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on Education |
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Issue of 2008‒10‒21
nineteen papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | César Alonso-Borrego; Antonio Romero-Medina |
| Abstract: | We explore evidence on the perceived economic value of higher education to college students in terms of their reported expected and shadow wages. Our estimates provide predictions for expected wages that are similar across gender and become closer to actual wages as students approach graduation. This is consistent with an improvement in the quality of student information used to forecast wages. Shadow wages relative to expected wages increase during the academic year for men and are constant for women, which is consistent with the higher reluctance of women to drop out of university. Finally, students with lower socioeconomic background and poor performance exhibit a higher propensity to drop out. |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fda:fdaddt:2008-31&r=edu |
| By: | Florida, Richard (Martin Prosperity Institute); Mellander, Charlotta (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology); Qian, Haifeng (School of Public Policy, George Mason University) |
| Abstract: | The relationships between talent, technology and regional development have been widely examined in the advanced economies. While there is a general consensus as to the important role talent plays in regional development, debate has emerged on two key issues. The first involves the efficacy of educational (i.e. human capital) versus occupational (i.e. the creative class) measures of talent; the second involves the factors affecting the distribution of talent. In this study, we have used structural equation models and path analysis. We employed both educational and occupational measures of talent to examine the relationships between talent, technology and regional economic performance in China, and to isolate the effects of tolerance, differing levels of consumer service amenities, and the location of universities on the distribution of talent. Contrary to the findings of empirical studies on the developed economies, we found the relationships between the distribution of talent and technology and between the distribution of talent and regional economic performance in China to be weak. We found the presence of universities – a factor highly influenced by government policy – and the actual stock of talent to be strongly related. We also found that tolerance, as measured by the “Hukou index,” plays an important role in the distribution of talent and technology in China. |
| Keywords: | China; Talent; Human Capital; Creative Class; Tolerance; Technology; Regional Development |
| JEL: | O30 P30 R12 |
| Date: | 2008–10–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0145&r=edu |
| By: | Pilon, André Francisco |
| Abstract: | Quality of life, natural and man-made environments, physical, social and mental well-being are currently undermined by all sorts of hazards and injuries; political, economical, social and cultural disarray normalise atrocious behaviours and violence throughout the world. Considering the multiple problems of difficult settlement or solution in our times, current environmental, social, cultural, educational, political and economic policies and practices are examined in view of new paradigms of growth, power, wealth, work and freedom. A multidimensional ecosystemic approach and planning model for the diagnosis and prognosis of quality of life integrate into a dynamic configuration four dimensions of being-in-the- world (intimate, interactive, social and biophysical), as they induce the events (deficits and assets), cope with consequences (desired or undesired) and reorganise for change, enhancing connexions and sealing ruptures. Development and evaluation of teaching programmes, research projects and public policies benefit from a deep understanding of the events, providing a critical comprehensive four-dimensional framework and planning model for effective and responsible action. |
| Keywords: | education; culture; public policies; environment; ecosystems |
| JEL: | Q56 O21 Q58 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:10816&r=edu |
| By: | César Alonso-Borrego; Antonio Romero-Medina |
| Abstract: | We explore evidence on the perceived economic value of higher education to college students in terms of their reported expected and shadow wages. Our estimates provide predictions for expected wages that are similar across gender and become closer to actual wages as students approach graduation. This is consistent with an improvement in the quality of student information used to forecast wages. Shadow wages relative to expected wages increase during the academic year for men and are constant for women, which is consistent with the higher reluctance of women to drop out of university. Finally, students with lower socioeconomic background and poor performance exhibit a higher propensity to drop out. |
| Keywords: | university education, subjective valuation, wage expectations, shadow wages, ordered response |
| JEL: | I23 J24 J31 C24 C25 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:we084823&r=edu |
| By: | Gaetan de Rassenfosse; Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether patent counts can be taken as indicators of macroeconomic innovation performance. The empirical model explicitly accounts for the two components of patenting output: research productivity and patent propensity. The empirical analysis aims at explaining the `correct' number of priority filings in 34 countries. It confirms that the two components play a substantial role as witnessed by the impact of the design of several policies, namely education, intellectual property and science and technology policies. A major policy implication relates to the design of patent systems, which ultimately induces, or allows for, aggressive patenting strategies. |
| Keywords: | education policy; patent policy; propensity to patent; R&D productivity; S&T policy |
| JEL: | O30 O38 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2008_007&r=edu |
| By: | Osipian, Ararat |
| Abstract: | The reform of higher education in Russia, based on standardized tests and educational vouchers, was intended to reduce inequalities in access to higher education. The initiative with the vouchers has failed and by now is already forgotten while the national test is planned to be introduced nationwide in 2009. The national test called to replace the present corrupt system of entry examinations has experienced numerous problems so far and will likely have even more problems in the future. This paper analyses the reform and suggests a methodology of measuring effects of the reform on access to higher education. |
| Keywords: | higher education; inequalities; reform; standardized test; voucher; Russia |
| JEL: | P21 I28 I22 |
| Date: | 2008–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:11059&r=edu |
| By: | Adelman, Sarah W.; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Lehrer, Kim |
| Abstract: | "The economic motivations for investing in the education and nutritional status of primary-school-aged children are well established. Moreover, investments in both of these forms of human capital are likely to benefit from substantial complementarities. However, in developing countries, poor and creditconstrained households routinely invest less in education and nutrition than is privately or socially optimal. Food for education (FFE) programs, including meals served in school and take-home rations conditional on school attendance, attempt to improve these investments by subsidizing the cost of school participation through providing food that could improve nutrition and learning. This study examines the economic motivation for the use of FFE programs to increase investments in education and nutrition. The study then presents a critical review of the empirical evidence of the impact of FFE programs on education and nutrition outcomes for primary-school-aged children in developing countries. The main contribution of this study is to judge and summarize the strength of the evidence based on the extent to which existing studies have identified a causal effect of an FFE program, as opposed to finding an association between the program and key outcomes that may have been affected by other contextual factors. The economic rationale for FFE programs is to offer free food conditional on school attendance to increase the net benefits of schooling enough to change some households' decisions about their children's school participation. Although schoolaged children are past the critical window of opportunity during early childhood for the greatest gains from good nutrition, increasing food and nutrient consumption among school-aged children with low baseline food energy or micronutrient intake can improve weight, reduce susceptibility to infection, and increase cognitive function in the short run. Because school meals are usually fortified, a child's micronutrient intake can improve even if her total calorie consumption does not. These xi short-run gains may improve a child's educational attainment and academic achievement, which can improve future welfare. For logistical and political reasons, school meal programs are commonly provided to all children in a targeted school. This practice raises the cost of achieving program objectives, such as increased attendance rates, because it provides transfers to many children who would have attended school anyway. Take-home rations programs are less subject to this criticism, because they are more easily targeted to groups, such as poor or female children, who are in greater need or who may be more likely to change their human capital investment decisions as a result of the program. Even when provided at school, food transfers can be diverted to other household members by taking food away from the beneficiary child at other meals. This practice could diminish the size of the transfer received by the beneficiary child, resulting in only a small net gain in the child's daily consumption. However, empirical evidence suggests that a substantial share of the food provided through in-school meal programs is not redistributed away from the beneficiary child. The critical review examines the empirical literature on the impacts of FFE programs on education and nutrition outcomes. The education outcomes considered include school participation measured by enrollment and attendance, age at entry, drop-out status, learning achievement, and cognitive development. The nutrition outcomes reviewed include food energy consumption, anthropometry, and micronutrient status. The review focuses on the empirical literature with the strongest methodology for identifying causal impacts. This literature includes experimental studies, such as randomized controlled trials; experimental field trials; studies using quasi-experimental methods, such as natural or administrative experiments; and nonexperimental studies using careful evaluation designs. Although the literature on the impacts of FFE programs is vast, high-quality studies with evaluation designs that provide causal impact estimates are relatively few. The nutrition literature offers many more experimental studies on nutrition outcomes than is yet available in the economics literature on education outcomes, yet many of the nutrition studies are controlled trials in which many components of the intervention typically affected by behavior, such as amount of food available at a meal, are closely managed. The external validity of these studies for programs implemented in the field is often difficult to ascertain. The number of experimental field studies for any outcome is few, but growing. From the existing literature, it is possible to draw conclusions about the likely impact of FFE programs on some outcomes, whereas for other outcomes, the literature is inconclusive. The empirical evidence suggests that in-school feeding has a positive impact on school participation in areas where initial indicators of school participation are low. In-school meal programs have been shown to have small impacts on school xii summary attendance rates for children already enrolled in school. However, there is no causal evidence for an impact on net primary-school attendance rates for all school-aged children in the service area of a school because of limitations in study design. The only study we found with attendance data for a representative sample of primaryschool– aged children, including those enrolled in school at baseline and those not enrolled, found a strong association between participation in a school meal program and school attendance, but estimated impacts cannot be reliably attributed to causal effects of the program. For similar reasons, there is also scant evidence on the effects of school meals on primary-school enrollment rates. Two empirical studies find that school meal programs cause a significant increase in learning achievement, as measured by improvements in test scores. However, in each study, scores were significantly higher for school meal recipients on only one of three tests taken. The impact of in-school meals on learning appears to operate both through improvements in school attendance and through better learning efficiency while in school, though no study has separately identified the relative contribution of these effects. FFE programs may also have an impact on cognitive development, though the size and nature of the effect vary greatly by program, micronutrient content of the food, and the measure of cognitive development used. Empirical evidence on the effects of school meals on cognitive function is mixed and depends on the tests used, the content of the meals, and the initial nutritional status of the children. Most of the studies are conducted in a laboratory setting and look at the short-term impact of feeding on cognitive function. The aspects of cognitive ability tested differ by study, making it difficult to compare results. Nonetheless, there is evidence that school meals rich in animal-source foods improved cognitive function in Kenyan children. Another study demonstrates an effect of school breakfasts on cognitive function. Given the controlled setting that formed the basis for these experiments, it would be useful now to expand the external validity of the evidence through field experiments. On other outcomes, the evidence of the impact of in-school feeding on primaryschool drop-out rates is inconclusive. We also found no study that examines the impact of school meals on age at school entry, probably because of the expense of collecting data on a representative sample of children around this age. Also, there is little conclusive evidence on the impact of take-home rations on education outcomes. For nutrition outcomes, most of the evidence comes from randomized trials in the nutrition literature. For food-energy (calorie) consumption, the evidence shows that in-school feeding programs show greater potential to improve children's total daily energy consumption when children's baseline consumption is well below their age- or weight-recommended consumption level. Differences in empirical strategy summary xiii may account for differences in findings across studies, as randomized experiments found a lower impact than did quasi-experimental studies. The diversity of program components and target populations in anthropometric studies, as well as the complexity of biological growth mechanisms, make it difficult to assess the effectiveness of FFE on anthropometric indicators. Overall, several studies showed gains in body size (for example, height, weight, body mass index) or composition (for example, mean upper-arm circumference) due to participation in FFE programs, with weight or body mass index appearing to respond most often. Improvements were typically small, though the effects of increased consumption may have been mitigated by increased activity levels in some cases. The micronutrient content of foods provided may contribute to gains in height (iron fortification) and mean upper-arm circumference (providing meat-based snacks). Deworming appears to have an interactive effect with FFE on height in one study. Turning to micronutrient status, iron fortification of FFE meals appears to improve iron status in nearly all studies reviewed. Evidence for other micronutrients is more sparse. One study found that meat-based meals improve plasma vitamin B12 concentrations but found no impact on other micronutrients. Two studies reviewed the impact of FFE on vitamin A status: one found a positive effect on plasma vitamin A status, whereas the other found no impact. Finally, one study found that iodine fortification reduced the prevalence of iodine deficiencies. The presence of malaria or other infections may impede detection of these benefits, particularly with respect to iron status. Combining the treatment with deworming can improve the effectiveness of iron supplementation, particularly in children with low baseline iron stores. Summarizing this evidence, FFE programs appear to have considerable impacts on primary-school participation, but the quality of this evidence is weak. Higher quality studies indicate some impacts on learning and cognitive development. There is evidence of effects on food consumption and micronutrient status, provided that initial consumption and nutrient deficiencies are identified and that programs are tailored to address these deficiencies. In many cases, the FFE programs appear to have little impact, because the levels of key outcome variables, such as school attendance or micronutrient status, are already high. Despite this evidence, significant research gaps remain. A surprising gap in this literature is the lack of convincing evidence of these programs' effect on school enrollment and attendance for a representative sample of school-aged children from the school's service area. There is also no conclusive empirical evidence on the impact of FFE programs on age at entry and grade repetition, and little on drop-out rates. In general, the impacts of take-home ration programs are poorly understood. Also, few studies identify the differential impacts of FFE on children by age or xiv summary gender. Finally, the impact of FFE programs on learning achievement has not been carefully analyzed by schooling inputs and class size. Perhaps the greatest omission in current research on FFE programs is the absence of well-designed cost-effectiveness studies. The policy decision on whether to undertake an FFE program or an alternative education or nutrition intervention should be based on relative differences in cost-effectiveness. However, most studies that measure program impact do not collect the additional data needed to obtain a measure of cost-effectiveness. Such studies would identify the cost from various interventions of achieving a certain percentage increase in primary-school attendance, for example. The most convincing approach would be to conduct sideby- side randomized field experiments of alternative programs. To our knowledge, only one study has done so, comparing in-school meals to programs that provide teachers with school supplies or foster parent–teacher communication. However, even these comparisons are complicated by the scarcity of programs likely to have the same kind of combined impacts on both education and nutrition outcomes. The most immediate policy implication of this review study is that more careful and systematic research is needed to find the most cost-effective combination of programs available. Without rigorous estimates of the impact of FFE programs on school participation, it is not possible to determine whether important secondary effects on learning achievement or cognitive development come primarily through school attendance or through joint effects of schooling and improved nutrition. It is these joint effects that are uniquely available through FFE programs. If the learning and cognitive benefits to school-aged children of simultaneous improvements in nutrition and schooling from FFE programs are small, cash-based programs may be more effective at increasing school participation. If there are no joint education and nutrition effects from FFE programs, it may be more cost-effective to replace these programs with specialized education and nutrition programs that are more narrowly targeted at specific objectives. More comprehensive and rigorous evaluation studies of FFE programs are needed to determine the full scope of the impacts of these programs and their relative cost-effectiveness. Our interpretation of the empirical evidence reviewed here leads to several recommendations on the design and use of FFE programs. Effects tend to be larger where schooling participation is low or where there are significant nutritional deficiencies. This fact argues for doing an assessment of school needs in target areas before starting an FFE program. Such an evaluation would improve targeting and allow FFE program components, such as the nutrient composition and quantity of food, to be tailored to local needs. Also, program administrators should be willing to consider complementary programs to improve school quality. Learning effects cannot be achieved if the instruction is of little value. Poor school quality lowers summary xv the benefits of participation and discourages attendance. Though much more evidence is needed, results from field experiments in the Philippines suggest that the cost of alternative programs to improve school quality may be only a fraction of the per child cost of an FFE program. Coordinated programs that combine FFE with improvements in school quality may be much more effective.." "Authors' Abstract |
| Keywords: | Poverty reduction, Hunger, Food for education, School children, Education, Nutrition, |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:fprevi:9&r=edu |
| By: | Osipian, Ararat |
| Abstract: | The massification of higher education in Ukraine is a fact while financing the system is still an issue. External pressures from the Central government and the market require changes in university governance. Europeanization of educational system and adherence to the principles laid down by the Bologna declaration add to already existing challenges faced by universities. This paper states that there is no one right prescription for changing governance in Ukraine’s universities, because they differ in their history, location, culture, organizational structure, student body, faculty, and educational process and content. It proposes different approaches to the different types of the universities, considering universities as collegiums and bureaucracies, and suggests the political system as a viable form of organizational structure for the task of reforming universities. |
| Keywords: | governance; higher education; reform; university; Ukraine |
| JEL: | P36 I20 I23 |
| Date: | 2008–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:11058&r=edu |
| By: | Osipian, Ararat |
| Abstract: | Doctorates have long attracted attention of those aspiring to scholarship and research, but also those seeking verbal distinctions and a documented knowledge. Doctoral degrees are considered as signs of a high level expertise and authority in a given filed. The growing number of dissertation defenses does not necessarily translate into a higher quality of dissertations or qualifications of newly produced doctorates. Such a trend may in part be a result of the growing corruption in higher education, including doctoral education. This paper addresses the issue of “dissertations for sale” in the Russian Federation. It describes corruption in conferring doctoral degrees in its most explicit forms and focuses on possible solutions for this problem. It searches to answer the questions: Why people buy doctorates? Whether this practice is harmful? Is corruption in doctoral education really a bad thing? Is it possible to stop such a practice and how? Answering these questions helps develop a conceptual approach to the problem of doctorates for sale, on the basis of which it will be possible to build future theoretical and empirical work. |
| Keywords: | corruption; dissertation; doctoral degrees; higher education; Russia |
| JEL: | P36 P37 I23 I28 |
| Date: | 2008–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:11138&r=edu |
| By: | Arulampalam, Wiji (University of Warwick); Naylor, Robin (University of Warwick); Smith, Jeremy (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | We exploit a rich administrative panel data-set for cohorts of Economics students at a UK university in order to identify causal effects of class absence on student performance. We utilise the panel properties of the data to control for unobserved heterogeneity across students and hence for endogeneity between absence and academic performance of students stemming from the likely influence of unobserved effort and ability on both absence and performance. Our estimations also exploit features of the data such as the random assignment of students to classes and information on the timetable of classes, which yield potential instruments in our identification strategy. Among other results, we find that there is a causal effect of absence on performance for students: missing class leads to poorer performance. There is evidence from a quantile regression specification that this is particularly true for better-performing students, consistent with our hypothesis that effects of absence on performance are likely to vary with factors such as student ability. |
| Keywords: | randomised experiments, quantile regression, selection correction, panel data, education, student performance, class absence |
| JEL: | C41 J24 I2 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3749&r=edu |
| By: | Michael Grimm (ISS, The Hague / The Netherlands) |
| Abstract: | In the middle of the nineties the rural population in Burkina Faso was seriously hit by rising food prices. Whereas cotton farmers were able to cope with this shock given the simultaneous boom in the cotton sector, food crop farmers had to withdraw children from school and to let them work more intensively. Using the exogenous character of the income variation as an instrument allows to disentangle the pure effect of parental income from effects related to parental education, family background and other unobservables. A set of simple policy simulations illustrates the potential of unconditional cash transfers to raise schooling levels and to protect investment in children’s education against transitory income shocks. Although the involved effects are not negligible and much higher as simulations based on the pure OLS effect would suggest, they also show that making transfers conditional on attendance might largely increase the efficiency of such transfers. |
| Keywords: | Child Labor, Education, Income Elasticity of Education, Agricultural Shocks, Cotton Production, Burkina Faso |
| JEL: | I21 O12 Q12 |
| Date: | 2008–08–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:iaidps:174&r=edu |
| By: | Hodgkinson, Ann (University of Wollongong); Percy, Alisa (University of Wollongong) |
| Abstract: | This paper reports on a pilot study involving the redesign of a third year Economics subject according to principles of engagement as they relate to the discursive Generation y student. The study involved a review of the literature, redesign of the subject to a blended learning format and evaluation of the design. The data collected included pre and post NSSE scores, subject grades, student surveys and qualitative feedback from individual students. While the redesign of the subject was constrained by available resources, and the implementation hindered by various systemic factors, it was found that in general the redesign did improve student engagement. In particular, it was found that the success of the scaffolded assessment tasks and the use of in-class activities as a means of revising for exams was significant. One issue that continues to perplex is the students’ mixed attitudes to attending lectures. Perhaps most importantly, the study indicates that by third year where traditional modes of teaching have characterised their curriculum, students have developed surface approaches to learning that cannot be corrected through individual third year courses. |
| Keywords: | student engagement, elearning, generation y |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uow:depec1:wp08-12&r=edu |
| By: | Antonio Filippin; Massimiliano Bratti (DEAS, University of Milan); Daniele Checchi (University of Milan) |
| Abstract: | Building upon some education studies finding that cooperative behaviour in class yields better achievements among students, this paper presents a simple model showing that free riding incentives lead to an insufficient degree of cooperation between schoolmates, which in turn decreases the overall achievement. A cooperative learning approach may instead emerge when competitive behaviour is negatively evaluated by schoolmates, especially when the class is more homogeneous in terms of students' characteristics (e.g., ability). Empirical evidence supporting our model is found using the 2003 wave of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey on students' literacy levels. A competitive learning approach has a positive individual return (higher in comprehensive educational systems), while student performance increases with the average cooperative behaviour, particularly in tracked educational systems. |
| Keywords: | cooperation; competition; PISA; student attitudes, |
| Date: | 2008–07–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:unimip:1074&r=edu |
| By: | Tom Coupé; Victor Ginsburgh; Abdul Noury |
| Abstract: | Leading papers in a journal’s issue attract, on average, more citations than those that follow. It is, however, difficult to assess whether they are of better quality (as is often suggested), or whether this happens just because they appear first in an issue. We make use of a natural experiment that was carried out by a journal in which papers are randomly ordered in some issues, while this order is not random in others. We show that leading papers in randomly ordered issues also attract more citations, which casts some doubt on whether, in general, leading papers are of higher quality. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2008_014&r=edu |
| By: | Stephan Klasen (Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen / Germany); Francesca Lamanna |
| Abstract: | Using cross-country and panel regressions, we investigate to what extent gender gaps in education and employment (proxied using gender gaps in labor force participation) reduce economic growth. Using most recent data and investigating a long time period (1960-2000), we update the results of previous studies on education gaps on growth and extend the analysis to employment gaps using panel data. We find that gender gaps in education and employment significantly reduce economic growth. The combined ‘costs’ of education and employment gaps in Middle East and North Africa and South Asia amount respectively to 0.9-1.7 and 0.1- 1.6 percentage point differences in growth compared to East Asia. Gender gaps in employment appear to have an increasing effect on economic growth differences between regions, with the Middle East and North Africa and South Asia suffering from slower growth in female employment. |
| Keywords: | gender inequality, growth, education, employment, discrimination |
| JEL: | J7 J16 O4 |
| Date: | 2008–09–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:iaidps:175&r=edu |
| By: | Torssander, Jenny (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University); Erikson, Robert (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | In many analyses of social inequality in health, different dimensions of social stratification have been used more or less interchangeably as measures of the individual’s general social standing. This procedure, however, has been questioned in previous studies, most of them comparing education, class and/or income. In the present article, the importance of education and income as well as two aspects of occupation – class and status – are examined. The results are based on register data and refer to all Swedish employees in the age range 35-59 years. There are clear gradients in total death risk for all socioeconomic factors except for income from work among women. The size of the independent effects of education, class, status and income differ between men and women. For both sexes, there are clear net associations between education and mortality. Class and income show independent effects on mortality only for men and status shows an independent effect only for women. While different stratification dimensions – education, social class, income, status – all can be used to show a “social gradient” with mortality, each of them seems to have a specific effect in addition to the general effect related to the stratification of society for either men or women. |
| Keywords: | - |
| Date: | 2008–10–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2008_005&r=edu |
| By: | David Bravo Author-X-Name_First: David Author-X-Name_Last: Bravo; Claudia Sanhueza Author-X-Name_First: Claudia Author-X-Name_Last: Sanhueza; Sergio Urzua Author-X-Name_First: Sergio Author-X-Name_Last: Urzua |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes gender differences in the Chilean labor market, formally addressing the selection of individuals into schooling levels and its impact on gender gaps. The paper utilizes a new and rich data set containing information on labor market outcomes, schooling attainment and schooling performance, as well as variables characterizing individuals’ family background. Although the results show statistically significant gender differences in several dimensions of the Chilean labor market, these gaps depend largely on individuals’ level of schooling. Nonetheless, these findings should not be taken as decisive evidence of discrimination in the Chilean labor market, as future research based on better information might explain some of the unexplained labor market gaps. |
| Date: | 2008–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:wpaper:3258&r=edu |
| By: | Hernán Jaramillo Salazar; Carolina Lopera Oquendo |
| Abstract: | El objetivo de este trabajo es caracterizar la dinámica de los recursos humanos en investigación y su producción científica al interior de las comunidades de salud pública y ciencias básicas biomédicas del país. El enfoque de este estudio articula la evaluación del comportamiento de los recursos humanos y el tránsito hacia comunidades científicas, vistos desde la teoría del capital conocimiento (Jaramillo et.al; 2006,2008), con la modelación de las carreras académicas de los investigadores (Dietz y Bozeman; 2005). En este sentido, se estiman los modelos Tobit y de Análisis Multinivel para analizar los Curriculum Vitae (CV) de 5.233 investigadores, utilizando la información suministrada por la Plataforma ScienTI-Colciencias (GrupLAC y CvLAC) actualizada a noviembre de 2007. Los resultados muestran como las carreras académicas de los investigadores en salud pública y ciencias básicas biomédicas difieren significativamente, lo cual se verá reflejado en las tasas de productividad, en la acumulación de experiencia para el desarrollo de las actividades de investigación y en consolidación y caracterización de cada comunidad científica. *** The objective of this study is characterizing the dynamics of human resources in scientific research, and the scientific production within the communities of public health and biomedical sciences in the country. The methodology of this study articulates the performance assessment of human resources and transit toward scientific communities, based on the framework of the theory of knowledge capital (Jaramillo et.al; 2006.2008), and the modelling of the academic careers (Dietz and Bozeman, 2005). In this sense, we estimate tobit models and multilevel models to analyze the Curriculum Vitae (CV) of 5.233 researchers. We use information supplied by ScienTI-Colciencias (GrupLAC and CvLAC) updated to November 2007. The results show how the academic careers of researchers in public health and biomedical sciences differ significantly from each other, which is evident when looking at rates of productivity and cumulative experience in the development of research activities inside each specific community. |
| Date: | 2008–09–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000092:005098&r=edu |
| By: | Elena Arias Ortiz; Catherine Dehon |
| Abstract: | By using a unique dataset containing the entire newly enrolled student population at the University of Brussels (ULB), this case study aims to be the first complete analysis of the determinants that infuence the student's path at university in Belgium. We analyze the probability of succeeding the first year at university in Brussels taking into account individual characteristics, prior schooling and socioeconomic background. Our results show that the socioeconomic background of the student influence success in a significant way. More specifically, the mother's level of education and the father's occupational activity seem to predominate. We observe also a difference in performance between students coming from different high school programs. Indeed, students coming from one of the two high school systems ("traditionnel" and "rénové") existing in Belgium's French Community, present non homegenous results at the end of their first year. In addition and in contrast with some of the literature findings, Belgians and foreigners have the same first year performances if we take into account for their socioeconomic environment. Moreover the same results are obtained when we look at European and non-European students. Nevertheless, when we distinguish foreign students with respect to their level of integration, our analysis show the existence of an "European elite" that comes to Belgium looking for a diploma and that do much better in first year than Belgian students. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2008_003&r=edu |