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on Education |
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Issue of 2010‒09‒11
twenty-one papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Fabio Aricò; Laurence Lasselle; Kannika Thampanishvong |
| Abstract: | Non-formal education programmes are active in a number of developing countries. These programmes offer vulnerable students an opportunity to pursue their education although they were excluded for various reasons from the formal education systems. This paper examines the impact of two programmes (one in Mauritius, and one in Thailand) on their participants’ aspirations towards learning. We develop a methodology to measure the perception of students regarding their learning experience. More than a third of them, for example, believe that there is no barrier to their education. Most acknowledge the role of their teachers in raising their aspirations towards their educational achievement. When compared to male students, female students seem to value more the role of their education. |
| Keywords: | Non-formal Education, Aspirations, Mauritius, Thailand. |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:san:wpecon:1005&r=edu |
| By: | Bousquet, Marc; Newfield, Christopher |
| Abstract: | Marc Bousquet argues that public education has become less and less democratic. Primary and secondary public educational institutions are now run as if they were corporations. The metrics used to determine performance and productivity are vapid and intended on supporting administrations at the expense of students and faculty. Teachers and faculty are working harder to meet business-inspired goals, for example “testing to the testâ€, rather than producing graduates who have powerful analytical/critical skills. He demonstrates that so far the Obama Administration has consistently backed this ongoing process especially given the appointment of Arne Duncan as the Secretary of Education. Moreover, he focuses on why these changes are undermining students’ freedom of expression and democratic rights. He concludes with some suggestions on how faculty, students and the public might respond to these challenges. Christopher Newfield notes that part of the loss of US competitiveness is due to the decline of its educational system especially in California which had been the model for public education for the US from the early 1960s onward. Moreover, education funding has declined as fees have increased. He outlines how the general funding model for education has changed significantly at the expense of the middle class: larger gaps in educational attainments; plummeting access to elite institutions by lower classes; and status reproduction through selectivity of the most gifted students (weighted in favor of private institutions). He suggests that this process can be turned around if new goals are established that assess success rooted in the accumulation of social capital and new more sophisticated accounting procedures that separate out different types of funding including the number of students taught and the true cost of corporate-sponsored short-term oriented research. He finishes with an agenda to push for these reforms and others. |
| Keywords: | public education, public higher education, california |
| Date: | 2010–05–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:issres:1338313&r=edu |
| By: | Babcock, Phillip; Marks, Mindy |
| Abstract: | Using multiple datasets from different time periods, we document declines in academic time investment by full-time college students in the United States between 1961 and 2003. Full-time students allocated 40 hours per week toward class and studying in 1961, whereas by 2003 they were investing about 27 hours per week. Declines were extremely broad-based, and are not easily accounted for by framing effects, work or major choices, or compositional changes in students or schools. We conclude that there have been substantial changes over time in the quantity or manner of human capital production on college campuses. |
| Keywords: | time use, human capital, education |
| Date: | 2010–03–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ucsbec:1427665&r=edu |
| By: | Babcock, Phillip; Marks, Mindy |
| Abstract: | In 1961, the average full-time student at a 4-year college in the U.S. studied about 24 hours per week, while his modern counterpart puts in only 14 hours a week. Students now study less than half as much as universities claim to require. This dramatic decline in study times occurred for students from all demographic subgroups, overall and within every major, for students who worked and those who did not, and at 4-year colleges of every type, degree structure and level of selectivity. Most of the decline predates the innovations in technology that would be most relevant to education production, and thus was not driven by such changes. The most plausible explanation for these findings, we conclude, is that standards have fallen at post-secondary institutions in the United States. |
| Keywords: | time use, human capital, education, college |
| Date: | 2010–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ucsbec:1427650&r=edu |
| By: | Esther Duflo |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the medium run consequences of an increase in the rate of accumulation of human capital in a developing country. From 1974 to 1978, the Indonesian government built over 61,000 primary schools. The school construction program led to an increase in education among individuals who were young enough to attend primary school after 1974, but not among the older cohorts. 2SLS estimates suggest that an increase of 10 percentage points in the proportion of primary school graduates in the labor force reduced the wages of the older cohorts by 3.8% to 10% and increased their formal labor force participation by 4% to 7%. I propose a two-sector model as a framework to interpret these findings. The results suggest that physical capital did not adjust to the faster increase in human capital. [Working Paper No. 002] |
| Keywords: | returns to education, medium run, transitional dynamics |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2787&r=edu |
| By: | Turner, Nick |
| Abstract: | Federal student aid is designed to lower the costs of postsecondary attendance, working to ensure that higher education is widely accessible. The effectiveness of these programs depends crucially on the existence of offsetting price changes. Contrary to the intention of policymakers, I find that schools fully counteract the cost reduction of tax-based aid by lowering institutional aid dollar-for-dollar. This finding implies that colleges and universities capture the financial benefits of tax-based aid at the expense of eligible students and families. |
| Keywords: | federal aid, student aid, higher education |
| Date: | 2010–03–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ucsdec:1064778&r=edu |
| By: | Schuetzenmeister, Falk |
| Abstract: | Professional management is increasingly important for successful research at universities as well as other organizations. This exploratory review draws on different bodies of literature in order to reformulate the complex challenges of research management by applying newer organizational theory. Research management can be described as boundary work that produces couplings between science and the wider society. Because of the complexity of organized science, management is increasingly indispensable to ensure the social, cognitive, and material preconditions of research. This paper discusses different means of research management on the research group level and within university departments. Research organizations are characterized by their relative diffuse distribution of management functions over organizational levels as well as by little direct determination between organizational elements. Charismatic scientific leaders can enhance the efficiency of research organizations and projects. More recently, universities have started to create new management positions within projects and centers. Scientifically trained people are hired as specialists in research management, constituting a new professional role. In contrast to pure administration, the new research managers make decisions with reference to scientific knowledge and the societal environment of research. |
| Keywords: | IES, Institute of European Studies, Research Management, Higher Education, Research Organization, Organizational Theory, University Collaboration, Science Studies, Scientific Leadership, Organization of Science, Boundary Work, Professionalization |
| Date: | 2010–01–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:bineur:1114995&r=edu |
| By: | Ryan, Martin (University College Dublin); Delaney, Liam (University College Dublin); Harmon, Colm P. (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses novel measures of individual differences that produce new insights about student inputs into the (higher) education production function. The inputs examined are lecture attendance and additional study-hours. The data were collected through a web-survey that the authors designed. The analysis includes novel measures of individual differences including willingness to take risks, consideration of future consequences and non-cognitive ability traits. Besides age, gender and year of study, the main determinants of lecture attendance and additional study-hours are attitude to risk, future-orientation and conscientiousness. In addition, future-orientation, and in particular conscientiousness, determine lecture attendance to a greater extent than they determine additional study. Finally, we show that family income and financial transfers (from both parents and the state) do not determine any educational input. This study suggests that non-cognitive abilities may be more important than financial constraints in the determination of inputs related to educational production functions. |
| Keywords: | higher education, education inputs, lecture attendance, hours of study, future-orientation, attitude to risk, non-cognitive ability, conscientiousness |
| JEL: | I21 J2 D90 |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5144&r=edu |
| By: | Jones, A;; Rice, N;; Rosa Dias, P; |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the role of quality of schooling as a source of inequality of opportunity in health. Substantiating earlier literature that links differences in education to health disparities, the paper uses variation in quality of schooling to test for inequality of opportunity in health. Analysis of the 1958 NCDS cohort exploits the variation in type and quality of schools generated by the comprehensive schooling reforms in England and Wales. The analysis provides evidence of a statistically significant and economically sizable association between some dimensions of quality of education and a range of health and health-related outcomes. For some outcomes the association persists, over and above the effects of measured ability, social development, academic qualifications and adult socioeconomic status and lifestyle. |
| Keywords: | Health; Quality of Education; Inequality of opportunity; NCDS |
| JEL: | I12 I28 C21 |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:hectdg:10/22&r=edu |
| By: | Fabio Aricò; Laurence Lasselle |
| Abstract: | Second Change School programmes are active in a number of European countries. These schools offer vulnerable young adults an alternative opportunity to enhance their employability skills by alternating education with work experience. People enrolling in these programmes disengaged from schools at an early age. They already experienced or are at-risk to enter into unemployment. This paper examines the impact of the Second Chance Schools on their participants’ aspirations towards the labour market through skill-acquisition. We are able to identify the perception of Second Chance Schools’ interns regarding entry to the professional life. A third of them, for example, consider their attitude or their surroundings as a barrier preventing them from getting a job. However, our results emphasise the role of the interns’ coach in improving their aspirations towards the labour market. We also show that when compared to male interns, female interns have a stronger (positive) perception of the school as a place where they can gain skills. |
| Keywords: | Employability, Training, Alternative Education, Aspirations. |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:san:crieff:1006&r=edu |
| By: | Martin Ryan (UCD Geary Institute, University College Dublin); Liam Delaney (UCD Geary Institute, University College Dublin; School of Economics, University College Dublin; School of Public Health and Population Science, University College Dublin); Colm Harmon (UCD Geary Institute, University College Dublin; School of Economics, University College Dublin; IZA, Bonn) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses novel measures of individual differences that produce new insights about student inputs into the (higher) education production function. The inputs examined are lecture attendance and additional study-hours. The data were collected through a websurvey that the authors designed. The analysis includes novel measures of individual di_erences including willingness to take risks, consideration of future consequences and non-cognitive ability traits. Besides age, gender and year of study, the main determinants of lecture attendance and additional study-hours are attitude to risk, future-orientation and conscientiousness. In addition, future-orientation, and in particular conscientiousness, determine lecture attendance to a greater extent than they determine additional study. Finally, we show that family income and _financial transfers (from both parents and the state) do not determine any educational input. This study suggests that non-cognitive abilities may be more important than financial constraints in the determination of inputs related to educational production functions. |
| Keywords: | Socio-Economic Status, Education, Inequality, Discrimination |
| JEL: | I21 J2 D90 |
| Date: | 2010–08–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucd:wpaper:201036&r=edu |
| By: | Francis Teal |
| Abstract: | While the numbers with completed tertiary level education are low in Africa, both relative to other countries and in absolute terms, they have been growing very rapidly. Three questions are addressed in this paper. The first is how higher education links to other forms of capital accumulation in a process that leads to economic growth. The second is how higher education links to job outcomes in particular the role of the public sector and self-employment as outcomes for graduates. The third is whether and how an expansion of skilled jobs can create its own demand. The paper draws on both macro and micro evidence to answer those questions which are placed in a long run historical context. It is argued that growth has been more closely linked to investment in physical capital than in education and this may well reflect the fact that education is most valuable when it is linked to technology which requires higher skills. Data from thirty two African countries are used to show that the returns to education, measured both by macro production functions and by micro earning functions, are highest for those with higher levels of education. A contrast is drawn between the role of higher education in providing access to public sector employment and the increasing importance of self-employment in Africa. The paper concludes by asking whether Africa can use its investment in higher skilled labour to effect a service based growth revolution. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2010-25&r=edu |
| By: | Julie L. Hotchkiss; Menbere Shiferaw |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to a large literature concerned with identifying the source of the widening wage gap between high school and college graduates by providing a comprehensive, multidimensional decomposition of wages across both time and educational status. Data from a multitude of sources are brought to bear on the question of the relative importance of labor market supply and demand factors in the determination of those wage differences. The results confirm the importance of investments in and use of technology, which has been the focus of most of the previous literature, but are also able to show that demand and supply factors played very different roles in the growing wage gaps of the 1980s and 1990s. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedawp:2010-12&r=edu |
| By: | Bharadwaj, Prashant; Eberhard, Juan; Neilson, Christopher |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the causal relationship between birth weight and school achievement among children in grades 1 through 8. We find that birth weight significantly affects performance on both math and language test scores in school. Children with higher birth weight do better - a 10% increase in birth weight improves performance in math by nearly 0.05 standard deviations in 1st grade. Children who are born at a weight less than 1500 grams (very low birth weight) have scores in math that are 0.15 standard deviations less in 1st grade. We exploit repeated observations on children to show that birth weight has a persistent effect that does not deteriorate as children advance through grades (upto 8th grade). Children with greater birth weight are also less likely to have ever repeated a grade. The causal link is identified by using a twins estimator - we collected birth weight and basic demographic data on all twins born in Chile between 1992-2000 and match these twin pairs to administrative school records between 2002-2008. There are no differences in school attendance by birth weight, suggesting that missing school perhaps due to health problems is likely not a channel via which test score differentials arise. |
| Keywords: | causal effect, school achievement |
| Date: | 2010–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ucsdec:1528728&r=edu |
| By: | Oguro, Kazumasa; Oshio, Takashi; Takahata, Junichiro |
| Abstract: | In this study, we attempt to investigate how educational subsidy, childcare allowance, and family allowance affect economic growth and income distribution, on the basis of simulation models which incorporate intergenerational ability transmission and endogenous fertility. The simulation results show that financial support for higher education can both increase economic growth and reduce income inequality, especially if the abilities of parent and child are closely correlated. In contrast with educational subsidy, raising childcare allowance or family allowance has limited impacts on growth and income inequality. |
| Keywords: | Ability transmission, endogenous fertility, educational subsidy |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:piecis:482&r=edu |
| By: | Ning, Guangjie (Nankai University) |
| Abstract: | Rapid education expansion and rising income inequality are two striking phenomena occurring in China during the transitional period. Using the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) data collected in 1997 and 2006, this paper studies how education affects individual earnings during the transitional process. We find that education accounts for only a small fraction of personal earnings and income gap between different groups. We analyze the underlying mechanism of the impact of education on earnings. More educated people tend to enter state-owned sectors, have a low probability of changing jobs in the labor market and work less time; all of these will have a pronounced impact on earning and income inequality. Quantile regression analysis shows that the low-income group's education return rate is lower, which helps little in narrowing income gap. We decompose the earning gap into four factors: population effect, price effect, labor choice effect and unobservable effect. In explaining the earning gap in China, the price effect is more important than the population effect. The labor choice effect is also significant. We conclude that increasing educational expenditure with no complementary measures such as reforming the education system and establishing a competitive labor market helps less in reducing income inequality. |
| Keywords: | education expansion, income gap, rate of return to education, labor market |
| JEL: | I20 J31 O15 |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5148&r=edu |
| By: | Ding, Waverly |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of founder professional education background on the adoption of the open-science technology management strategy by a sample of 512 young biotechnology firms. One major finding of the paper is that after controlling for founder prior work experience and other organizational and environmental factors, biotechnology firms with proportionally more Ph.D.-holding entrepreneurs on the founding team have higher probability to adopt open science. A second note-worthy finding is that founder professional education background can mitigate the constraint of organizational environment on strategy. While a crowded technological niche provides a more challenging environment for firms to implement open science due to higher scooping risks, the deterring effect of such a high-risk environment is smaller among firms founded by proportionally more Ph.D.-holding entrepreneurs. I also found that the link between entrepreneurial professional education background and open science is stronger in a less favorable institutional environment for open science. The finding is consistent with and complements the growing body of work emphasizing the importance of entrepreneurial background in developing knowledge about new venture strategy and structure. It suggests that demographic changes in educational background of entrepreneurs in an organizational field may bring exogenous shocks to and shift the strategic trend in an organizational field. The implications for management innovations in an organizational field are discussed. |
| Date: | 2010–04–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:indrel:1274419&r=edu |
| By: | Giovanni Russo (VU University Amsterdam); Jos van Ommeren (VU University Amsterdam); Piet Rietveld (VU University Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | Using a dynamic approach, employing data on job mobility, we demonstrate that university workers' marginal willingness to pay for reducing commuting distance is about euro 0.25 per kilometre travelled. This corresponds to a marginal willingness to pay for reducing commuting time of about 75% of the net average hourly wage. For females, the willingness to pay is substantially higher than for males. It is also substantially higher for workers that work few hours per day, as predicted by theory. |
| Keywords: | University workers; commuting |
| JEL: | R21 |
| Date: | 2010–08–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20100086&r=edu |
| By: | Frijters, Paul (University of Queensland); Johnston, David W. (Queensland University of Technology); Shah, Manisha (University of California, Irvine); Shields, Michael A. (University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | Do parents invest more or less in their high ability children? We provide new evidence on this question by comparing observed ability differences and observed investment differences between siblings in the NLSY. To overcome endogeneity issues we use sibling differences in handedness as an instrument for cognitive ability differences, since handedness is a strong determinant of cognitive ability. We find that parents invest more in high ability children, with a one standard deviation increase in child cognitive ability increasing parental investments by approximately one-third of a standard deviation. Consequently, differences in child cognitive ability are enhanced by differential parental investments. This finding has important implications for education policy. |
| Keywords: | children, cognitive ability, parental investment, handedness |
| JEL: | D13 J1 |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5153&r=edu |
| By: | Antoni, Manfred (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Drasch, Katrin (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Kleinert, Corinna (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Matthes, Britta (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Ruland, Michael (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Trahms, Annette (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "'Working and Learning in a Changing World', ALWA derived from its German name 'Arbeiten und Lernen im Wandel' for short, is a dataset which is collected within the project 'Qualifications, Competencies and Working Life' at the department 'Education and Employment over the Life Course' of the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg. Jutta Allmendinger, the former director of the IAB, is due to realize the idea to combine a retrospective life course interview with tests of cognitive competencies by surveying the birth cohorts 1956-1988 resident in Germany. The survey is conducted by infas Sozialforschung, Bonn. The ALWA-dataset contains information about the life histories of more than 10.400 life courses and allows detailed longitudinal analyses in particular schooling and training, labor market entry an employment career as well as family formation and regional mobility. After an extensive data edition a detailed documentation is available containing this overview and the corresponding documents range from project description to supply of the data as Scientific Use File." (author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | IAB-Datensatz Arbeiten und Lernen, Datengewinnung, Stichprobe, Daten - Struktur, Datenaufbereitung, Telefoninterview, empirische Sozialforschung - Methode |
| Date: | 2010–08–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabfme:201005_de&r=edu |
| By: | Turner, Nicholas |
| Abstract: | The Hope Tax Credit, the Lifetime Learning Tax Credit and the Tuition and Fees Deduction are the first forms of federal student aid administered through the tax code. In this paper, which is the first to explore the effects of the three programs, I use policy-induced variation in the value of these programs to estimate their causal effect on college enrollment. The results indicate that tax-based aid programs have a positive enrollment effect for the first two years of college. Using detailed family income data to construct direct measures of credit constraints, I find no evidence of heterogeneous effects of the subsidy for individuals that are likely to be constrained, suggesting that credit constraints are non-binding. I find further support for this interpretation from results that explore heterogeneous effects by income, from the comparison of the enrollment effect of tax-based aid to other forms of student aid, and from the similarity of enrollment responses for the first and second years of college. |
| Keywords: | tax-based student aid, credit constraints, postsecondary enrollment |
| Date: | 2010–03–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ucsdec:703046&r=edu |