| Keywords: | Human capital ; Income distribution |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2006-055&r=edu |
| By: | Keith A. Bender; John S. Heywood |
| Abstract: | Using the Survey of Doctoral Recipients, the magnitude and consequences of job mismatch are estimated for Ph.D.s in science. Approximately one-sixth of academics and nearly one-half of nonacademics report some degree of mismatch. The influence of job mismatch is estimated for three job outcomes: earnings, job satisfaction and turnover. Surprisingly large and robust influences emerge. Mismatch is associated with substantially lower earnings, lower job satisfaction and a higher rate of turnover. These results persist across a variety of specifications and hold for both academics and nonacademics. Estimates of the determinants of mismatch indicate that older workers and those in rapidly changing disciplines are more likely to be mismatched and there is a suggestion that women are more likely to be mismatched. |
| JEL: | J24 J28 J44 |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12693&r=edu |
| By: | Baldini, Nicola |
| Abstract: | Starting from a review of more than 50 papers, this work will present a detailed overview of threats stemming from university patenting activity, then it will draw some policy implications and it will conclude with some suggestions for further research. |
| Keywords: | university patents; entrepreneurial university; open science; secrecy |
| JEL: | O31 |
| Date: | 2006–03–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:853&r=edu |