|
on Education |
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Issue of 2015‒08‒25
nineteen papers chosen by João Carlos Correia Leitão Universidade da Beira Interior |
| By: | Anil Nathan (Department of Economics and Accounting, College of the Holy Cross); Sovita Hean (Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross); Ryan Elliot (Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross) |
| Abstract: | The academic value of a private education versus a public education is explored. This study first attempts to see whether there are differential returns to a private education based on ability level. It also intends to non-parametrically control for the selection on observables of the decision to attend private school. Using 8th graders from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988, we find that the there is a positive effect on standardized math test scores using OLS. Based on quantile regression results, average students benefit most from a private education. Low-achieving and high-achieving students do not benefit as much. The particularly low return to a private education for high achievers suggests most of them would succeed at any school. Average treatment effects on the treated (ATET) are twice as large and average treatment effects (ATE) are more than three times as large as ordinary least squares estimates. These results suggest that perhaps private schools are actually not selecting the best students, but rather selecting average students and adding value to them. |
| JEL: | I20 |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hcx:wpaper:1502&r=edu |
| By: | Adrien Bouguen (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS - Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA) - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC), EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Adapting instruction to the specific needs of each student is a promising strategy to improve overall academic achievement. In this article, I study the impact of an intensive teacher training program on reading skills offered to kindergarten teachers in France. The program modifies the lesson content and encourages teachers to adapt instruction to student needs by dividing the class according to initial achievement. While assessing impact is usually difficult due to the presence of ability bias and teacher selection, I show that in this context, a value-added model that controls for school and teacher characteristics constitutes a legitimate strategy to estimate at least a low bound of the true treatment effect. Weaker students progressed faster on less-advanced competences (such as letter recognition), while stronger students improved their reading skills. This suggests that teachers adjusted content to students' needs. Finally, a cost-effectiveness analysis reveals that the program is approximately three times more cost-effective than reducing class size in France. |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-01128184&r=edu |
| By: | Catalina HERRERA (Cornell University - Cornell University - Cornell University); David Sahn (Cornell University - Cornell University - Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | Female secondary school attendance has recently increased in Sub-Saharan Africa; however, the higher likelihood of attending school after puberty has put girls at risk of becoming pregnant while attending school. Using a panel survey designed to capture the transition from adolescence to early adulthood, we analyze whether teenage pregnancy contributes to lower school attainment and cognitive skills among young women in Madagascar. We address the endogeneity between fertility and education decisions by instrumenting early pregnancy with the young woman’s access to condoms at the community level, and her exposure to condoms since she was 15 years old. We control for an extensive set of community social infrastructure characteristics to deal with the endogeneity of program placement. Our instrumental variable results show that having a child increases by 42% the likelihood of dropping out of school and decreases the chances of completing lower secondary school by 44%. This school-pregnancy related dropout is associated with a reduction of 1.1 standard deviations in the Math and French test scores. These results are consistent with hazard model estimations: delaying the first birth by a year increases the probability of current enrollment by 5% and the Math and French test scores by 0.2 standard deviations. |
| Date: | 2015–01–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01100149&r=edu |
| By: | Aristide Mabali (CERDI - Centre d'études et de recherches sur le developpement international - CNRS - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I); Bobdingam Bonkeri (INSEED - Institut national de la statistique, des études économiques et démographiques, Ndjamena, Tchad - Institut national de la statistique - des études économiques et démographiques - Ndjamena - Tchad) |
| Abstract: | Oil resources have enabled Chad to increase public financing for education and to achieve high economic growth rates. Regarding these policies to supporting the education sector, we assume that the standard of living of households does not explain the school attendance. We test empirically this hypothesis using data from the MICS conducted in 2010 and Education Statistical Yearbooks. Using a bivariate probit model, the results show that school attendance and child labor depend of households’ standard of living after controlling for other relevant characteristics. In particular, a child from a non-poor household has a lower (higher) probability to be involved in the child labor (enrolled in school) compared to a child from a poor household. Although these results are classical in the economic literature, they are rather surprising in the case of Chad regarding the priority given to education by authorities. We identify four possible explanations, (i) the low level of these investments compared to international standards; (ii) the loss of public expenditures, caused by institutional factors; (iii) the misallocation of educational infrastructures and human resources by region and (iv) an inequity sharing of spin-offs of economic growth induced by oil resources. These results raise the issue of the sustainability of the Chadian economy after oil. |
| Date: | 2014–11–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01087450&r=edu |
| By: | Andrew E. Clark (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS - Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA) - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC), EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics); Akiko Kamesaka (Aoyama Gakuin University, ESRIN - European State Research Institute - ESA); Teruyuki Tamura (Sophia University - Sophia University) |
| Abstract: | It is commonly-believed that education is a good thing for individuals. Yet its correlation with subjective well-being is most often only weakly positive, or even negative, despite the many associated better individual-level outcomes We here square the circle using novel Japanese data on happiness aspirations. If reported happiness comes from a comparison of outcomes to aspirations, then any phenomenon raising both at the same time will have only a muted effect on reported well-being. We find that around half of the happiness effect of education is cancelled out by higher aspirations, and suggest a similar dampening effect for income. |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-01122749&r=edu |
| By: | Nicolas Fleury (Centre Etudes & Prospective - Groupe ALPHA, EQUIPPE - Economie Quantitative, Intégration, Politiques Publiques et Econométrie - Université Lille II - Droit et santé - Université Lille 1 - Sciences et technologies - Université Charles-de-Gaulle Lille 3 - Sciences humaines et sociales - PRES Université Lille Nord de France); Fabrice Gilles (EQUIPPE - Economie Quantitative, Intégration, Politiques Publiques et Econométrie - Université Lille II - Droit et santé - Université Lille 1 - Sciences et technologies - Université Charles-de-Gaulle Lille 3 - Sciences humaines et sociales - PRES Université Lille Nord de France, TEPP - Travail, Emploi et Politiques Publiques - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - CNRS) |
| Abstract: | In this article, we evaluate to what extent parental education impacts the education of their children by using a meta-regression analysis. Since the mi-1970s, there is a large and growing literature that deals with the causal impact on parental education on children’s education. Those studies exhibit a large range of values for the education transmission coefficient. We consider an alternative way to estimate a true effect of parent education, discussing the existing empirical literature by using a meta-regression analysis. Our database is composed of a large set of both published and unpublished papers written over the last 40 years (1974-2014). This database allows us to econometrically evaluate an effect of parents education on their children, irrespective of articles heterogeneity (data sources, included explanatory variables, econometric strategy, type of publication), and of publication bias. We find evidence for both a publication bias and a large transmission coefficient of education. |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01143490&r=edu |
| By: | Nikhil Jha (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the potential incapacitation effect on various categories of crime committed by youth offenders. I exploit exogenous variation generated by the increase in school-leaving age and compulsory education or work requirement in the state of New South Wales, Australia from 15 to 17. Using incidents of crime committed by offender of different age-group incorporates incapacitation effect on crimes that do not necessarily lead to arrests. Comparative Interrupted Time-Series analysis is used to model differential trend in crime using panel data extending several pre- and post-policy periods. Results show that the policy substantially reduced incidents of crime against property, particularly by male offenders. Classification-I28, K42 |
| Keywords: | Education, crime |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2015n13&r=edu |
| By: | Fabienne Bornard (INSEEC, CRE-EM Lyon - CRE EM Lyon); Caroline Verzat (Novancia - Novancia); Chrystelle Gaujard (école HEI Lille) |
| Abstract: | Our contribution tries to analyze a course framework for future entrepreneurs. Transmissive pedagogies don’t work at all for developing an entrepreneurial mindset (Honig, 2004, Neck & Greeene, 2011, Sarasvathy & Venkataraman, 2010). We decided to use scenario building traditionally used for strategy (Boaventura & Fishman, 2008) on the one hand for co-elaborating new strategies for entrepreneurship education and on the other hand for the development of creative imagination (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, Nyström, 1993, Fillis & Rentschler, 2005) of all stakeholders: students, teachers and entrepreneurs. We trace a path from critical reflective analysis (Mezirow, 1991) of existing higher education institutions and their educational practices to pedagogical refoundation (Fayolle, 2013). Our contribution addresses 4 subjects : strategy, process, learning outcomes and stands of all stakeholders. |
| Date: | 2014–10–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01089398&r=edu |
| By: | Marie-Laure Cabon-Dhersin (CREAM - CREAM - Centre de Recherche en Economie Appliquée à la Mondialisation - Université de Rouen); Jonas Didisse (CREAM - CREAM - Centre de Recherche en Economie Appliquée à la Mondialisation - Université de Rouen) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the impact of two competing strategies (Cournot vs Bertrand competition) in a context where universities compete for students and can enroll beyond capacity at strictly convex costs. Universities interact in a two-stage game to decide on capacity and tuition fees/number of students enrolled. In Bertrand competition, when costs are sufficiently convex, universities adopt low capacities in the first stage in order to sustain high fees in the second stage. Conversely, Cournot competition leads to a higher capacity for each university and to a larger number of students enrolled. Under certain conditions, the equilibrium adopted in Bertrand competition may be more efficient in terms of cost minimization but it leads to a lower social welfare level. |
| Date: | 2015–07–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01174291&r=edu |
| By: | van Ours, Jan C.; Ward, Shannon; Williams, Jenny |
| Abstract: | In this paper we investigate the effects of delinquency and arrest on school leaving using information on males from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. We use a multivariate mixed proportional hazard framework in order to account for common unobserved confounders and reverse causality. Our key finding is that delinquency as well as arrest leads to early school leaving. Further investigation reveals that the effect of delinquency is largely driven by income generating crimes, and the effect of both income generating crime and arrest are greater when onset occurs at younger ages. These findings are consistent with a criminal capital accumulation mechanism. On the basis of our sample, we show that taking into account the proportion of young men affected by delinquency and arrest, that the overall reduction in education due to delinquency is at least as large as the reduction due to arrest. This highlights the need for crime prevention efforts to extend beyond youth who come into contact with the justice system. |
| Keywords: | arrest; delinquency; duration models; education |
| JEL: | C4 D0 I2 K4 |
| Date: | 2015–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10755&r=edu |
| By: | Yan Lau; Harvey S. Rosen |
| Abstract: | Observers have expressed concern about growing inequality in resources across universities. But are universities really becoming more unequal? We argue that the typical approach of examining endowment growth alone is not sensible. In line with the literature on household inequality, we focus instead on a comprehensive income measure. We find that although there is considerable inequality among institutions, concerns about the inexorable growth of inequality are overblown. Whether one looks at income, endowment wealth, or expenditure, inequality has been high but stable, exhibiting only negligible increases in recent years. Furthermore, there has been little mobility within the higher education sector. |
| JEL: | I22 I23 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21432&r=edu |
| By: | Sylvie Lambert (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS - Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA) - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC), EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics); Martin Ravallion (Georgetown University - Georgetown University); Dominique Van de Walle (Banque Mondiale - Banque Mondiale) |
| Abstract: | How much economic mobility is there across generations in a poor, primarily rural, economy? How much do intergenerational linkages contribute to current inequality? We address these questions using original survey data on Senegal that include an individualized measure of consumption. While intergenerational linkages are evident, we find a relatively high degree of mobility across generations, associated with the shift from farm to non-farm sectors and greater economic activity of women. Male-dominated bequests of land and housing bring little gain to consumption and play little role in explaining inequality, though they have important effects on sector of activity. Inheritance of non-land assets and the education and occupation of parents (especially the mother) and their choices about children's schooling are more important to adult welfare than property inheritance. Significant gender inequality in consumption is evident, though it is almost entirely explicable in terms of factors such as education and (non-land) inheritance. There are a number of other pronounced gender differences, with intergenerational linkages coming through the mother rather than the father. |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:pseose:halshs-00933975&r=edu |
| By: | Maria C. Lo Bue (Georg-August-University Göttingen) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of nutritional status on subsequent educational achievements for a large sample of Indonesians children. I use a long term panel data set and apply a maternal fixed effect plus an instrumental variables estimator in order to control for possible correlation between some of the components of the error term and the main independent variable which will likely to cause a bias in the estimates. Differences in nutritional status between siblings are identified by using exposure in the earliest months of life to the drought associated with the Indonesian wildfires of late 1997. Estimation results show that health capital (measured by height-for-age z-scores at childhood) significantly and positively affects the number of completed grades of schooling and the score on cognitive test. Nevertheless, I only find little robust evidence of an effect on the readiness to enter school. |
| Keywords: | Educational achievement; child nutrition; siblings’ difference models; environmental shocks; Indonesia |
| JEL: | I12 I20 O15 O53 |
| Date: | 2015–08–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:gotcrc:183&r=edu |
| By: | Gu, Emily (Department of Economics, Colgate University); Sparber, Chad (Department of Economics, Colgate University) |
| Abstract: | Studies estimating the consequences of immigration on wages paid to native-born workers often uncover small to nonexistent effects when using cross city or state variation (the “spatial approachâ€) but large deleterious effects when using variation across education-by-experience cells (the “national approachâ€). One mechanism of labor market adjustment emphasized in the spatial approach is that native-born workers respond to immigration by specializing in occupations demanding skills in which they have a comparative advantage, thereby helping to protect themselves from labor market competition and wage losses. This paper examines whether the national approach also identifies this skill response. We find evidence that such a response does occur, which reduced the magnitude of within-cell wage effects by more than 20%. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Occupational Skills |
| JEL: | F22 J24 J61 J31 |
| Date: | 2015–07–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgt:wpaper:2015-04&r=edu |
| By: | Fabien Moizeau (CREM - Centre de Recherche en Economie et Management - CNRS - Université de Caen Basse-Normandie - UR1 - Université de Rennes 1) |
| Abstract: | We study how in a city either opposite social norms remain or a particular code of behavior spreads and ultimately prevails. We develop a multicommunity model with overlapping generations. When young, an individual chooses a certain level of educational effort. The crucial feature is that the decision is influenced by peers living in the area who favor a social norm either valuing education or discrediting it. When an adult, an individual who cares about both her offspring’s expected income and the social norm chooses the family’s location. Endogenous location leads to different patterns of social norms in the city. We identify two types of urban equilibrium: a culturally-balanced city where social norms are distributed evenly among urban areas and where the rate of education is the same in each urban area and a culturally-divided city where urban areas oppose on their prevailing social norm and exhibit different rates of education. We then study the dynamics of social norms. We show that there are multiple long-run patterns of social norms. A particular steady state is achieved depending on the initial distribution support for social norms in the population. Finally, we show that a public policy promoting social integration can lead, in the long run, to a population unanimously discrediting education. Enforcing social integration can obtain less education than allowing the culturally-divided city to arise. |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01114139&r=edu |
| By: | Raouf Boucekkine (AMSE - Aix-Marseille School of Economics - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) - Ecole Centrale Marseille (ECM) - AMU - Aix-Marseille Université, IUF - Institut Universitaire de France - M.E.N.E.S.R. - Ministère de l'Éducation nationale, de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche); Paolo Piacquadio (University of Oslo); Fabien Prieur (Lameta, UMR CNRS-INRA - University of Montellier) |
| Abstract: | The paper addresses the role of education policies for institutional change. Our paradigmatic model consists of an autocratic elite and a mass of hand-to-mouth workers. The elite has full political and economic control. First, it anticipates and can avoid revolutionary threats through income redistribution. Second, it sets the education policy: a higher level of human capital results in a larger productivity of the national industry, but also in higher consumption aspirations of citizens (and thus more costly redistribution). Finally and in contrast to the recent literature on democratization games, the elite can stop the autocracy and initiate an institutional change. We show that perspective economic returns on education and resources play a crucial role: if sufficiently high, these may prompt high investment in education, human capital accumulation, and, eventually, an institutional change. Our theory of institutional change captures three essential dimensions of Lipset’s view: the positive relationship between education and institutional change, the positive relationship between income and institutional change and, in a more stylized fashion, the negative relationship between inequality and institutional change. |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01120069&r=edu |
| By: | Rémi Bachelet (Ecole Centrale de Lille - Ecole Centrale de Lille); Drissa Zongo (Ecole Centrale de Lille - Ecole Centrale de Lille); Aline Bourelle (Ecole Centrale de Lille - Ecole Centrale de Lille) |
| Abstract: | Large scale peer assessment is arguably the most critical innovation required for development of MOOCs. Its core principle is to involve students in the evaluation and feedback process of correcting assignments. However, it has been criticized for being less rigorous than instructor assessment, too demanding on students and not reliable or fair due to student biases. This paper is drawn from data and practical hands-on experience from MOOC GdP2, in which assignments were both graded by instructors and by peers. Using data from 4650 papers, each graded by 3-5 peers and by an instructor, we test hypotheses and discuss a series of questions: How to train MOOC students to grade their peers? Is peer grading as accurate as instructor grading? What data pre-processing is to be used prior to testing hypotheses on peer grading? Which grading algorithm is best for processing peer-produced data? Is anonymity in peer assessment preferable to increased student interaction? We also present the improved peer grading systems we implemented in MOOC GdP 3 and 4 thanks to this research. |
| Date: | 2015–05–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01146710&r=edu |
| By: | Catalina Herrera Almanza (Cornell University - Cornell University - Cornell University); Frédéric Aubery (CERDI - Centre d'études et de recherches sur le developpement international - CNRS - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I); Francesca Marchetta (CERDI - Centre d'études et de recherches sur le developpement international - CNRS - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I); Aurore Pelissier (CERDI - Centre d'études et de recherches sur le developpement international - CNRS - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I); Harivelo Rajemison (INSTAT - INSTAT Madagascar - INSTAT Madagascar); Faly Rakotomanana (INSTAT - INSTAT Madagascar - INSTAT Madagascar); David Sahn (CERDI - Centre d'études et de recherches sur le developpement international - CNRS - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I); Kira Villa (Cornell University - Cornell University - Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | This report provides a preliminary descriptive analysis of the Madagascar Youth Transition Survey 2012–13 (Enquête Statistique sur les itinéraires de vie des jeunes à Madagascar 2012-13). This survey is the last round of a cohort panel following children from around age 8 (for about half the sample) or age 15 (for the remainder) to their early 20s. The first two surveys were mainly focused on schooling and skills and were complemented by school surveys and by community surveys. This new survey re-interviewed the cohort members and their households and updated the community information. This last round of the survey was designed to improve our understanding of the determinants and impacts of the major life course transitions—involving marriage, family, schooling, and work—of young people in Madagascar. The purpose of this report is to provide the reader with a sense of the scope and nature of the data set and with some information about the lives of young adults in Madagascar. |
| Date: | 2015–06–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01160814&r=edu |
| By: | Snorre Kverndokk (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research); Jared C. Carbone (Colorado School of Mines) |
| Abstract: | Empirical studies show that years of schooling are positively correlated with good health, and that education is better correlated with health than with variables like occupation and income. This can be explained in different ways as the implication may go from education to health, from health to education, and there may be variables that influence health and education in the same direction. The effect of different policy instruments to reduce the social gradient in health will depend on the strength of these causalities. In this paper we formalize a model that simultaneously determines an individual’s demand for knowledge and health based on the mentioned causal effects. We study the impacts on both health and education of different policy instruments such as subsidies on medical care, subsidizing schooling, income tax reduction, lump sum transfers and improving health at young age. Our results indicate that income transfers such as distributional policies may be the best instrument to improve welfare, while subsidies to medical care is the best instrument for longevity. However, subsidies to medical care or education would require large imperfections in the markets for health and education to be more welfare improving than distributional policies. Finally, our simulations suggest that underlying factors that impact both health and education is the main explanation for the correlation shown empirically. |
| Keywords: | Demand for health, Demand for education, Human capital, Numerical modeling, Causality |
| JEL: | C61 D91 I12 I21 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:duh:wpaper:1506&r=edu |