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on Education |
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Issue of 2014‒05‒09
ten papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao Universidade da Beira Interior and Universidade de Lisboa |
| By: | Laura Golden; Barbara Harris; Diana Mercado-Garcia; rea Boyle; Kerstin Carlson Le Floch; Jennifer O'Day |
| Keywords: | SIG, School Improvement Grants, English Language Learners, Education |
| JEL: | I |
| Date: | 2014–04–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:8108&r=edu |
| By: | Edwin Leuven; Erik Plug; Marte Rønning (Statistics Norway) |
| Abstract: | There exists a strong educational gradient in cancer risk, which has been documented in a wide range of populations. Yet relatively little is known about the extent to which education is causally linked to cancer incidence and mortality. This paper exploits a large social experiment where an education reform expanded compulsory schooling during the 1960s in Norway. The reform led to a discontinuous increase in educational attainment, which we exploit to estimate the effect of the reform on various cancer outcomes. Our main finding is that education has little if any impact on cancer risk. This holds for all cancer sites together as well as the most common cancer sites in isolation, with two exceptions. The compulsory school reform lowered the risk of lung cancer for men, but increased the risk of colorectal cancer for women. |
| Keywords: | Education; Causality; Health; Cancer |
| JEL: | I12 I21 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:777&r=edu |
| By: | Ana Ferrer (Department of Economics, University of Waterloo); Alicia Menendez (Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | We compare the returns to education between graduates of post secondary institutions who delayed their tertiary education for some time and those that proceeded with no delays. Using a unique survey that collects information on a representative cohort of graduates, we are able to estimate the effects of delaying school among successful graduates abstracting from specific macroeconomic conditions at the time of graduation. Our results show that graduates that delayed their education enjoy a premium relative to graduates that did not, even after considering other factors such as experience or labor market connections. These estimates are robust to the possibility of selection in the decision to delay school. |
| JEL: | J24 I2 |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wat:wpaper:1402&r=edu |
| By: | Pasqualino Montanaro (Bank of Italy); Paolo Sestito (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | This work verifies the consistency of the results of two surveys of Italian students’ proficiency: the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Italy’s national assessment (Invalsi), both conducted in 2012. Focusing especially on the common part of the reference student population (15-year-olds in the second year of high school), the two surveys offer evidence of a similar pattern of achievement differentials in Italy both in relation to different family backgrounds and at the geographical level. The results are also consistent with regard to the overall variance of the scores, although some problems arise in the Invalsi national assessment owing to a significant incidence of cheating and imperfect correction for it, which generates further variability of scores. The two surveys also provide similar results at the level of both individual students and schools. These findings are a good starting point for the joint use and re-designing of the two surveys; in particular, they suggests the advisability of designing ex ante mechanisms for anchoring the Invalsi scores in the metrics provided by PISA, with the indubitable advantage of permitting comparisons across time and with other OECD countries. |
| Keywords: | school; surveys of students’ proficiency JEL Classification: I20, I21 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_218_14&r=edu |
| By: | Alyssa Schneebaum (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business); Bernhard Rumplmaier (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business); Wilfried Altzinger (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business) |
| Abstract: | Primarily using data from the 2010 European Social Survey, we analyze intergenerational educational persistence in 20 European countries, studying cross-country and cross-cluster differences in intergenerational mobility; the role of gender in determining educational persistence across generations; and changes in the degree of intergenerational persistence over time. We find that persistence is highest in the Southern and Eastern European countries, and lowest in the Nordic countries. While intergenerational persistence in the Nordic and Southern countries has declined over time, it has remained relatively steady in the rest of Europe. Further, we find evidence of differences in intergenerational persistence by gender, with mothers’ education being a stronger determinant of daughters’ (instead of sons’) education and fathers’ education a stronger determinant of the education of their sons. Finally we see that for most clusters differences over time are largely driven by increasing mobility for younger women. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational Persistence, Educational Attainment, Educational Welfare States, Europe, Gender |
| JEL: | J62 I24 I38 D63 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp174&r=edu |
| By: | Strulik, Holger; Werner, Katharina |
| Abstract: | For most of human history there existed a well-educated and innovative elite whereas mass education, market R&D, and high growth are phenomena of the modern period. In order to explain these phenomena we propose an innovation-driven growth model for the very long run in which the individual-specific return to education is conceptualized as an compound of cognitive ability and family background. This allows us to establish a locally stable steady state at which family background determines whether an individual experiences education and a locally stable steady state at which education is determined by cognitive ability. Compulsory schooling can move society from elite education to mass education. An interaction between education and life expectancy explains why the education period gets longer with ongoing economic development. Embedding this household behavior into a macro-economy we can explain different paths to modern growth: According to the Prussian way, compulsory education is implemented first and triggers later on the onset of market R&D and modern growth. According to the British way, market R&D and the take off to growth is initiated without mass education, which is triggered later by technical progress and economic development. -- |
| Keywords: | long-run growth,elite education,compulsory education,longevity,R&D |
| JEL: | I24 J24 O30 O40 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:205&r=edu |
| By: | Kailing Shen; Peter Kuhn |
| Abstract: | Can having more education than a job requires reduce one’s chances of being offered the job?� We study this question in a sample of applications to jobs that are posted on an urban Chinese website.� We find that being overqualified in this way does not reduce the success rates of university-educated jobseekers applying to college-level jobs, but that it does hurt college-educated workers’ chances when applying to jobs requiring technical school, which involves three fewer years of education than college. Our results highlight a difficult situation faced by the recent large cohort of college-educated Chinese workers:� They seem to fare poorly in the competition for jobs, both when pitted against more-educated university graduates, and when pitted against less-educated technical school graduates. |
| Date: | 2013–10–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wyi:journl:002178&r=edu |
| By: | Luigi Maria Solivetti (Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali ed Economiche, Sapienza University of Rome); Alessandra Mirone (Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali ed Economiche, Sapienza University of Rome) |
| Abstract: | Notwithstanding extensive improvements over the last decades, infant mortality (IM) still shows huge – and increasing – disparities across the world. This paper compares various paradigms (education, growth, dependency, demographic factors) used to explain this blatant inequality. The paradigm focusing on education emerges as particularly corroborated. A wide series of education indicators are considered and contrasted, vis-à-vis several measures of mortality. The main education indicators seem to have a significant impact on IM, though some of them – in particular, variables taking account of gender – are particularly momentous. The education-IM relation does not change, whatever the indicator used to measure mortality. What is more, the education-IM relation works at both low and high levels of infant mortality, and is limitedly affected by the geographical and cultural-religious context. All in all, with regards to infant/child mortality reduction, education emerges more as a ‘stand-alone’ paradigm than just as an auxiliary variable. |
| Keywords: | Education; Development; Infant Mortality. |
| JEL: | I25 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:saq:wpaper:3/14&r=edu |
| By: | Pasqualino Montanaro (Bank of Italy); Roberto Torrini (Bank of Italy and ANVUR) |
| Abstract: | Investment in public research in Italy is below the European average as a percentage of GDP. Nevertheless, in relation to expenditure and the number of researchers, the output is high, and the quality of research, conducted in universities and research organizations, is close to that of such countries as France, albeit with lags in the most advanced levels. The Italian system, highly diversified and fragmented in its actors and funding sources, suffers from a scant capacity to apply research findings and to collaborate with firms, which in their turn spend little on research and have problems in linking their own research activity to the inputs supplied by public research entities. The system also suffers from the lack of a comprehensive strategy that sets objectives, designs missions and organizational frameworks for public research entities consistently with those objectives, and determines the necessary resources. The much-needed relaunching of Italy’s innovative capacity cannot be achieved without adequate financing and efficient governance of the public research system. |
| Keywords: | public research, university, research organizations JEL Classification: H52, I23, I28, O38 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_219_14&r=edu |
| By: | Cunningham, James (National University of Ireland); Link, Albert (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper advances our understanding of university-industry research and development (R&D) collaborations. These strategic relationships are a dimension of entrepreneurial activity, and they are thus important drivers of economic growth and development. Business collaboration with universities increases the efficiency and effectiveness of industrial investments. Previous studies have found that universities are more likely to collaborate with industry if the business is mature and large, is engaged in exploratory internal R&D, and there are not major intellectual property (IP) issues between both parties. Businesses gain from such collaborations through increased commercialisation probabilities and economies of technological scope. Based on publicly available data collected by the Science-to-Business Marketing Research Centre of Germany as part of a European Commission project, our paper focuses on two key questions. First, why are there cross-country differences in the extent to which universities collaborate with business in R&D? Second, are there covariates with these differences that might offer insight into policy prescriptions and policy levers for enhancing the extent to which such collaboration takes place? We find that access is positive and statistically significant in relation to fostering university business R&D collaborations. Our results, albeit that they are tempered by a small sample of data, have implications how national innovation systems support further harmonization of IP regimes across universities and how universities priorities its own investments and incentives. |
| Keywords: | R&D collaborations; entrepreneurship; university-industry partnerships; European Union |
| JEL: | O31 O32 O33 O38 |
| Date: | 2014–04–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:uncgec:2014_003&r=edu |