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on Education |
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Issue of 2009‒10‒17
ten papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Scott Imberman (Department of Economics, University of Houston); Elisabetta Gentile (Department of Economics, University of Houston) |
| Abstract: | Concerns about safety in urban schools has led many school districts to require uniforms for their students. However, we know very little about what impact school uniforms have had on the educational environment. In this paper we use a unique dataset to assess how uniform adoption affects student achievement and behavior in a large urban school district in the southwest. Since each school in the district could decide independently about whether or not to adopt uniforms, we are able to use variation across schools and over time to identify the effects of uniforms. Using student and school fixed-effects along with school-specic linear time trends to address selection of students and schools into uniform adoption, we nd that uniforms had little impact on student outcomes in elementary grades but provided modest improvements in language scores and attendance rates in middle and high school grades. These effects appear to be concentrated in female students. |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hou:wpaper:2009-03&r=edu |
| By: | Scott Imberman (Department of Economics, University of Houston) |
| Abstract: | Charter schools are the most popular form of school choice in the US. How- ever, we know little about how these schools affect traditional public schools. I look at how charter schools affect achievement, behavior, and attendance in nearby traditional public schools using data from a large urban school district in the southwest. I address the endogenous location of charter schools using an instrumental variables strategy. My results show that when charter school penetration increases, students suffer modest but statistically signicant drops in math and language score gains. However, achievement losses are potentially oset by improvement in discipline. |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hou:wpaper:2009-02&r=edu |
| By: | Verbic, Miroslav; Majcen, Boris; Cok, Mitja |
| Abstract: | In the article we model education and human capital as major endogenous growth elements in a small open economy general equilibrium framework and consider several policy scenarios for Slovenia. Decrease of the PIT rate and increase of government spending on education turned out to be the most effective policy measures. It is important, though, to understand its transitory dynamic. Namely, as education expenditure is increased, certain amount of labour is temporarily withdrawn from its productive use and put into the educational system. Higher skill upgrade of labour requires longer and higher short-term labour force decrease, but also provides us with higher long-term growth. The households that would gain more utility from such policy scenarios are those with more skilled labour and thus higher income level. |
| Keywords: | education; endogenous growth; general equilibrium modelling; Slovenia |
| JEL: | C68 E24 D58 H52 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:17817&r=edu |
| By: | Steven G. Craig (Department of Economics, University of Houston); Scott Imberman (Department of Economics, University of Houston); Adam Perdue (Department of Economics, University of Houston) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether school districts, and individual schools, respond to ratings from the accountability system by reallocating resources across or within schools. Our empirical work follows three identification strategies, a regression discontinuity for schools on the rating boundaries, a “rating shock” analysis for schools that face a change in rating when the state changed its accountability system, and a school fixed effects strategy. We find that school districts provided incentives for their schools to achieve higher ratings under the early accountability system, but under the later system they appear to have abandoned this strategy. In addition, the rating shock results suggest that some effort was directed towards assisting lower performing schools under the new regime. Finally, we find that in the early period incremental funds were used as much for ancillary purposes as instruction. |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hou:wpaper:2009-04&r=edu |
| By: | Jellal, Mohamed |
| Abstract: | One considers a model of accumulation of the human capital in the presence of the international migration offers. One shows that under certain conditions,this option can support the increase in the stock of the national human capital by taking of account the externalities. Thus the `brain drain' would have a positive impact on the national economy under a well controlled restrictive migratory policy. The difficulty of this control scheme leads us to propose an alternative model suggesting the internalisation of the human capital externalities thus allowing the implementation of the social optimum. The mechanism of this internalisation is based on the endogenous creation of cultural norm with the accumulation of the knowledge. This social norm avoids the risks of conditionalities inherent in a migratory policy as a mechanism of internalisation of the externalities of the human capital. |
| Keywords: | Human capital Formation; Brain Gain; Social Norm ; Diaspora Formation |
| JEL: | F22 I21 J24 Z13 F43 |
| Date: | 2009–10–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:17818&r=edu |
| By: | Hui He (Department of Economics, University of Hawaii at Manoa) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents a dramatic increase in the college enrollment rate of women from 1955 to 1980 and asks a quantitative question: to what extent can such change be accounted for by the change in the female cohort-specific college wage premium? I develop and calibrate an overlapping generations model with discrete schooling choice. I find that changes in the life-cycle earnings differential can explain the increase in female college enrollment rate very well. Young women's changing expectations of future employment opportunity also played an important role in driving their college attendance decision from the mid 1950s to the early 1970s. |
| Keywords: | female college enrollment rate, college wage premium, life-cycle |
| JEL: | J24 J31 I21 E24 |
| Date: | 2009–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hai:wpaper:200912&r=edu |
| By: | Aaron Sojouner |
| Abstract: | This paper studies peer effects on student achievement among first graders randomly assigned to classrooms in Tennessee's Project STAR. The analysis uses previously unexploited pre-assignment achievement measures available for sixty percent of students. Data are not missing at random, making identification challenging. The paper develops a new way, given random assignment of individuals to classes, to identify peer effects without other missing-data assumptions. Estimates suggest moderate, positive effects of mean peer lagged achievement. Allowing heterogeneous effects, evidence suggests lower-achieving students benefit more than higher-achieving students do from increases in peer mean. Further, the bias of a widely used but poorly understood peer-effects estimator is characterized. |
| JEL: | C2 I21 J13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hrr:papers:0109&r=edu |
| By: | Rivera, Rene (Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Xochimilco); Sampedro, Jose Luis (Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Xochimilco); Dutrenit, Gabriela (UNU-MERIT, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Xochimilco); Ekboir, Javier Mario; Vera-Cruz, Alexandre O. (UNU-MERIT, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Xochimilco) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the effect of commercial farmers-academic researchers linkages on research productivity in fields related to agriculture. Using original data and econometric analysis, our findings show a positive and significant relationship between intensive linkages with a small number of commercial farmers and research productivity, when this is defined as publications in ISI journals. This evidence seems contrary to other contributions that argue that strong ties with the business sector reduce research productivity and distort the original purposes of university, i.e., conducting basic research and preparing highly-trained professionals. When research productivity is defined more broadly adding other types of research outputs, the relationship is also positive and significant confirming the argument that close ties between public research institutions and businesses foster the emergence of new ideas that can be translated into innovations with commercial and/or social value. Another important finding is that researchers in public institutions produce several types of research outputs; therefore, measuring research productivity only by published ISI papers misses important dimensions of research activities. |
| Keywords: | agriculture sector, research productivity, university-business sector interaction, university-industry collaboration |
| JEL: | O31 O32 Q16 Q18 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2009038&r=edu |
| By: | Inés Macho-Stadler; David Pérez-Castrillo |
| Abstract: | There are two main ways in which the knowledge created in universities has been transferred to firms: licensing agreements and the creation of spin-offs. In this paper, we describe the main steps in the transfer of university innovations, the main incentive issues that appear in this process, and the contractual solutions proposed to address them. |
| Date: | 2009–10–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aub:autbar:785.09&r=edu |
| By: | João Ramos; Benno Torgler |
| Abstract: | We study the broken windows theory with a field experiment in a shared area of a workplace in academia (department common room). We explore academics' and postgraduate students' behaviour under an order condition (clean environment) and a disorder condition (messy environment). We find strong support that signs of disorderly behaviour triggers littering. In the disorder treatment 59% of the subjects litter compared to 18% in the order condition. The results remain robust when controlling compared to previous studies for a large set of factors in a multivariate analysis. When academic staff members and postgraduate students observe that others violated the social norm of keeping the common room clean the probability of littering increases ceteris paribus by around 40 percent. |
| Keywords: | broken windows theory; field experiment; littering |
| JEL: | Z13 C93 K42 |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cra:wpaper:2009-21&r=edu |