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on Education |
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Issue of 2012‒03‒28
fifteen papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Charlotte Geay; Sandra McNally; Shqiponja Telhaj |
| Abstract: | In recent years there has been an increase in the number of children going to school in England who do not speak English as a first language. We investigate whether this has an impact on the educational outcomes of native English speakers at the end of primary school. We show that the negative correlation observed in the raw data is mainly an artefact of selection: non-native speakers are more likely to attend school with disadvantaged native speakers. We attempt to identify a causal impact of changes in the percentage of non-native speakers within the year group. In general, our results suggest zero effect and rule out negative effects. |
| Keywords: | language, immigration, education |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:ceedps:0137&r=edu |
| By: | Geraint Johnes; A Aggarwal; R Freguglia; G Spricigo |
| Abstract: | The impact of education on labour market outcomes is analysed using data from various rounds of the National Sample Survey of India. Occupational destination is examined using both multinomial logit analyses and structural dynamic discrete choice modelling. The latter approach involves the use of a novel approach to constructing a pseudo-panel from repeated cross-section data, and is particularly useful as a means of evaluating policy impacts over time. We find that policy to expand educational provision leads initially to an increased takeup of education, and in the longer term leads to an increased propensity for workers to enter non-manual employment. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lan:wpaper:4298&r=edu |
| By: | Roger Brown |
| Abstract: | From 2012 English universities and colleges will be operating in a more demanding market environment. There will be competition on tuition fees for undergraduate (Baccalaureate) programs for the first time. New private, including “for profitâ€, providers will be entering the market. There will be much more information about what institutions will be offering to existing and potential students. The Government believes that this will raise quality as well as providing a sustainable basis for the future. However there is little evidence to support these beliefs and considerable grounds for supposing that these policies will create a more stratified, and potentially more wasteful, system. |
| Keywords: | Education |
| Date: | 2011–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:cshedu:qt9569q5n5&r=edu |
| By: | Marcelo Knobel |
| Abstract: | It is estimated that approximately 3 million students are enrolled as international students, and it is possible to project that this number may reach more than 7 million by 2025. As global demand exceeds the supply, competition is building for the best of these students. Some countries (or regions) clearly envisage the opportunity this represents and have been strongly stimulating student mobility. There is a race for “brainsâ€, be it for professors at the end of their careers looking for new professional opportunities and/or the opportunity to return to their native countries, or for researchers at the beginning of their careers, looking for a place that might offer them a better future, or even for students, who seek more appealing alternatives. How will Brazil fare in this competition for talent? If it is to internationalize its higher education study programs, Brazil must deal with a number of practical problems, including a lack of specific policies and guidelines. Bureaucracy, for instance, is one major problem. A foreigner who comes to live in Brazil faces many obstacles, mainly due to the bureaucracy involved in everything from getting a Visa through the Federal Police office, to opening up a bank account, renting an apartment, registering at school, amongst many other processes and regulations that make it difficult for anyone to come and live in Brazil. One rarely finds a course offered in English or Spanish in a Brazilian university and the selection of faculty are normally held in Portuguese. Currently, there are no plans or projects at either the federal or state level, to address these obstacles. This should be a major concern to all who hold positions of responsibility in the educational process, as Brazil is not keeping pace with higher education reforms found globally. The internationalization movement is growing, and Brazil must actively seek reforms to keep pace with economic competitors. |
| Keywords: | Education |
| Date: | 2011–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:cshedu:qt4gw1s674&r=edu |
| By: | S Bradley; Jim Taylor |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the extent to which exam performance at the end of compulsory education has been affected by three major education reforms: the introduction of a quasi-market following the Education Reform Act (1988); the specialist schools initiative introduced in 1994; and the Excellence in Cities programme introduced in 1999. We use data for all state-funded secondary schools in England over the period 1992-2006. The empirical analysis, which is based on the application of panel data methods, indicates that the government and its agencies have substantially overestimated the benefits flowing from these three major reforms. Only about one-third of the improvement in GCSE exam scores during 1992-2006 is directly attributable to the combined effect of the education reforms. The distributional consequences of the policy, however, are estimated to have been favourable, with the greatest gains being achieved by schools with the highest proportion of pupils from poor families. But there is evidence that resources have not been allocated efficiently. |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lan:wpaper:974&r=edu |
| By: | Geraint Johnes; R Freguglia; G Spricigo; A Aggarwal |
| Abstract: | The effect of education on labour market outcomes is analysed using both survey and administrative data from The Brazilian PNAD and RAIS-MIGRA series, respectively. Occupational destination is examined using both multinomial logit analyses and structural dynamic discrete choice modelling. The latter approach is particularly useful as a means of evaluating policy impacts over time. We find that policy to expand educational provision leads initially to an increased take-up of education, and in the longer term leads to an increased propensity for workers to enter non-manual employment. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lan:wpaper:4297&r=edu |
| By: | Cruces, Guillermo; Gasparini, Leonardo |
| Abstract: | This paper provides original empirical evidence on the evolution of education inequality for the Latin American countries over the decades of 1990 and 2000. The analysis covers a wide range of issues on the differences in educational outcomes and opportunities across the population, including inequality in years of education, gaps in school enrolment, wage skill differentials and public social expenditure. The evidence indicates a significant difference between the 1990s and the 2000s in terms of both the assessment of the equity of the education expansion and its impact on the income distribution. In particular, changes in the 2000s seem to have had an equalizing impact on earnings, given the more pro-poor pattern of the education upgrading and a more stable or even increasing relative demand for low-skill labour. |
| Keywords: | education, inequality, enrolment, wage premium, Latin America |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2011-93&r=edu |
| By: | Kan, Mari |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the short-term and long-term effects of maternal employment on adolescent children’s outcomes, namely, on behavior and grades at school and on total years of education. Because a mother’s decision to work depends heavily on her husband’s socioeconomic characteristics in Japan, IV methods were employed to deal with this self-selection problem. The results show that maternal full-time employment itself does not hinder adolescents’ human capital development. Rather, maternal full-time work prevents sons from smoking at school, although the path of this phenomenon should be carefully examined with more detailed data. Effects of maternal employment are not observed for sons’ or daughters’ educational attainment after controlling for family and school characteristics. |
| Keywords: | human capital, maternal employment, adolescent, academic achievement, smoking |
| JEL: | J13 J22 J24 I12 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:cisdps:541&r=edu |
| By: | Hazan, Moshe; Zoabi, Hosny |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a new explanation for the narrowing and reversal of the gender education gap. It highlights the indirect effect of returns to human capital on parents' preferences for sons and the resulting demand for children and education. We assume that parents maximize the full income of their children and that males have an additional income, independently of their level of education. This additional income has two effects. First, it biases parental preferences towards sons. Second, it implies that females have relative advantage in producing income through education. We show that when the relative returns to human capital are sufficiently low, the bias in parents' preferences towards sons is relatively high, so that parents who have daughters first have more children. Daughters are born to larger families and hence receive less education. As returns to human capital increase, gender differences in producing income diminish, parents' bias towards sons declines, variation in family size falls and the positive correlation between family size and the number of daughters is weakened. When returns to human capital are sufficiently high, the relative advantage of females in education dominates differences in family size, triggering the reversal in gender education gap. |
| Keywords: | Fertility; Gender Gender Educational Gap; Returns to Human Capital |
| JEL: | I21 J13 O11 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8885&r=edu |
| By: | Meghir, Costas (Yale University); Palme, Mårten (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm University); Simeonova, Emilia (Tufts University and NBER) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of a compulsory education reform in Sweden on adult health and mortality. The reform was implemented by municipalities between 1949 and 1962 as a social experiment and implied an extension of compulsory schooling from 7 or 8 years depending on municipality to 9 years nationally. We use detailed individual data on education, hospitalizations, labor force participation and mortality for Swedes born between 1946 and 1957. Individual level data allow us to study the effect of the education reform on three main groups of outcomes: (i) mortality until age 60 for different causes of death; (ii) hospitalization by cause and (iii) exit from the labor force primarily through the disability insurance program. The results show reduced male mortality up to age fifty for those assigned to the reform, but these gains were erased by increased mortality later on. We find similar patterns in the probability of being hospitalized and the average costs of inpatient care. Men who acquired more education due to the reform are less likely to retire early. |
| Keywords: | Causal effects of education; Compulsory schooling laws; Comprehensive school reforms; Education reform; Returns to schooling; |
| JEL: | I12 I18 I21 |
| Date: | 2012–03–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2012_0004&r=edu |
| By: | Aitor Lacuesta (Banco de España); Sergio Puente (Banco de España); Ernesto Villanueva (Banco de España) |
| Abstract: | The response of human capital accumulation to changes in the anticipated returns to schooling determines the type of skills supplied to the labor market, the productivity of future cohorts, and the evolution of inequality. Unlike the US, the UK or Germany, Spain has experienced since 1995 a drop in the returns to medium and tertiary education and, with a lag, a drop in schooling attainment of recent cohorts, providing the opportunity to estimate the response of different forms of human capital acquisition to relative increases in low-skill wages. We measure the expected returns to schooling using skill-specifi c wages bargained in collective agreements at the province-industry level. We argue that those wages are easily observable by youths and relatively insensitive to shifts in the supply of workers. Our preferred estimates suggest that a 10% increase in the ratio of wages of unskilled workers to the wages of mid-skill workers increases the fraction of males completing at most compulsory schooling by between 2 and 5 percentage points. The response is driven by males from less educated parents and comes at the expense of students from the academic high school track rather than the vocational training track. |
| Keywords: | Collective bargaining, human capital |
| JEL: | J52 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bde:wpaper:1208&r=edu |
| By: | Sebastian Braun, Nadja Dwenger, Dorothea Kübler, Alexander Westkamp |
| Abstract: | Quotas for special groups of students often apply in school or university admission procedures. This paper studies the performance of two mechanisms to implement such quotas in a lab experiment. The first mechanism is a simplified version of the mechanism currently employed by the German central clearinghouse for university admissions, which first allocates seats in the quota for top-grade students before allocating all other seats among remaining applicants. The second is a modified version of the student-proposing deferred acceptance (SDA) algorithm, which simultaneously allocates seats in all quotas. Our main result is that the current procedure, designed to give top-grade students an advantage, actually harms them, as students often fail to grasp the strategic issues involved. The modified SDA algorithm significantly improves the matching for top-grade students and could thus be a valuable tool for redesigning university admissions in Germany |
| Keywords: | College admissions, experiment, quotas, matching, Gale-Shapley mechanism, Boston mechanism |
| JEL: | C78 C92 D78 I20 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1761&r=edu |
| By: | Fitzenberger, Bernd; Leuschner, Ute |
| Abstract: | Academic careers in Germany have been under debate for a while. We conduct a survey among postdocs in Germany, to analyze the perceptions and attitudes of postdocs regarding their research incentives, their working conditions, and their career prospects. We conceptualize the career prospects of a postdoc in a life-cycle perspective of transitions from academic training to academic or non-academic jobs. Only about half of the postdocs sees strong incentives for academic research, but there is quite a strong confidence to succeed in an academic career. Furthermore, postdocs who attended a PhD program show better career prospects and higher research incentives compared to others. Academic career prospects and motivation are strongest for assistant professors. Apart from this small group, however, postdocs report only a small impact of the university reforms of the last decade. Female postdocs show significantly higher research incentives but otherwise we find little gender differences. Finally, good prospects in non-academic jobs are not associated with a reduction in the motivation for research. -- |
| Keywords: | Postdocs,Academic Career Prospects,Research Incentives,University Reforms |
| JEL: | A11 A29 I21 I23 J24 J49 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:12020&r=edu |
| By: | Abbi M Kedir; Nor Yasmin Mhd Bani |
| Abstract: | The investigation of the growth-volatility link is an important one in empirical macroeconomics. There is no empirical evidence supporting the predictions of recent theoretical models that incorporate and explicitly recognize the role of human capital in this link. Using a panel data, we show empirically how the detrimental effect of output volatility on growth is diluted by education. We provide robustness checks and policy implications of our finding. |
| Keywords: | Growth; volatility; education; dynamic system (GMM). |
| JEL: | E32 F43 O40 O49 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lec:leecon:12/04&r=edu |
| By: | Claudia Curi (Banque Centrale du Luxembourg); Cinzia Daraio (Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica "Antonio Ruberti" Sapienza, Universita' di Roma); Maria Patrick Llerena (University of Strasbourg, BETA (Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée)) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the first assessment of the efficiency of the technology transfer operated by the French university system and its main determinants. The analysis is based on a detailed and original database of 51 TTOs, categorized by type of university they belong to, over the period 2003-2007. Overall, we find a low level of efficiency and both intra-category and inter-categories efficiency variation. The analysis of determinants showed that French TTOs efficiency depends extensively on the nature of the category (with universities specialised in science and engineering being the most efficient ones), on institutional and environmental characteristics. We found that both the seniority of TTO and size of the university have a positive effect. In terms of environmental variables, the intensity of R&D activity (both private and public) has a positive impact; however, in terms of growth rate, only the Private R&D activity seems to be the main driver. Lastly, we find that the presence of a university-related hospital is detrimental for the efficiency. An extended discussion of the results within the existing literature is also offered. |
| Keywords: | Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs), French University System, Technical Efficiency, DEA, Bootstrap, Regional Growth |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aeg:wpaper:2012-2&r=edu |