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on Education |
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Issue of 2013‒02‒08
six papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Michael F. Lovenheim; Emily G. Owens |
| Abstract: | In 2001, amendments to the Higher Education Act made people convicted of drug offenses ineligible for federal financial aid for up to two years after their conviction. Using rich data on educational outcomes and drug charges in the NLSY 1997, we show that this law change had a large negative impact on the college attendance of students with drug convictions. On average, the temporary ban on federal financial aid increased the amount of time between high school graduation and college enrollment by about two years, and we also present suggestive evidence that affected students were less likely to ever enroll in college. Students living in urban areas and those whose mothers did not attend college appear to be the most affected by these amendments. Importantly, we do not find that the law deterred young people from committing drug felonies nor did it substantively change the probability that high school students with drug convictions graduated from high school. We find no evidence of a change in college enrollment of students convicted of non-drug crimes, or of those charged by not convicted of drug offenses. In contrast to much of the existing research, we conclude that, for this high-risk group of students, eligibility for federal financial aid strongly impacts college investment decisions. |
| JEL: | H30 I28 K14 |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18749&r=edu |
| By: | Pedro Teixeira |
| Abstract: | European Higher education is facing times of significant change that has been affecting its identity and the political expectations regarding its societal roles. At the European level this has been fostered by a trend that increasingly regarded higher education as a tool for economic and social development. Hence, we have seen a reconfiguration of the sector alongside market rules, often through policy initiatives and government intervention. In this text we reflect about these developments by focusing in the emergence of a more integrated higher education area increasingly shaped by market forces and economic rationales. We reflect about the emerging and potential effects of greater integration in the European Higher Education Area. |
| Keywords: | EHEA, Markets, Integration, Inequality, Differentiation, Economics |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eiq:eileqs:56&r=edu |
| By: | Marc van der Steeg; Sander Gerritsen |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship between teacher evaluations, conducted by trained evaluators, and pupil performance in primary education in a large city in the Netherlands. Teacher evaluations are based on a detailed rubric containing 75 classroom practices considered to be crucial for effective teaching. We obtain a set of estimates that suggests that the score on this rubric significantly predicts pupil performance gains. Estimated test score gains are in the order of 0.4 standard deviations in math and grammar if a pupil is assigned to a teacher from the top quartile instead of the bottom quartile of the distribution of the evaluation rubric. These are relatively large differences in pupil outcomes, suggesting that evaluations based on the rubric measure teacher practices that matter for pupil performance. This suggests that the rubric seems to have potential for teacher evaluations and teacher effort. |
| JEL: | I2 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpb:discus:230&r=edu |
| By: | Antoine Bozio (Institute for Fiscal Studies and a report); Guy Laroque (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London); Cormac O'Dea (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | This paper suggests a method for estimating the distribution of discount rates using panel data on income and wealth. Using the English Longitudinal Survey of Ageing (ELSA), a representative sample of the English popularion over age 50, we general panel date on total consumption from the intertemporal budget constraint. The distribution of consumption levels is shown to closely match that estimated using the UK's household budget survey. Consumption transitions over time are then used to estimate the discount rates of households. We show that there is substantial heterogeneity in discounting behaviour and find that, among this older population, households with less education or numerical ability exhibit greater patience than those with higher education or numerical ability. The direction of this association is the opposite to that which has been found in experimental investigations of time preference. |
| Keywords: | Time preference; Discount rate; Heterogeneity; Consumption |
| JEL: | D12 D31 D91 E21 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:13/02&r=edu |
| By: | Jay Stewart (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) |
| Abstract: | School-age children need 10-11 hours of sleep per night. It has been well-documented that lack of sleep leads to diminished cognitive performance and that people who sleep less are more likely to be overweight or obese. I use data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) to examine two factors that can potentially influence the amount of time children sleep: school and maternal employment. I find that school-age children sleep less when school is in session than during the summer, and that they get less sleep on school nights than on non-school nights. Children go to bed about 38 minutes earlier on school nights, but wake up about 72 minutes earlier on school days. This translates into about 34 minutes less sleep on school nights compared with non-school nights, and implies that these children have a cumulative sleep deficit of over two-and-a-half hours by the time they arrive at school Friday morning. In addition to the lost sleep time, the earlier wake-up times on school days appear to disrupt children’s natural sleep cycles. Maternal employment affects children’s sleep time in the summer, because children wake up earlier on days that their mothers work. But during the school year, maternal employment effects are dominated by school effects. |
| Keywords: | Sleep; school start times; maternal employment; time use; |
| JEL: | J22 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bls:wpaper:ec130010&r=edu |
| By: | Brant Abbott (University of British Columbia); Giovanni Gallipoli (University of British Columbia); Costas Meghir (Cowles Foundation, Yale University); Giovanni L. Violante (New York University) |
| Abstract: | This paper compares partial and general equilibrium effects of alternative financial aid policies intended to promote college participation. We build an overlapping generations life-cycle, heterogeneous-agent, incomplete-markets model with education, labor supply, and consumption/saving decisions. Altruistic parents make inter vivos transfers to their children. Labor supply during college, government grants and loans, as well as private loans, complement parental transfers as sources of funding for college education. We find that the current financial aid system in the U.S. improves welfare, and removing it would reduce GDP by two percentage points in the long-run. Any further relaxation of government-sponsored loan limits would have no salient effects. The short-run partial equilibrium effects of expanding tuition grants (especially their need-based component) are sizeable. However, long-run general equilibrium effects are 3-4 times smaller. Every additional dollar of government grants crowds out 20-30 cents of parental transfers. |
| Keywords: | Education, Education policy, Public finance, Financial aid, Inter vivos transfers, Altruism, Overlapping generations, Credit constraints, Labor supply, Equilibrium |
| JEL: | E24 I22 J23 J24 |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1887&r=edu |