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on Education |
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Issue of 2014‒10‒03
eight papers chosen by João Carlos Correia Leitão Universidade da Beira Interior |
| By: | Sabarwal, Shwetlena; Evans, David K.; Marshak, Anastasia |
| Abstract: | A textbook provision program in Sierra Leone demonstrates how volatility in the flow of government-provided learning inputs to schools can induce storage of these inputs by school administrators to smooth future consumption. This process in turn leads to low current utilization of inputs for student learning. A randomized trial of a public program providing textbooks to primary schools had modest positive impacts on teacher behavior but no impacts on student performance. In many treatment schools, student access to textbooks did not actually increase because a large majority of the books were stored rather than distributed to students. At the same time, the propensity to save books was positively correlated with uncertainty on the part of head teachers regarding government transfers of books. The evidence suggests that schools that have high uncertainty with respect to future transfers are more likely to store a high proportion of current transfers. These results show that reducing uncertainty in school input flows could result in higher current input use for student learning. For effective program design, public policy programs must take forward-looking behavior among intermediate actors into account. |
| Keywords: | Tertiary Education,Education For All,Primary Education,Secondary Education,Teaching and Learning |
| Date: | 2014–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7021&r=edu |
| By: | Koen DECLERCQ; Frank VERBOVEN |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of socio-economic status on enrollment and study decisions in higher education. We use a discrete choice approach to distinguish between three channels. First, students from disadvantaged backgrounds may be more sensitive to the costs of education. Second, they may have lower preferences for education. Third, they may have developed less academic ability during previous schooling and are therefore less likely to participate. We apply our analysis to Flanders, where tuition fees are low and all high school graduates have access to higher education. We control for unobserved heterogeneity and find that preference and (acquired) ability are more important than cost sensitivity in explaining the lower enrollment of disadvantaged students. Finally, we use the cost sensitivity channel to simulate the impact of tuition fee increases. We find that a uniform tuition fee increase has a fairly small impact on total enrollment, but it especially reduces enrollment of socially disadvantaged students. An alternative discriminatory policy, which combines a tuition fee increase with an extra subsidy to disadvantaged students, can be superior: it reduces the participation gap of disadvantaged students without decreasing total enrollment in higher education. |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:ceswps:ces14.26&r=edu |
| By: | Rui CASTRO; Daniele COEN-PIRANI |
| Abstract: | We study the evolution of educational attainment of the 1932–1972 cohorts using a calibrated model of investment in human capital with heterogeneous learning ability. The inter-cohort variation in schooling is driven by changes in skill prices, tuition, and education quality over time, and average learning ability across cohorts. A version of the model with static expectations is successful in accounting for the main patterns in the data. Rising skill prices for college explain the rapid increase in college graduation till the 1948 cohort. The measured decline in average learning ability contributes to explain the stagnation in college graduation between the 1948 and 1972 cohorts. |
| Keywords: | educational attainment, human capital, skill prices, inequality, cohorts |
| JEL: | I24 J24 J31 O11 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtl:montec:11-2014&r=edu |
| By: | Pengfei Jia (Department of Economics, Faculty of Business and Law, Auckland University of Technology); Tim Maloney (Department of Economics, Faculty of Business and Law, Auckland University of Technology) |
| Abstract: | We use predictive modelling to identify students at risk of not completing their first-year courses and not returning to university in the second year. Our aim is two-fold. Firstly, we want to understand the pathways that lead to unsuccessful first-year experiences at university. Secondly, we want to develop simple, low-cost tools that would allow universities to identify and intervene on vulnerable students when they first arrive on campus. This is why we base our analysis on administrative data routinely collected as part of the enrolment process from a New Zealand university. We assess the ‘target effectiveness’ of our model from a number of perspectives. This approach is found to be substantially more predictive than a previously developed risk tool at this university. Students in the top decile of risk scores account for over 29% of first-year course non-completions and more than 23% of second-year student non-retentions at this university |
| Keywords: | Predictive Risk Modelling, University Failure and Dropout Behaviour, and New Zealand |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aut:wpaper:201403&r=edu |
| By: | Stephen Billings (University of North Carolina-Charlotte); Eric J. Brunner (University of Connecticut); Stephen L. Ross (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | We examine the housing market, residential mobility, and academic performance changes that occur soon after a school fails to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) (for the second time) in the Charlotte, NC school district. Charlotte is a school district with substantial opportunities for school choice and a number of oversubscribed, high quality schools. To comply with the 2002 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, students within the attendance zone of Title 1 schools that fail to meet AYP are given an advantage in the lotteries for oversubscribed schools. That advantage may create an incentive for households with strong preferences for school choice and/or school quality to move into the attendance zones of failing schools in order to improve their likelihood of being admitted into high performing, oversubscribed schools. Consistent with that notion, we find that housing prices and the incomes of new homebuyers rise in the highest quality neighborhoods within attendance zones of failing schools in comparison to trends in nearby neighborhoods just outside of the attendance zone. We also find that residential mobility decreases while the probability of attending a non-assigned traditional school or magnet school increases in these high quality neighborhoods. Further analysis reveals that the effect of failing designation on non-assigned school attendance is driven largely by the school choice decisions of new residents who are most likely to exploit the school choice advantages offered by a second failure to achieve AYP. |
| Keywords: | No Child Left Behind, Annual Yearly Progress, School Choice, Residential Location Choice, Mobility, Lottery |
| JEL: | H75 I24 I28 R21 R28 |
| Date: | 2014–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2014-21&r=edu |
| By: | Darragh Flannery (Department of Economics, University of Limerick); John Cullinan (School of Business and Economics, National University of Ireland, Galway) |
| Abstract: | The factors influencing the decision of school leavers to participate in higher education has been extensively investigated previously. This has mainly focused on the influence of characteristics such as parental education level, social class and spatial factors on the decision to participate in higher education at a broad level. However, given the influence the type of tertiary education pursued may have on future labour market outcomes, an understanding of the factors behind more specific higher education outcomes decisions is important. Within this context, this paper focuses on the influence of geographic accessibility and social class on young people when making decisions relating to higher education institution type, degree level and field of study pursued using a rich Irish dataset. We estimate this relationship using a bivariate probit framework and controlling for a range of other variables we find evidence of significant spatial and socio-economic effects on these higher education outcomes. |
| Keywords: | higher education institution type, degree level, field of study, geographic accessibility, social class |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lim:wpaper:042013&r=edu |
| By: | World Bank Group |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems Access and Equity in Basic Education Education - Education For All Tertiary Education Teaching and Learning Agriculture |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wboper:20011&r=edu |
| By: | Tetsuo Ono (Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University) |
| Abstract: | This study presents an overlapping-generations model with altruism towards children. We characterize a Markov-perfect political equilibrium of voting over two policy issues, public education for the young and social security for the old. The model potentially generates two types of political equilibria, one favoring public education and the other favoring social security. One equilibrium is selected by the government to maximize its objective. It is shown that (i) longevity affects equilibrium selection and relevant policy choices; and (ii) private education as an alternative to public education and a Markov-perfect political equilibrium can gen- erate the two types of equilibria. |
| Keywords: | Public education; Social security; Intergenerational conflict |
| JEL: | H52 H55 I22 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:1306r2&r=edu |