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on Education |
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Issue of 2009‒01‒24
twelve papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Hendricks, Lutz; Schoellman, Todd |
| Abstract: | Since 1950, U.S. educational attainment has increased substantially. While the median student in 1950 dropped out of high school, the median student today attends some college. In an environment with ability heterogeneity and positive sorting between ability and school tenure, the expansion of education implies a decrease in the average ability of students conditional on school attainment. Using a calibrated model of school choice under ability heterogeneity, we investigate the quantitative impact of rising attainment on ability and measured wages. Our findings suggest that the decline in average ability depressed wages conditional on schooling by 31-58 percentage points. We also find that the entire rise in the college wage premium since 1950 can be attributed to the rising mean ability of college graduates relative to high school graduates. |
| Keywords: | Education; ability; skill premium |
| JEL: | I2 J24 |
| Date: | 2009–01–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:12798&r=edu |
| By: | Stephen Taylor (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch); Derek Yu (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch) |
| Abstract: | The needs to find ways of lifting people out of poverty and to transform the existing patterns of inequality in South Africa are high on the country’s development agenda. Much hope is often vested in education as an opportunity for children from poor households to overcome the disadvantage of their background and escape poverty. The logic of this is often conceived of in terms of the human capital model, according to which education improves an individual’s productivity, which in turn is rewarded on the labour market by higher earnings. However, there is a circularity in the relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and education, in that it is well known that a student’s SES has an important influence their educational achievement. Drawing on data from the recent Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS 2006), this paper investigates the extent to which SES affects educational achievement in the case of South Africa, and moves on to consider the implications of this for the ability of the education system to be an institution that transforms existing patterns of inequality rather than reproducing such patterns. |
| Keywords: | South Africa, socio-economic status, education, educational achievement, educational inequality, economic development |
| JEL: | I20 I21 I30 O15 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers73&r=edu |
| By: | Dreger, Christian (DIW Berlin); Erber, Georg (DIW Berlin); Glocker, Daniela (DIW Berlin) |
| Abstract: | The accumulation of the human capital stock plays a key role to explain the macroeconomic performance across regions. However, despite the strong theoretical support for this claim, empirical evidence has been not very convincing, probably because of the low quality of the data. This paper provides a robustness analysis of alternative measures of human capital available at the level of EU NUTS1 and NUTS2 regions. In addition to the univariate measures, composite indicators based on different construction principles are proposed. The analysis shows a significant impact of construction techniques on the quality of indicators. While composite indicators and labour income measures point to the same direction of impact, their correlation is not overwhelmingly high. Moreover, popular indicators should be applied with caution. Although schooling and human resources in science and technology explain some part of the regional human capital stock, they cannot explain the bulk of the experience. |
| Keywords: | human capital indicators, regional growth |
| JEL: | I20 O30 O40 O52 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3919&r=edu |
| By: | Antonio Merlo (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania); Kenneth I. Wolpin (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study the relationship among schooling, youth employment and youth crime. The framework, a multinomial discrete choice vector autoregression, provides a comprehensive analysis of the dynamic interactions among a youth’s schooling, work and crime decisions and arrest and incarceration outcomes. We allow for observable initial conditions, unobserved heterogeneity, measurement error and missing data. We use data from the NLSY97 on black male youths starting from age 14. The estimates indicate important roles both for heterogeneity in initial conditions and for stochastic events that arise during one’s youth in determining outcomes as young adults. |
| Keywords: | crime, schooling, work, VAR |
| JEL: | K42 J24 J15 |
| Date: | 2008–09–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pen:papers:09-002&r=edu |
| By: | Papagni, Erasmo |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates economic growth under liquidity constraints by taking into account the choices of fertility, human capital and saving. In a model of four overlapping generations, parents are altruistic towards their offspring and finance their education investment. The government provides education subsidies to young adult parents and levies taxes on income of the adult generation. Sensitivity analysis on borrowing limits and tax parameters highlights effects with opposite sign on the main endogenous variables at steady state. A lift in liquidity constraints decreases savings and capital accumulation and this effect is responsible for the ambiguous sign of comparative statics on the rate of fertility and on human capital investment. From model simulation, we derive an inverted U-shaped curve relating the borrowing limit with fertility, education and growth, meaning that financial reforms in the less developed countries have positive effects on the economy in the long-run, even if they raise fertility and reduce savings. Greater government subsidies to human capital investments and lower income taxes have positive effects on savings and fertility. The same parameters present ambiguous effects on education investments and growth. Numerical simulations show that a) human capital investment has an inverted U-shaped relation with income taxes and education subsidies ; b) economic growth decreases with greater income taxes and increases with higher education subsidies. Jel codes: O40, O16, J13, D91. |
| Keywords: | Borrowing constraints; taxation; endogenous population; economic growth |
| JEL: | J13 D91 O16 O40 |
| Date: | 2008–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:12793&r=edu |
| By: | Chen, Li-Ju (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | This paper tests the growth model of distance to the technological frontier, which states that the closer an economy is to the frontier, the higher the relative importance of innovation relative to imitation as a source of productivity growth. Hence, an economy closer to the technological frontier should invest more in skilled labor since innovation is a skill-intensive activity. I use the proportion of female legislators as an instrument for skilled labor, in contrast to Vandenbussche, Aghion, and Meghir (2006) who used lagged educational expenditures. The results with the new instrument are consistent with the theoretical prediction and the previous results of Vandenbussche, Aghion, and Meghir (2006). |
| Keywords: | distance to the technological frontier; women in politics |
| JEL: | H52 I20 J16 O30 O40 |
| Date: | 2009–01–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2009_0002&r=edu |
| By: | Albers, Sönke |
| Abstract: | The attempts by Schulze, Warning, and Wiermann (2008) and Ritzberger (2008) to develop a joint ranking list of journals for economics and business research are critically evaluated. The results show a lack of sufficient knowledge of the quality of business journals. Based on these obscure journal rankings, Fabel, Hein, and Hofmeister (2008) derive a ranking of universities and departments. While Diamantopoulos and Wagner (2008) already show a lack of face-validity of these results, this article explains that the reason for this lies not only in the obscure weighting of the journals but, even more importantly, in a remarkable incompleteness of the data base. |
| Keywords: | Journal ranking; university ranking |
| JEL: | M00 A12 I23 |
| Date: | 2008–12–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:12868&r=edu |
| By: | Andrew Sharpe; Jean-François Arsenault |
| Abstract: | A brief analysis of British Columbia’s productivity performance and the state of the drivers of this performance reveals that five areas merit additional focus and research. They are, in the proposed order of completion: Education and literacy, including professional qualifications and education for targeted groups such as aboriginals and recent immigrants, credentials recognition. Public and private investment, including public infrastructure, business investment and taxation structure. Research and innovation, including R&D investment, product and process innovation, knowledge diffusion and technology adoption. Resource reallocation, including competition policy, improving market mechanisms, product market regulation and foreign ownership rules. Trade and migration, including interprovincial and international movement of goods and services, skilled and unskilled immigration and emigration and interprovincial migration. |
| Keywords: | Productivity, Diagnosis, British Columbia,Human Capital, Physical Capital, Innovation, |
| JEL: | E20 E22 R50 R53 R11 O40 |
| Date: | 2008–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sls:resrep:0809&r=edu |
| By: | Hiroshi Sato |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the economic and noneconomic determinants of growth disparity among Chinese villages between 1990 and 2002. By estimating a growth equation, first, we confirm a significant positive effect of the initial level of human capital, as well as the initial condition of physical infrastructure. Second, social capital measured by the degree of stable social relations at the village level is also a significant growth-promoting factor. The policy implications of our findings are that public policy promoting social stability in rural areas should be strengthened, as well as increasing financial support for rural education and infrastructure construction, especially in lower income regions. |
| Keywords: | regional disparity, growth regression, social capital, rural China |
| JEL: | D31 O18 R11 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hst:ghsdps:gd08-023&r=edu |
| By: | Furtado, Delia (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | A common perception about immigrant assimilation is that association with natives necessarily speeds the process by which immigrants become indistinguishable from natives. Using 2000 Census data, this paper casts doubt on this presumption by examining the effect of an immigrant's marriage to a native, a measure of social integration, on dropout rates of children from these marriages. Although second-generation immigrants with one native parent generally have lower dropout rates than those with two foreign-born parents, the relationship reverses when steps are taken to control for observable and unobservable background characteristics. That is, immigrants that marry natives have children that are more likely to dropout of high school than immigrants that marry other immigrants. Moreover, gender differences in the effect of marriage to a native disappear in specifications which control for the endogeneity of the marriage decision. |
| Keywords: | intermarriage, immigration, education |
| JEL: | J12 J61 Z13 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3931&r=edu |
| By: | Piracha, Matloob (University of Kent); Vadean, Florin (University of Kent) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the impact of return migration on the Albanian economy by analysing the occupational choice of return migrants while explicitly differentiating between self-employment as either own account work or entrepreneurship. After taking into account the possible sample selection into return migration, we find that the own account workers have characteristics closer to non-participants in the labour market (i.e. lower education levels), while entrepreneurship is positively related to schooling, foreign language proficiency and savings accumulated abroad. Furthermore, compared to having not migrated, return migrants are significantly more likely not to participate in the labour market or to be entrepreneurs. However, after a one year re-integration period, the effect on non participation vanishes and that on entrepreneurship becomes stronger. As for non-migrants, the migration experience would have increased their probability to be entrepreneurs showing the positive impact of migration on job creating activities in Albania. |
| Keywords: | return migration, occupational choice, sample selection |
| JEL: | C35 F22 J24 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3922&r=edu |
| By: | Nayak, Purusottam; Mahanta, Bidisha |
| Abstract: | The present paper is an attempt to analyze the status of women and their empowerment in terms of various indicators such as access to education, employment, household decision making power, financial autonomy, freedom of movement, exposure to media, political participation, experience of domestic violence etc in the state of Assam using secondary data obtained from various sources. The study reveals that development process in the state is not gender neutral; women enjoy quite inferior status as compared to the average women in India. Percentage of women in the government services and their political participation is quite low and does not show any sign of significant improvement. Sex ratio though not in favor of women is improving over time. Women enjoy better status in the state as compared to women in India in terms of decision making power at the household level while the situation is reverse in case of their financial autonomy and sexual violence. Inter district disparity is rampant in the state. Districts like Kamrup and Tinisukia in spite of having high per capita DDP have not been able to transform the development effort to bridge the gender gap. Districts with high literacy rates are having high proportion of female main and marginal workers and low proportion of non-workers. Higher the literacy higher is the female workforce participation rate. Female enrolment rate is below fifty per cent in spite of universalisation of primary education and provision of mid day meal schemes. Although Government has undertaken a number of steps the situation has remained gloomy mainly because the educated women are not forward looking and cherish the baseless age old customs. There is a need to create awareness towards achieving the desired goal of women empowerment in the state. |
| Keywords: | Women Empowerment; Gender |
| JEL: | O15 |
| Date: | 2009–01–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:12684&r=edu |