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on Education |
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Issue of 2012‒05‒29
ten papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Gastón Illanes; Claudio Sapelli |
| Abstract: | Using student evaluations as a learning measure, we estimate and compare class size and teacher effects for higher education, with emphasis on determining whether a comprehensive class size reduction policy that draws on the hiring of new teachers is likely to improve educational outcomes. We find that teacher effects far outweigh class size effects, and that young teachers and first time teachers perform significantly worse than their peers. Furthermore, we study whether teacher effects are correlated with observables, and find no significant variables beyond being a full time teacher. Overall, these findings suggest that at the higher education level the optimal strategy is to have large classrooms with highly qualified teachers. |
| Keywords: | Class size, teacher effects, student evaluations |
| JEL: | I21 I23 I28 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ioe:doctra:418&r=edu |
| By: | Raphael Boleslavsky (Department of Economics, University of Miami); Christopher F. Parmeter (Department of Economics, University of Miami) |
| Abstract: | We consider a game in which schools compete to place graduates in two distinct ways: by investing in the quality of education, and by strategically designing grading policies. In equilib- rium, schools issue grades that do not perfectly reveal graduate abilities. This leads evaluators to have less-accurate information. However, compared to fully-revealing assessments, strategic grading motivates greater investment in educating students. Although strategic grading distorts placement decisions, it can also increase graduate ability. Allowing grade in ation and related grading strategies can increase the probability that the evaluator selects a high-ability graduate. |
| Keywords: | Grade Inflation; Effort, Education Investment |
| JEL: | D01 I2 |
| Date: | 2012–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mia:wpaper:2012-2&r=edu |
| By: | Enel Pungas (University of Tartu); Ott Toomet (University of Tartu); Tiit Tammaru (University of Tartu); Kristi Anniste (University of Tartu) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the relationship between migrants' education and their intentions to return. Previous research has presented mixed evidence on the association between the level of education and return migration. This study takes a multidimensional approach by analysing, aside from the level of education, the type and country of education and over-education as predictors of intentions to return based on a unique survey of Estonian migrants in Finland. The results indicate that the level of education is not related to the tendency to return. The most important education variable that shapes return migration is over-education ―migrants who work below their training express higher intentions to return back home. We also find some evidence that education obtained in the host country improves the socialisation prospects later on. |
| Keywords: | Education, return migration, East-West migration, Estonia, Finland |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nor:wpaper:2012018&r=edu |
| By: | Thomas Breda (CEP - Centre for Economic Performance - LSE); Son Thierry Ly (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, EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris) |
| Abstract: | Stereotypes, role models played by teachers and social norms are known to push girls to choose humanities rather than science. Do professors directly contribute to this strong selection by discriminating more against girls in more scientific subjects? Using the entrance exam of a French higher education institution (the Ecole Normale Supérieure) as a natural experiment, we show the opposite: discrimination goes in favor of females in more male-connoted subjects (e.g. math, philosophy) and in favor of males in more female-connoted subjects (e.g. literature, biology), inducing a rebalancing of sex ratios between science and humanities majors. We identify discrimination by systematic differences in students' scores between oral tests (non-blind toward gender) and anonymous written tests (blind toward gender). By making comparisons of these oral/written scores differences between different subjects for a given student, we are able to control both for a student's ability in each subject and for her overall ability at oral exams. The mechanisms likely to drive this positive discrimination toward the minority gender are also discussed. |
| Keywords: | Discrimination ; Gender Stereotypes ; Natural Experiment ; Sex and Science |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00677438&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:984&r=edu |
| By: | Aysit Tansel (Middle East Technical University); Nil Demet Güngör (Atýlým University) |
| Abstract: | Several recent empirical studies have examined the gender effects of education on economic growth or on steady-state level of output using the much exploited, familiar cross-country data in order to determine their quantitative importance and the direction of correlation. This paper undertakes a similar study of the gender effects of education using province level data for Turkey. The main findings indicate that female education positively and significantly affects the steady-state level of labor productivity, while the effect of male education is in general either positive or insignificant. Separate examination of the effect of educational gender gap was negative on output. The results are found to be robust to a number of sensitivity analyses, such as elimination of outlier observations, controls for simultaneity and measurement errors, controls for omitted variables by including regional dummy variables, steady-state versus growth equations and considering different samples. |
| Keywords: | Labor Productivity, Economic Development, Education, Gender, Turkey |
| JEL: | O11 O15 I21 J16 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tek:wpaper:2012/19&r=edu |
| By: | Jellal, Mohamed; Bouzahzah, Mohamed |
| Abstract: | his paper is a direct extension of the paper of Jones (2007). This author presents a simple Mincerian approach to endogenizing schooling time in market economy. His specification is closest to that in Mincer (1958) which does not take into account of social benefits of education. Our short note extends his paper on the social returns to accumulation of human capital, with particular emphasis on the social returns to education which are given by the sum of the private and external marginal benefits of a unit of human capital. In other words, we study the problem of human capital externalities which comes from social interactions.We propose a policy of decentralization of the optimal education. |
| Keywords: | Education; Externalities; Social returns; Political economy ; taxation |
| JEL: | D62 I21 H2 H23 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:38860&r=edu |
| By: | D'Este,Pablo; Rentocchini,Francesco; Manjarrés-Henríquez,Liney; Grimaldi,Rosa |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship between the sources of funding for research activities and the engagement of scientists in one specific type of knowledge transfer: academic consulting. By relying on a sample of 2603 individual faculty, from five Spanish universities, who have been recipients of publicly funded grants or have been principal investigators in activities contracted by external agents over the period 1999-2004, we find a positive effect of research funding on the amount of consulting contracts obtained by academic scientists. We also find that both networking and signalling effects are present and contribute to explain the amount of consulting activity acquired by academic scientists. By offering evidence of a positive correlation between the volume of academic consulting and different types of extramural research funding, our paper shows that: a) consulting is largely a function of strong involvement in research, knowledge-generation activities; b) the positive connection is particularly strong for the social sciences, where the type of knowledge transferred is more likely to be conceptual and symbolic than instrumental. |
| Keywords: | Academic consulting, technology policy, knowledge and technology train |
| JEL: | O31 O32 I23 |
| Date: | 2012–05–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ing:wpaper:201203&r=edu |
| By: | Black, Sandra; Devereux, Paul J.; Løken, Katrine; Salvanes, Kjell G |
| Abstract: | Given the wide use of childcare subsidies across countries, it is surprising how little we know about the effect of these subsidies on children’s longer run outcomes. Using a sharp discontinuity in the price of childcare in Norway, we are able to isolate the effects of childcare subsidies on both parental and student outcomes. We find very small and statistically insignificant effects of childcare subsidies on childcare utilization and parental labor force participation. Despite this, we find significant positive effect of the subsidies on children’s academic performance in junior high school, suggesting the positive shock to disposable income provided by the subsidies may be helping to improve children’s scholastic aptitude. |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8981&r=edu |
| By: | Vincent Mangematin (MTS - Management Technologique et Strategique - Grenoble École de Management (GEM)) |
| Abstract: | How have reforms in French doctoral education and academic research been implemented? How do changing doctoral education practices lead to changing research practices? New practice adoption among academics usually happens incrementally in the course of their everyday activity. Top-down organizational change requires these autonomous professionals to adopt new practices willingly, so as to comply with the reform. Understanding the microlevel conditions under which this adoption happens is critical to the management of change in universities and research organizations. Drawing on the empirical analysis of a reform seeking to improve PhD supervision in French universities, we find that academics adopt new practices only once they have performed a cognitive reframing of the situation, and under the condition that new practices are - or can be made - compatible with their autonomy of judgment and their extant professional role and identity. Otherwise, the reform leads to ceremonial adoption, hesitation or rejection of new practice. Paradoxically, coercive features of the reform may support new practice adoption, but only when they are taken over by professionals themselves and support them in the building of a leader figure compatible with professional values. |
| Keywords: | University policy; Science policy, Change implementation; Practice adoption; PhD, Research Practices |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00658038&r=edu |