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on Education |
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Issue of 2011‒05‒14
eight papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Marc Gurgand (EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris, CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - INSEE - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique, J-PAL Europe - J-PAL Europe, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS : UMR8545 - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - Ecole des Ponts ParisTech - Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris - ENS Paris - INRA); Adrien Lorenceau (EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris); Thomas Mélonio (AFD - Agence Française de Développement - Agence Française de Développement) |
| Abstract: | Empirical evidence that access to higher education is constrained by credit availability is limited and usually indirect. This paper provides direct evidence by comparing university enrollment rates of South African potential students, depending on whether they get a loan or not to cover their registration fees, in a context where such fees are high. We use matched individual data from both a credit institution (Eduloan) and the Department of Education. Based on a regression discontinuity design using the fact that loans are granted according to a credit score threshold, we can estimate the causal impact of loan obtainment. We find that the credit constraint is substantial, as it decreases the enrollment rate into higher education by more than 20 percentage points in a population of student loan applicants. |
| Keywords: | Education ; university ; credit constraint ; regression discontinuity |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-00590898&r=edu |
| By: | Björklund, Anders (Swedish Institute for Social Research and IZA); Salvanes, Kjell G. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | In every society for which we have data, people’s educational achievement is positively correlated with their parents’ education or with other indicators of their parents’socioeconomic status. This topic is central in social science, and there is no doubt that research has intensified during recent decades, not least thanks to better data having become accessible to researchers. The purpose of this chapter is to summarize and evaluate recent empirical research on education and family background. Broadly speaking, we focus on two related but distinct motivations for this topic. The first is equality of opportunity. Here, major the research issues are: How important a determinant of educational attainment is family background, and is family background—in the broad sense that incorporates factors not chosen by the individual—a major, or only a minor, determinant of educational attainment? What are the mechanisms that make family background important? Have specific policy reforms been successful in reducing the impact of family background on educational achievement? The second common starting point for recent research has been the child development perspective. Here, the focus is on how human-capital accumulation is affected by early childhood resources. Studies with this focus address the questions: what types of parental resources or inputs are important for children’s development, why are they important and when are they important? In addition, this literature focuses on exploring which types of economic policy, and what timing of the policy in relation to children’s social and cognitive development, are conducive to children’s performance and adult outcomes. The policy interest in this research is whether policies that change parents’ resources and restrictions have causal effects on their children. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational mobility; Sibling correlations; Education; Education reform. |
| JEL: | I21 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2010–06–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2010_014&r=edu |
| By: | Naushin Mahmood (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad.) |
| Abstract: | This study examines how the changing demographics in Pakistan, resulting primarily from fertility transition, would affect educational attainment of school-age population during the next two decades. The basic question addressed is whether the expected population change would enable the country to benefit from the demographic dividend and enhance the chances to achieve universal primary education by 2015, one of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Using projected population es timates and school enrolment data, the findings show that about 9.5 million children aged 5-9 years were not enrolled in school in 2005-06. Assuming a gradual and steady increase in enrolment, education simulations show that the number of children aged 5-9 years who will never enter school will cumulatively rise to approximately 27.7 million by 2030, of which 12.2 million would be boys, and 15.5 million girls, and it may take another two decades to achieve universal primary enrolment. Furthermore, children aged 10-14 years not attending secondary level were 14.5 million in 2005-06. Given the current trends in enrolment, this number is expected to increase almost four times by 2030, thereby widening the population education gap over the years. Thus rapid increase in enrolment is the desired option. Otherwise the large education deficit would create conditions highly unfavourable to capitalis e on the demographic dividend, and pose a threat rather than offer an opportunity to stimulate economic development. In terms of policy actions, investments in school education need to be almost doubled to absorb the prospective increase in the school-age population during the next two decades. |
| Keywords: | Demographic Dividend, Education, Primary Enrolment |
| JEL: | J1 I2 I22 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pid:wpaper:2011:68&r=edu |
| By: | Muhammad Nasir (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad.); Muhammad Salman Tariq (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad.); Faiz-ur-Rehman (Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.) |
| Abstract: | The underlying study intends to show the impact of foreign remittances on the educational performance of children in the households receiving these remittances. Much of the literature in this area covers the effects of remittances on poverty, consumption, and investment behaviour of the receiving households. The literature on the impact of remittances on educational performance, however, is rare, especially in Pakistan. To investigate the impact of remittances on educational performance, primary data at the household level is collected from four main cities of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. The OLS results illustrate that, without considering parental education, remittances have significant adverse effects on educational performance. However, the effect becomes insignificant once parental education is included, as a control variable, in the regression. The results also reveal that the low level of parental education, current income, assets, family type, and family size play an important role in the educational performance of children. |
| Keywords: | Remittances , Education, Parental Absence |
| JEL: | A20 I22 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pid:wpaper:2011:66&r=edu |
| By: | Auriol, Emmanuelle (TSE, ARQADE and IDEI); Demonsant, Jean-Luc (Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon) |
| Abstract: | The paper aims at studying determinants of schooling in traditional hierarchical societies confronted with an established history of outmigration. In the village, a ruling caste controls local political and religious institutions. For children who do not belong to the ruling caste, migration is a social mobility factor that is enhanced by formal schooling. Since formally educated children tend not to return, the ruling caste seeks to develop family loyalty by choosing religious education instead. The theory hence predicts that the social status of the family has a signicant impact on educational choice. Children from the ruling caste who are sent abroad have a lower probability of being sent to formal school. They are more likely to be sent to Koranic schools that emphasize religious and family values. The theoretical predictions are tested on data from Matam region in Senegal, a region where roughly one of every two children have ever attended school. |
| Keywords: | Schooling, Migration, Social Status, Haalpulaar |
| JEL: | I21 O12 O15 O17 Z13 |
| Date: | 2011–03–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ide:wpaper:24304&r=edu |
| By: | Böheim, René (University of Linz); Lackner, Mario (University of Linz) |
| Abstract: | After three years in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), collegiate football players face a trade-off between spending more time in the NCAA and pursuing a career in the National Football League (NFL) by declaring for the draft. We analyze the starting salaries and signing bonuses for 1,673 rookies in the NFL, who entered the league between 2001 and 2009 through the NFL draft. We instrument the endogenous decision to enter the professional market with a player's month of birth. A player's true talent is only imperfectly observed and the instrument provides a causal link between time at college and subsequent salaries in the NFL through the relative age effect. Our estimates suggest that a player enjoys a 6% higher starting salary in the NFL, and a 15% higher first-year signing bonus, for each year with the college team. On average, a rookie is estimated to earn $131,000 more in his rookie season, if he enters the NFL one year later. Our analysis of a typical labor market in professional sports shows that the returns to education in sports are sizeable and surprisingly similar to returns to formal education. The results of our analysis provide information for the players who are deciding about declaring for the draft, however, also colleges and the teams in the NFL may find the results of interest. |
| Keywords: | ability bias, returns to education, NFL, labor markets in sports |
| JEL: | J31 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5665&r=edu |
| By: | Ooghe, Erwin (K.U.Leuven) |
| Abstract: | Many countries provide extra resources to schools serving disadvantaged pupils. We exploit a discontinuity in the assignment of such personnel subsidies in Flanders to estimate the impact on cognitive outcomes via a regression discontinuity (RD) design. Because bias can be substantial in RD designs, we include a bias correction in the specification of the control function. Overall, we find positive effects for mathematics, reading and spelling, but the impact is significant for spelling only. The effects are larger for disadvantaged pupils defined on the basis of family background, smaller – or less reliable – for low initial performers, and again larger at schools that used the resources to foster socio-emotional development. |
| Keywords: | impact evaluation, disadvantaged students, school resources |
| JEL: | H52 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5667&r=edu |
| By: | Hartog, Joop (University of Amsterdam); Ding, Xiaohao (Peking University); Liao, Juan (Peking University) |
| Abstract: | We use the method of Dominitz and Manski (1996) to solicit anticipated wage distributions for continuing to a Master degree or going to work after completing the Bachelor degree. The means of the distributions have an effect on intention to continue as predicted by theory. The dispersions in these individual distributions have no effect on intention to continue, suggesting that anticipated earnings risk does not play a role in the decision. |
| Keywords: | educational choice, wage expectations |
| JEL: | D8 I21 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5679&r=edu |