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on Education |
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Issue of 2008‒02‒09
seventeen papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of the Beira Interior |
| By: | Christian N. Brinch, Bernt Bratsberg and Oddbjørn Raaum (Statistics Norway) |
| Abstract: | The national Norwegian school reform of 1994, which gave statutory right to at least three years of upper secondary education, had a significant impact on educational attainment among immigrant youth. In particular, we find that the immigrant transition rate from compulsory schooling to completion of the first year of upper secondary education improved from the pre- to the post-reform period. Using a sequential binomial logit framework, we present evidence that the improvement can be attributed to reductions in capacity constraints, rather than cohort heterogeneity. An important implication is that non-targeted educational reforms may have large impacts on the educational attainment of disadvantaged groups in general and ethnic minority youth in particular. |
| Keywords: | schooling transitions; immigrant youth; reform effects |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:528&r=edu |
| By: | Tyler, John (Brown University); Lofstrom, Magnus (Public Policy Institute of California) |
| Abstract: | We use data from the Texas Schools Microdata Panel (TSMP) to examine the extent to which dropouts use the GED as a route to post-secondary education. The paper develops a model pointing out the potential biases in estimating the effects of taking the “GED path” to postsecondary education. Lacking suitable instruments that would allow us to directly address potential biases, our approach is to base our estimates on a set of academically “at risk” students who are very similar in the 8th grade. We observe that the eventual high school graduates in this group have much better postsecondary education outcomes than do the similar at-risk 8th graders who dropped out and obtained a GED. Our model explains the observed differences, and allows for a discussion of the policy challenges inherent in improving the postsecondary outcomes of dropouts. |
| Keywords: | GED, dropouts, post-secondary education |
| JEL: | I2 J18 |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3297&r=edu |
| By: | Devereux, Paul (University College Dublin); Hart, Robert A. (University of Stirling) |
| Abstract: | Do students benefit from compulsory schooling? Researchers using changes in compulsory schooling laws as instruments have typically estimated very high returns to additional schooling that are greater than the corresponding OLS estimates and concluded that the group of individuals who are influenced by the law change have particularly high returns to education. That is, the Local Average Treatment Effect (LATE) is larger than the average treatment effect (ATE). However, studies of a 1947 British compulsory schooling law change that impacted about half the relevant population have also found very high instrumental variables returns to schooling (about 15%), suggesting that the ATE of schooling is also very high and higher than OLS estimates suggest. We utilize the New Earnings Survey Panel Data-set (NESPD), that has superior earnings information compared to the datasets previously used and find instrumental variable estimates that are small and much lower than OLS. In fact, there is no evidence of any positive return for women and the return for men is in the 4-7% range. These estimates provide no evidence that the ATE of schooling is very high. |
| Keywords: | compulsory schooling, return to education |
| JEL: | J01 |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3305&r=edu |
| By: | James J. Heckman (University of Chicago); Lance J. Lochner (University of Western Ontario); Petra E. Todd (University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | The internal rate of return to schooling is a fundamental economic parameter that is often used to assess whether expenditure on education should be increased or decreased. This paper considers alternative approaches to estimating marginal internal rates of return for different schooling levels. We implement a general nonparametric approach to estimate marginal internal rates of return that take into account tuition costs, income taxes and nonlinearities in the earnings-schooling-experience relationship. The returns obtained by the more general method differ substantially from Mincer returns in levels and in their evolution over time. They indicate relatively larger returns to graduating from high school than from graduating from college, although both have been increasing over time. |
| JEL: | C31 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwo:hcuwoc:20082&r=edu |
| By: | James J. Heckman; Lance J. Lochner; Petra E. Todd |
| Abstract: | The internal rate of return to schooling is a fundamental economic parameter that is often used to assess whether expenditure on education should be increased or decreased. This paper considers alternative approaches to estimating marginal internal rates of return for different schooling levels. We implement a general nonparametric approach to estimate marginal internal rates of return that take into account tuition costs, income taxes and nonlinearities in the earnings-schooling-experience relationship. The returns obtained by the more general method differ substantially from Mincer returns in levels and in their evolution over time. They indicate relatively larger returns to graduating from high school than from graduating from college, although both have been increasing over time. |
| JEL: | C31 |
| Date: | 2008–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13780&r=edu |
| By: | Kathrin Bertschy; Alejandra Cattaneo (Socioeconomic Institute, University of Zurich); Stefan C. Wolter (Institute of Economics, University of Berne) |
| Abstract: | The transition from school-to-work has been a burning issue in most countries for the last decades. So far research on this topic has not been conclusive, and it is still not clear whether transition problems are just individual, linked to the type of education followed at uppersecondary level, or just a prolongation of problems arising from poor school performance during compulsory education. This paper uses a unique Swiss longitudinal data-set, which includes information on PISA 2000 scores and the pathways chosen after completing compulsory school. Descriptive results show that students in vocational training, who obtained lower PISA results, are significantly more likely to be in an inadequate employment situation two years after finishing vocational training. Further analysis shows, however, that it is the type of vocational training followed at upper-secondary level that is decisive for the success in the transition. Nevertheless, individual PISA scores have an indirect impact on the transition results, as they are an important factor explaining which pupils are more likely to get into an intellectually demanding vocational training and which ones are not. |
| Keywords: | PISA, transition, vocational training |
| JEL: | I2 J24 |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:educat:0013&r=edu |
| By: | Sheila Marnie; Leonardo Menchini |
| Abstract: | Young people go through several transitions in their path from childhood to adulthood: in education, work, family formation, health and citizenship. This paper focuses on the transition from school to labour market for the generation of young people in CEE/CIS who experienced the most turbulent years of the transition in their formative years. |
| Keywords: | transition from school to work; transitional economies; youth;; Baltic States; Eastern Europe; Russia; |
| JEL: | I31 P36 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucf:indipa:indipa07/1&r=edu |
| By: | Servaas Van der Berg |
| Abstract: | Massive differentials on achievement tests and examinations reflect South Africa’s divided past. Improving the distribution of educational outcomes is imperative to overcome labour market inequalities. Historically white and Indian schools still outperform black and coloured schools in examinations, and intraclass correlation coefficients (rho) reflect far greater between-school variance compared to overall variance than for other countries. SACMEQ’s rich data sets provide new possibilities for investigating relationships between educational outcomes, socio-economic status (SES), pupil and teacher characteristics, school resources and school processes. As a different data generating process applied in affluent historically white schools (test scores showed bimodal distributions), part of the analysis excluded such schools, sharply reducing rho. Test scores were regressed on various SES measures and school inputs for the full and reduced sample, using survey regression and hierarchical (multilevel) (HLM) models to deal with sample design and nested data. This shows that the school system was not yet systematically able to overcome inherited socio-economic disadvantage, and poor schools least so. Schools diverged in their ability to convert inputs into outcomes, with large standard deviations for random effects in the HLM models. The models explained three quarters of the large between-school variance but little of the smaller within-school variance. Outside of the richest schools, SES had only a mild impact on test scores, which were quite low in SACMEQ context. |
| Keywords: | Analysis of Education |
| JEL: | J21 |
| Date: | 2008–01–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:cegedp:69&r=edu |
| By: | António Afonso; Ludger Schknecht; Vito Tanzi |
| Abstract: | In this paper we examine the impact of public spending, education, and institutions on income distribution in advanced economies. We also assess the efficiency of public spending in redistributing income by using a DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) nonparametric approach. We find that public policies significantly affect income distribution, notably via social spending, and indirectly via high quality education/human capital and via sound economic institutions. Moreover, for our set of OECD countries, and within a two-step approach, several so-called non-discretionary factors help explaining public social spending inefficiencies. |
| Keywords: | income redistribution; public spending; efficiency; DEA. |
| JEL: | C14 H40 H50 |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ise:isegwp:wp52008&r=edu |
| By: | António Afonso (European Central Bank, Kaiserstrasse 29, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.); Ludger Schuknecht (European Central Bank, Kaiserstrasse 29, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.); Vito Tanzi |
| Abstract: | In this paper we examine the impact of public spending, education, and institutions on income distribution in advanced economies. We also assess the efficiency of public spending in redistributing income by using a DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) nonparametric approach. We find that public policies significantly affect income distribution, notably via social spending, and indirectly via high quality education/human capital and via sound economic institutions. Moreover, for our set of OECD countries, and within a two-step approach, several so-called non-discretionary factors help explaining public social spending inefficiencies. JEL Classification: C14, H40, H50. |
| Keywords: | Income redistribution, public spending, efficiency, DEA. |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20080861&r=edu |
| By: | Bolt, Jutta; Bezemer, Dirk |
| Abstract: | Long-term growth in developing countries has been explained in four frameworks: ‘extractive colonial institutions’ (Acemoglu et al., 2001), ‘colonial legal origin’ (La Porta et al., 2004) ‘geography’ (Gallup et al., 1998) and ‘colonial human capital’ (Glaeser et al., 2004). In this paper we test the ‘colonial human capital’ explanation for sub-Saharan Africa, controlling for legal origins and geography. Utilizing freshly collected data on colonial-era population density and education, we find that in sub-Saharan Africa, high European population mortality did not lead to low European population densities, contra Acemoglu et al., (2001). Further, we find that instrumented human capital explains long-term growth better, and shows greater stability over time, than instrumented measures for extractive institutions. We therefore suggest that the impact of the disease environment on African long-term growth runs through a human capital channel rather than an extractive-institutions channel. The effect of education is robust to including variables capturing legal origin and geography, which have additional explanatory power. We also find some evidence that institutions are endogenous to education. |
| Keywords: | Africa; growth; institutions; education; colonial history |
| JEL: | O11 O10 P51 P16 |
| Date: | 2008–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:7029&r=edu |
| By: | Uschi Backes-Gellner (Institute for Strategy and Business Economics, University of Zurich); Johannes Mure |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces the research concept of the Swiss Leading House on Economics of Education, Firm Behaviour and Training Policies. |
| Keywords: | Vocational training, Switzerland |
| JEL: | I20 |
| Date: | 2008–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:educat:0014&r=edu |
| By: | Decreuse, Bruno; Granier, Pierre |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of labor market frictions and institutions on the divide of schooling investment between general and specific skills. We offer a simple matching model of unemployment in which individuals determine the scope and intensity of their skills. In partial equilibrium, we show that the severity of market frictions distorts the schooling allocation towards more general skills. Then, we endogenize job creation and argue that changes in labor market institutions may well originate a non-monotonous relationship between unemployment and the divide of skills between specific and general human capital. We also investigate more carefully the impacts of unemployment compensation, minimum wage and firing costs. We suggest that unemployment compensation has an ambiguous impact on the skill divide, while minimum wage and firing costs are detrimental to general skill acquisition. |
| Keywords: | Matching frictions; education; general and specific skills; labour market institutions |
| JEL: | I21 J24 |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:6948&r=edu |
| By: | Miguel Urquiola (Columbia University - Department of Economics); Eric A. Verhoogen (Columbia University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how schools choose class size and how households sort in response to those choices. Focusing on the highly liberalized Chilean education market, we develop a model in which schools are heterogeneous in an underlying productivity parameter, class size is a component of school quality, households are heterogeneous in income and hence willingness to pay for school quality, and schools are subject to a class-size cap. The model offers an explanation for two distinct empirical patterns observed among private schools that accept government vouchers: (i) There is an inverted-U relationship between class size and household income in equilibrium, which will tend to bias cross-sectional estimates of the effect of class size on student performance. (ii) Some schools at the class size cap adjust prices (or enrollments) to avoid adding another classroom, which produces stacking at enrollments that are multiples of the class size cap. This generates discontinuities in the relationship between enrollment and household characteristics at those points, violating the assumptions underlying regression-discontinuity (RD) research designs. This result suggests that caution is warranted in applying the RD approach in settings in which parents have substantial school choice and schools are free to set prices and influence their enrollments. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:clu:wpaper:0607-14&r=edu |
| By: | Joshua Goodman (Columbia University - Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The majority of states in the U.S. now fund merit-based financial aid programs, the effects of which depend on how strongly students react to changes in college costs. I estimate such reactions using quasi-experimental aspects of a recent Massachusetts merit scholarship program intended to attract talented students to the state’s public colleges. This paper is the first to document heterogeneity in price sensitivity among students of varying academic abilities. My primary result is that, in spite of its small monetary value, the scholarship induced 6% of winners to choose four-year public colleges over four-year private colleges, the average of a large effect on the lowest ability winners and no effect on the highest ability winners. The bulk of funds nonetheless flowed to students who would have attended public colleges anyway, and the scholarship had no effect on the overall college attendance rate, which for winners was already above 90%. These findings have implications for the design of future government-sponsored financial aid programs. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:clu:wpaper:0607-13&r=edu |
| By: | Rafael Lalive; Alejandra Cattaneo |
| 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:zur:iewwpx:298&r=edu |
| By: | Moniz, António; Woll, Tobias |
| Abstract: | In this working paper is presented information on the Portuguese labour market developed with the support of the European project WORKS-“Work organisation and restructuring in the knowledge society”. Is still a on the process article and thus commentaries are welcome. The structure is based on the following topics: a) The employment policy (Time regimes - time use, flexibility, part-time work, work-life balance -, and the work contracts regimes – wages, contract types, diversity); b) Education and training (skilling outcomes, rules on retraining and further training, employability schemes, transferability of skills); c) Equal opportunities (relevance of equal opportunity regulation for restructuring outcomes, the role of gender and age regulation); d) Restructuring effects (policy on transfer of personnel, policy on redundancies, and participation or voice in restructuring). |
| Keywords: | labour market; work organisation; knowledge society; employment; policy; Education; gender |
| JEL: | M12 E24 J31 J21 M54 J48 J82 J68 |
| Date: | 2007–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:6967&r=edu |