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on Education |
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Issue of 2010‒08‒14
nine papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Yamamura, Eiji |
| Abstract: | Using Japanese panel data for 2006-2009, this study attempts to examine how the pass rate of law school students taking the new bar examination influences the number of applicants for the law school in the following years. The major finding is that the higher the law school student pass rate, the greater the number of applicants for the law school becomes. Furthermore, the positive effect of the pass rate is larger for a prestigious university’s law school than for other schools. It follows that the “brand” and the school’s current performance are complementary in increasing demand for places in the law school. |
| Keywords: | Brand; Bar examination; Demand; Law school |
| JEL: | K40 L89 D83 |
| Date: | 2010–07–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:24257&r=edu |
| By: | Parey, M. |
| Abstract: | This thesis employs microeconometric methods to understand determinants and eects of individual behavior relating to educational choice and consumer demand. Chapter 2 studies the intergenerational eects of maternal education on a range of children's outcomes, including cognitive achievement and behavioral problems. Endogeneity of maternal schooling is addressed by instrumenting with schooling costs during the mother's adolescence. The results show substantial intergenerational returns to education. The chapter studies an array of potential channels which may transmit the eect to the child, including family environment and parental investments. The following chapter 3 investigates the eect of studying abroad on international labor market mobility later in life for university graduates. As source of identifying variation, this work exploits the introduction and expansion of the European ERASMUS student exchange program. Studying abroad signicantly increases the probability of working abroad, and the chapter provides evidence on the underlying mechanisms. Chapter 4 compares labor market outcomes between rm-based apprenticeships and full-time vocational schooling alternatives, exploiting the idea that variation in apprenticeship availability aects the opportunities individuals have when they grow up. The chapter documents how variation in vacancies for apprenticeships aects educational choice. The results show that apprenticeship training leads to lower unemployment rates at ages 23 to 26, but there are no signicant dierences in wages. Chapter 5 develops a new approach to the measurement of price responsiveness of gasoline demand and deadweight loss estimation. It uses shape restrictions derived from economic theory to match a desire for exibility with the need for structure in the welfare analysis of consumer behavior. Using travel survey data, the chapter shows that these restrictions remove the erratic behavior of standard nonparametric approaches. Investigating price responsiveness across the income distribution, the middle income group is found to be the most responsive. |
| Date: | 2010–05–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:ucllon:http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/20002/&r=edu |
| By: | Tamar Khitarishvili |
| Abstract: | The economic returns to education in transition countries have been extensively evaluated in the literature. The present study contributes to this literature by estimating the returns to education in Georgia during the last transition period 2000-04. We find very low returns to education in Georgia and little evidence of an increasing trend in the returns. This picture contrasts with somewhat higher rates of return to education in the mid-1990s in Georgia and the recent estimates from other transition countries. A further analysis of the shifts in the supply and demand for education sheds light on possible causes. In particular, on the supply side, the decline in the quality of education in the 1990s has negated the improvements in the provision of skills needed by market economies during this period. On the demand side, the expansion of the Georgian economy has taken place in the direction of fields such as public administration and education that employ a highly educated workforce but do not remunerate well. Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that education is not a valuable asset in Georgia. The role of education is largely manifested in its impact on the employability of individuals, an issue that has been overlooked in the transition literature. Once this impact is taken into account, education is shown to play an increasingly important role in influencing the earnings of the working population in Georgia. The paper uses the ordinary least squares approach, instrumental variables approach, and sample selection correction, taking into account conditional and unconditional marginal effects of education on earnings. |
| Keywords: | Returns to Education; Human Capital; Sample Selection; Instrumental Variables; Transitional Economies; Georgia |
| JEL: | I21 J24 P2 |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_608&r=edu |
| By: | Gianna Barbieri (Ministry of Education); Claudio Rossetti (LUISS University); Paolo Sestito (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | In the Italian system teachers are allocated to schools according to a seniority-based centralized system with no role of individual schools in attracting, selecting and retaining teachers. Largely because of the rather limited pay scale, seniority-based rights to move to a particular school and geographical location represent one of the main career opportunities for tenured teachers. This paper examines the main drivers of the resulting (voluntary) mobility of Italian teachers. We find that the teachers' place of birth (after securing a tenured position, teachers try find work near their place of birth) and several features related to the student mix and the social context of the school are very important. Teachers systematically try to move away from schools where teaching is likely to be more difficult, for example where the students come from a lower socio-economic background and have poorer educational abilities even though teachers could have a more important role in boosting students' human capital accumulation. The centralized allocation system does not appear to equalize opportunities among different school environments. Furthermore, the absence of any criteria other than seniority in regulating teachers' locational preferences produces high staff turnover and a widespread lack of motivation among teachers who, all too often, are simply waiting in one school until they can move on to another. |
| Keywords: | The labour market for teachers, teacher mobility, geographical mobility, school characteristics |
| JEL: | I20 I21 I28 J45 J61 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_761_10&r=edu |
| By: | Daniele Pacifico |
| Abstract: | In this paper we evaluate in monetary terms the benefits from attending a post-secondary degree in an Italian university. We also propose a microsimulation model that takes into account the spatial distribution of scholarships, fees and other monetary and in-kind services related to the university sector. In this way, it is possible to obtain a good approximation of the real net benefit gained from attending a post-secondary Italian degree and to study its distributive impact on both the users and the whole Italian population. We will provide evidence that the benefits from public higher education have universalistic features. However, the tax-system that is applied by each university is slightly regressive whilst subsidies have a high potential in terms of redistribution, even though the allocated funds are not enough to create any significant effect. Given these results, a new tax-policy is proposed to overcome some of the problems of the present system. |
| Keywords: | microsimulation; inequality; in-kind benefits; higher education; university; tuition fees; subsidy |
| JEL: | C15 D31 H23 H42 H52 I23 I38 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:cappmo:0069&r=edu |
| By: | Lionel Artige |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the stationary state income level and income growth in an overlapping generations (OLG) model in which production uses three inputs: physical capital, human capital and land. The accumulation of human capital relies on parental funding of education and the past aggregate human capital stock. Four cases exhibiting various possible specifications of returns to scale in output and human capital technologies are studied and compared. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rpp:wpaper:1003&r=edu |
| By: | Frankel, David M.; Volij, Oscar |
| Abstract: | Using only ordinal axioms, we characterize several multigroup school segregation indices: the Atkinson Indices for the class of school districts with a given fixed number of ethnic groups and the Mutual Information Index for the class of all districts. Properties of other school segregation indices are also discussed. In an empirical application, we document a weakening of the effect of ethnicity on school assignment from 1987/8 to 2007/8. We also show that segregation between districts within cities currently accounts for 33% of total segregation. Segregation between states, driven mainly by the distinct residental patterns of Hispanics, contributes another 32%. |
| Keywords: | Segregation; measurement; indices |
| JEL: | C43 D63 |
| Date: | 2010–08–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:31808&r=edu |
| By: | Thuan Quang Thai (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research); Evangelos M. Falaris (Department of Economics,University of Delaware) |
| Abstract: | We study the relationship between long term child health and human capital. Child health may suffer if a child is inadequately nourished or is exposed to disease early in life and this may affect subsequent accumulation of human capital. We use data from rural Vietnam to examine the impact of child health on delay in starting school and schooling progress taking into account that choices of families affect children’s health and schooling. Our instrument is early life rainfall shocks that have differential effects arising from regional economic diversity. Our estimates indicate that better child health results in meaningfully improved schooling outcomes. |
| Keywords: | child health, z-score, school entry delay, schooling gap, rainfall shocks, Vietnam |
| JEL: | I12 J24 J13 O15 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dlw:wpaper:10-04.&r=edu |
| By: | Jan Dirk Vlasblom; Janneke Plantenga |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study the effect of parental leave on individual careers. We use individual registration data of a Dutch non-profit firm (Utrecht University). Our outcomes show that even with a short period of flexible leave there are career effects. More specifically, these effects are not unambiguously positive: slightly longer job durations are found, but also a lower probability of wage increases. It also appears that there are differences in effects between men and women: for men the effects appear to be smaller and of a more temporary character than for women. Apparently, even in a highly flexible system as the Dutch, with a high take up rate of men, the labour-care balance is still not gender neutral and not career neutral. |
| Keywords: | Parental leave, Labour force participation, Labour career, Gender |
| JEL: | J22 J13 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:use:tkiwps:1014&r=edu |