|
on Education |
|
Issue of 2014‒06‒28
sixteen papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao Universidade da Beira Interior and Universidade de Lisboa |
| By: | Eric Parsons (Department of Economics, University of Missouri-Columbia) |
| Abstract: | This paper follows a cohort of initially high-performing Missouri students from grade-3 through grade-9 and examines whether school “mismatch†affects high-performing student outcomes. Specifically, the study explores the effect that attending a low-achieving school has on initially high-performing students’ subsequent standardized exam scores, as well as the grade in which they first take Algebra I. Two key findings emerge. First, attending a low-achieving school does not affect the standardized exam performance of initially high-performing students once school quality (as measured by value-added) is accounted for. Second, high-performing students who attend low-achieving schools are more likely to take Algebra I later relative to their counterparts who attend higher-achieving schools. |
| Keywords: | economics of education, high performing students, mismatch, exam score performance |
| JEL: | I20 I24 I28 |
| Date: | 2014–04–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:umc:wpaper:1407&r=edu |
| By: | Beland, Louis-Philippe; Kim, Dongwoo |
| Abstract: | We analyze how fatal shootings in high schools affect schools and students using data from shooting databases, school report cards, and the Common Core of Data. We examine schools’ test scores, enrollment, and number of teachers, as well as graduation, attendance, and suspension rates at schools that experienced a shooting, employing a difference-in-differences strategy that uses other high schools in the same district as the comparison group. Our findings suggest that homicidal shootings significantly decrease the enrollment of students in grade 9 (the high-school entrance grade), and test scores in math and English. Using student-level data from California, we confirm that shootings also lower test results for students that remain enrolled. We find no statistically significant effect on suicidal shootings on all outcome variable of interest. |
| Keywords: | Shootings, Student performance, Education |
| JEL: | I29 J13 K4 |
| Date: | 2014–06–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2014-27&r=edu |
| By: | Marconi G.; Ritzen J.M.M. (ROA) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the relationship between a universitys expenditure per student and its position in international university rankings. We take into account other factors that are expected to play a role, such as university mission, size, and productive inefficiency. We formalise these concepts in our theoretical model of rankings and universities, and estimate this model with data on universities classified in the top 200 by the Times Higher Education Supplement ranking of 2007. We find that the elasticity of a universitys ranking score for the expenditure per student is equal to 8.9, and that there are no clear signs of inefficiency in production among these universities. University mission and size are also significant predictors of ranking score. These results are important in view of the relevance attributed to rankings by government officials, university directors and students. |
| Keywords: | Model Construction and Estimation; Production and Organizations: General; Multinational Firms; International Business; Higher Education and Research Institutions; |
| JEL: | C51 D20 F23 I23 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umaror:2014006&r=edu |
| By: | Gioia De Melo |
| Abstract: | his paper represents the first application of a novel strategy to estimate peer effects in education in a developing country. It provides evidence on peer effects in standardized tests by exploiting a unique data set on social networks in Uruguayan primary schools. The identification method enables one to solve the reflection problem via instrumental variables that emerge naturally from the network structure. Correlated effects are controlled for via classroom fixed effects. I find significant endogenous effects in reading, math scores (and mixed evidence on science): a one-standard deviation increase in peers' scores increases own scores by about 40 percent of a standard deviation. Simulation exercises show that, in a context of socioeconomic segregation in which students are assigned to public schools according to their neighborhood of residence, peer effects may amplify educational inequalities. |
| Keywords: | Peer effects, education, social networks, inequality |
| JEL: | I21 I24 O1 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdm:wpaper:2014-05&r=edu |
| By: | Golsteyn B.H.H.; Schils T. (GSBE) |
| Abstract: | In elementary school, girls typically outperform boys in languages and boys typically outperform girls in math. The determinants of these differences have remained largely unexplored. Using rich data from Dutch elementary schools, we decompose the differences in achievement into gender differences in endowments and returns to IQ and non-cognitive factors. This descriptive analysis is a thought experiment in which we show the consequences for school performance if girls and boys would have similar resources and take similar advantage of these resources. Our findings indicate that gender differences in resources with respect to social and instrumental skills and need for achievement can explain part of the differences in performance. Boys seem to be better equipped with these resources. Additionally, boys and girls employ their skills differently. Girls take more advantage of their IQ than boys. Yet, the largest part of this parameter effect is left unexplained by IQ and non-cognitive factors. |
| Keywords: | Analysis of Education; Education and Inequality; |
| JEL: | I21 I24 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umagsb:2014017&r=edu |
| By: | Nobuo Akai (Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University); Miki Suhara (Strategic Planning Office, Institute of Academic Initiatives, Osaka University) |
| Abstract: | Decrease in the future number of students due to the low birth rate could affect public educational expenditures in Japan? Is there any regional difference? This paper simulates the future amount of local public primary, junior high, and high school expenditures in each Japanese prefecture. More specifically, we focus on faculty costs which consist of quite a large share of school expenditures. We examine the effect of economies of scale through the change in class/school size, and the impact of the shift in the faculty age distribution on the future faculty costs per student. We also investigate regional disparities concerning the future fiscal burden. |
| Keywords: | the Industrial Revolution; local educational expenditure, faculty costs, scale diseconomies, regional disparity |
| JEL: | H52 H72 I22 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:1425&r=edu |
| By: | Parandekar, Suhas D. |
| Abstract: | This working paper presents a benchmarking analysis of School Based Management (SBM) using empirical data from the Philippines. School based management is widely used as a policy tool in many countries that seek to improve the quality of service delivery through decentralization. School based management typically takes many years to have an impact on educational outcomes, but policy makers need to know sooner how well the policy is being implemented. The paper extends the well-known Rasch methodology from the literature on student achievement, including the Programme for International Student Assessment, to the measurement of the implementation of school based management by computing a Rasch measure of the implementation of school based management. To test whether the resulting benchmarked measure is plausible and has practical policy value, the measure is tested for correlations with standardized measures of personality and political skills of school principals, developed in the psychology and political science literatures. The paper will be useful for readers interested in studying school based management as well as those interested more generally in the methodology of benchmarking implementation of public policy where the ultimate results are subject to long implementation periods. The methodology presented in this paper can be applied to enhance the rigor of the ongoing Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) exercise to benchmark educational policies in various domains. That exercise is set to become one of the flagship policy analytical tools being developed by the World Bank and partner agencies. |
| Keywords: | Tertiary Education,Education For All,Primary Education,Teaching and Learning,Educational Sciences |
| Date: | 2014–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6938&r=edu |
| By: | Meyer S.; Künn-Nelen A.C. (ROA) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to investigate to what extent occupation-specific demandsexplain the relationship between education and health. We concentrate on ergonomic, environmental, psychical, social and time demands. Merging the German Microcensus 2009 data with a dataset including detailed occupational demands German Employment Survey 2006, we have a unique dataset to analyze the mediating role of occupational demands in the relationship between education and health status on the one hand and education and health behavior BMI and smoking on the other. We base our analyses on the entire working population and therefore also include those who no longer work, taking occupational demands related to their last job. First, we find that occupational demands are significantly related to subjective health and health behaviors. This holds even stronger for those who are no longer employed. Second, we find that whereas occupational demands do not explain educational differences in subjective health status, they do partially mediate the education gradient in the considered health behaviors.Educational differences in smoking status can partly be explained by ergonomic,environmental, psychical and social demands. The educational gradient in BMI is partly attributable to social occupational demands. |
| Keywords: | Health: General; Demand and Supply of Labor: General; |
| JEL: | I10 J20 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umaror:2014005&r=edu |
| By: | Manudeep Bhuller; Magne Mogstad; Kjell G. Salvanes |
| Abstract: | What do the education premiums look like over the life cycle? What is the impact of schooling on lifetime earnings? How does the internal rate of return compare with opportunity cost of funds? To what extent do progressive taxes attenuate the incentives to invest in education? This paper exploits Norwegian population panel data with nearly career long earnings histories to answer these important questions. We provide a detailed picture of the causal relationship between schooling and earnings over the life cycle, following individuals over their working lifespan. To account for endogeneity of schooling, we apply three commonly used identification strategies. Our estimates show that additional schooling gives higher lifetime earnings and steeper age-earnings profile, in line with predictions from human capital theory. These estimates imply an internal rate of return of around 10 percent, after taking into account income taxes and earnings-related pension entitlements. Under standard conditions, this finding suggests it was financially profitable to take additional schooling because the rates of return were substantially higher than the market interest rates. By comparison, Mincer regressions understate substantially the rates of return. We explore the reasons for this downward bias, finding that it is driven by Mincer's assumptions of no earnings while in school and exogenous post-schooling employment. |
| JEL: | J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20250&r=edu |
| By: | Kraft, Holger; Munk, Claus; Seifried, Frank Thomas; Steffensen, Mogens |
| Abstract: | The observed hump-shaped life-cycle pattern in individuals' consumption cannot be explained by the classical consumption-savings model. We explicitly solve a model with utility of both consumption and leisure and with educational decisions affecting future wages. We show optimal consumption is hump shaped and determine the peak age. The hump results from consumption and leisure being substitutes and from the implicit price of leisure being decreasing over time; more leisure means less education, which lowers future wages, and the present value of foregone wages decreases with age. Consumption is hump shaped whether the wage is hump shaped or increasing over life. -- |
| Keywords: | education,leisure,consumption hump,wage hump |
| JEL: | D11 D14 D91 I21 J24 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:safewp:53&r=edu |
| By: | Daniela Federici (Università di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale); Francesco Ferrante (Università di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale AlmaLaurea Inter-University Consortium) |
| Abstract: | The connection between the weak performance of the Italian economy and the mechanisms governing the creation and allocation of human capital has been investigated only rarely. This paper argues that the Italian economy faces not just a generic shortage of human capital but a specific shortage of entrepreneurial human capital, which explains the small size of firms and their lack of international competitiveness in high-tech sectors. We identify the main institutional mechanisms responsible for this state of affairs and the economic policy tools needed to promote the generation of entrepreneurial human capital. |
| Keywords: | Education, Self-employment, Entrepreneurship, Human capital, Firms |
| JEL: | J23 J24 L25 L50 O17 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:64&r=edu |
| By: | Aparicio Fenoll, Ainhoa (Collegio Carlo Alberto); Kuehn, Zoë (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) |
| Abstract: | Speaking the language of the host country eases migrants' integration and tends to boost their economic success in the country of destination. However, the decision to acquire language skills may in itself be determined by the intention to migrate. In addition, conditional on being a migrant, the relation between language skills and migrants' integration and economic success goes both ways. Using data on the study of foreign languages during compulsory education in European countries, we test whether and how much language proficiency determines migration flows across Europe. The European Union with basically unlimited labor mobility and pronounced differences in youth unemployment rates provides an ideal testing ground for our hypothesis. We find that speaking the language of a country increases the likelihood to migrate to that country almost fivefold. |
| Keywords: | migration, language proficiency, return to skills, education |
| JEL: | J61 I20 F22 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8250&r=edu |
| By: | Aysit Tansel (Department of Economics, METU; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) Bonn, Germany; Economic Research Forum (ERF) Cairo, Egypt); Deniz Karaoglan (Department of Economics, METU) |
| Abstract: | This is the first study which provides empirical analysis of the variation in health behaviors for adult men and women in Turkey which is a developing country. The health behaviors considered are smoking, drinking, fruit and vegetable consumption, exercise and body mass index (BMI). We find that in Turkey education is the most important factor that affects the health behaviors. The results indicate that smoking is positively associated with education at all levels with a decreasing effect with the level of education unlike in the developed countries. This result indicates that smoking is a serious public health problem in Turkey at all levels of education. Further, alcohol consumption and schooling are positively related and it increases by the level of education. Higher educated individuals clearly eat more fruits, vegetables and exercise more and their BMI levels are in the normal range compared to less educated and illiterate. We also highlight the importance of demographic factors, labor market status and household income. We use Health Survey of Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT) for years 2008, 2010 and 2012. This study will provide a baseline for further studies on the various aspects of health behaviors in Turkey. |
| Keywords: | Health Behaviors, Education, Demographic Factors, Turkey. |
| JEL: | I10 I12 I19 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:met:wpaper:1406&r=edu |
| By: | Cinzia Daraio (Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza"); Andrea Bonaccorsi (Department of Electrical Systems and Automation, University of Pisa, Italy); Leopold Simar (Institute of Statistics, Biostatistics et Actuarial Sciences, Universite' Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) |
| Abstract: | University rankings are the subject of a paradox: the more they are criticized by social scientists and experts on methodological grounds, the more they receive attention in policy making and the media. In this paper we attempt to give a contribution to the birth of a new generation of rankings, one that might improve on the current state of the art, by integrating new kind of information and using new ranking techniques. Our approach tries to overcome four main criticisms of university rankings, namely: monodimensionality; statistical robustness; dependence on university size and subject mix; lack of consideration of the input-output structure. We provide an illustration on European universities and conclude by pointing on the importance of investing in data integration and open data at European level both for research and for policy making. |
| Keywords: | Rankings; European universities; DEA; conditional directional distances; robust frontiers; bootstrap |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aeg:report:2014-09&r=edu |
| By: | Antonio Di Paolo (Grup d'Anàlisi Quantitativa Regional, AQR-IREA, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Diagonal, 690, 08034 Barcelona, Spain); Ferran Mañé (Universitat Rovira i Virgili & CREIP) |
| Abstract: | Drawing on a very rich data set from a recent cohort of PhD graduates, we examine the correlates and consequences of qualification and skills mismatch. We show that job characteristics such as the economic sector and the main activity at work play a fundamental direct role in explaining the probability of being well matched. However, the effect of academic attributes seems to be mainly indirect, since it disappears once we control for the full set of work characteristics. We detected a significant earnings penalty for those who are both overqualified and overskilled and also showed that being mismatched reduces job satisfaction, especially for those whose skills are underutilized. Overall, the problem of mismatch among PhD graduates is closely related to demand-side constraints of the labor market. Increasing the supply of adequate jobs and broadening the skills PhD students acquire during training should be explored as possible responses. |
| Keywords: | overskilling, overqualification, doctors, earnings, job satisfaction |
| JEL: | I20 J24 J28 J31 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:xrp:wpaper:xreap2014-06&r=edu |
| By: | Janine T. Remillard; Barbara Harris; Roberto Agodini |
| Keywords: | Curriculum Material Analysis, Textbooks, Curriculum Effects, Opportunity to Learn |
| JEL: | I |
| Date: | 2014–05–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:8149&r=edu |