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on Education |
| By: | Bover, Olympia; Hospido, Laura; Villanueva, Ernesto |
| Abstract: | We conducted a randomized controlled trial where 3,000 9th grade students coming from 78 high schools received a financial education course at different points of the year. Right after the treatment, test performance increased by 16% of one standard deviation, treated youths were more likely to become involved in financial matters at home and showed more patience in hypothetical saving choices. In an incentivized saving task conducted three months after, treated students made more patient choices than a control group of 10th graders. Within randomization strata, the main impacts are also statistically significant in public schools, which over-represent disadvantaged students. |
| Keywords: | Financial Education; Impact Evaluation |
| JEL: | D14 D91 I22 J24 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12632&r=edu |
| By: | Biancardi, Daniele (IRVAPP); Bratti, Massimiliano (University of Milan) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of the first Italian Research Evaluation Exercise (VTR 2001-2003) on university undergraduate students' enrolment choices. A before-after estimator with differential treatment intensities is used to investigate whether subject-group higher education institutions (HEIs) that had a higher performance in the VTR also benefited from more student enrolments and enrolment of students with better entry qualifications after the VTR. Our analysis demonstrates that increasing the percentage of "excellent" research products by one standard deviation (19 percentage points) increases student enrolment by 5.8%. The effects are larger for high-quality students, namely those with better high school final marks (8.3%) or coming from the academic track (12.2%), and they are larger for subject-group HEIs in the top quartile of the VTR quality distribution. The effects are of similar magnitude across all macro-regions (North, Centre and South and Islands), but they are precisely estimated only for universities in the North. When HEIs are divided into new and old universities, only the former, which have less established reputations in teaching and research, appear to have gained from good performance in the VTR. |
| Keywords: | research evaluation exercise, student enrolment, student quality, Italy, VTR |
| JEL: | I21 I23 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11302&r=edu |
| By: | Fischer, Martin; Karlsson, Martin; Nilsson, Therese; Schwarz, Nina |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the impact on earnings, pensions, and further labor market outcomes of two parallel educational reforms increasing instructional time in Swedish primary school. The reforms extended the annual term length and compulsory schooling by comparable amounts. We find striking differences in the effects of the two reforms: at 5%, the returns to the term length extension were at least half as high as OLS returns to education and benefited broad ranges of the population. The compulsory schooling extension had small (2%) albeit significant effects, which were possibly driven by an increase in post-compulsory schooling. Both reforms led to increased sorting into occupations with heavy reliance on basic skills. |
| Keywords: | educational reforms,compulsory schooling,term length,returns to education |
| JEL: | J24 J31 I28 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:733&r=edu |
| By: | Fletcher, Jason M. (University of Wisconsin-Madison); Tokmouline, Mansur (Yale College) |
| Abstract: | While nearly all colleges and universities in the United States use academic probation as a means to signal to students a need to improve performance, very little is known about the use of this designation and the programs that accompany it on college success. This paper uses a regression discontinuity approach to estimate the effects of these programs at four universities of varying selectivity in Texas. Results suggest that academic probation status following the first semester of college may serve as a short term "wake up call" to some students, in that second semester performance is improved. However, our findings also suggest that this short term boost in performance fades out over time and students who are on academic probation following their first semesters of college do not have higher rates of persistence or graduation. We also find important differential responses to academic probation based on pre-determined student characteristics as well as high school of origin. However none of the heterogeneous effects are consistent across universities, limiting the application of simple models of education standards. |
| Keywords: | academic probation, regression discontinuity, higher education |
| JEL: | J24 I21 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11232&r=edu |
| By: | Alex-Petersen, Jesper (Lund University); Lundborg, Petter (Lund University); Rooth, Dan-Olof (Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | We examine the long-term impact of a policy that introduced free and nutritious school lunches in Swedish primary schools. For this purpose, we use historical data on the gradual implementation of the policy across municipalities and employ a difference- in-differences design to estimate the impact of this lunch policy on a broad range of medium and long-term outcomes, including lifetime income, health, cognitive skills, and education. Our results show that the school lunch program generated substantial long-term benefits, where pupils exposed to the program during their entire primary school period have 3 percent greater life-time earnings. In addition, we find the effect to be greater for pupils that were exposed at earlier ages and for pupils from poor households. Finally, exposure to the school lunch program had substantial effects on educational attainment and health and these effects can explain a large part of the return to school lunches. |
| Keywords: | nutrition, early life, childhood, long-term, income, causal |
| JEL: | I12 I38 J24 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11234&r=edu |
| By: | Kivinen, Aapo |
| Abstract: | In Finland, a child in special education receives an individualized curriculum when standard support does not suffice. One factor that may have an impact on the assignment of an individualized curriculum is the relative age of the child. Due to the cutoff date of school starting age, there is an age gap of roughly one year in each class. This difference in relative age can affect through few possible mechanisms: difference in absolute age, peer effects, and the optimal school starting age. In this paper, I study how relative school starting age affects the probability of having an individualized curriculum. I use regression discontinuity design and individual level register data for middle school graduates in 1998–2014 to estimate the causal effect of relative school starting age. Relatively younger graduates are 1.4 percentage points more likely to have a partially individualized curriculum than graduates who are a year older. Respectively, older graduates are 1.8 percentage points more likely to have a regular curriculum. The results are robust and they hold for multiple specifications. I also find that the relative age effect is stronger for girls and students with lower educated parents. Furthermore, when studying temporal variation of the effect, I observe a significant effect only from 2005 onwards. This may be partly explained by the curriculum reform in 2004. My research contributes to the areas of special education and relative age effect. The results are in line with prior literature of relative age. |
| Keywords: | Special Education, Relative Age Effect, |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fer:wpaper:104&r=edu |
| By: | Niimi, Yoko |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment using data on Japan. By exploiting unique information on whether children have ever given up schooling for financial reasons and, if they have, which level of schooling they have forgone, it attempts to assess the role of borrowing constraints in determining intergenerational educational mobility in a more direct manner than previous attempts made in the literature. We find that there has been a steady increase in the degree of the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment, resulting in lower intergenerational mobility, during the postwar period in Japan. We also find that while the importance of borrowing constraints for determining intergenerational educational mobility declined at one time, it seems to have become significant enough once again to lower intergenerational educational mobility for the youngest cohort we examined in this paper. However, our analysis also shows that the relative importance of adolescent academic ability for children’s educational attainment has increased in recent years, underlying the increasing importance of early investments in children’s human capital for their subsequent academic advancement. |
| Keywords: | Borrowing constraints, education, intergenerational mobility, Japan, I24, J62 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agi:wpaper:00000140&r=edu |
| By: | Dietrich, Hans; Muehlemann, Samuel; Pfann, Gerard Antonie; Pfeifer, Harald |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effects of the G8 high school reform in Germany. The reform reduced minimum duration to obtain a high school degree (Abitur) from 9 to 8 years. First, we present a simple model based on a CES technology with heterogeneous inputs to conjecture possible effects of a supply shock of high education apprenticeships. Implementation of the reform across states (Länder) has been realized in different years. A difference-in-differences estimation strategy is used to identify the effects of one-time supply shock in market for high-educated apprentices. Training firms almost fully and immediately absorbed the additional supply of high school graduates in the apprenticeship market. No evidence is found for substitution effects between low and high education apprenticeships. The model explains that these effects may be due to sticky and too low collectively bargained wages for high education apprenticeships relative to their productivity. This renders the market for apprenticeships inefficient. |
| Keywords: | Apprenticeship market; G8 reform; labor supply shock |
| JEL: | I21 J20 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12669&r=edu |
| By: | Margarida Rodrigues (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | This report analyses the use of digital technologies by immigrant students and examine whether digital technologies play a role in the existent immigrant-native educational achievement gap and whether they could contribute to its reduction. PISA 2015 data are used for this purpose. We find evidence that ICT-related policies have the potential to decrease immigrant-native achievement gap, among which those targeting the use of ICT seem the most promising. In particular, our findings purport that the immigrants' achievement could be improved by a more intense use of ICT at home for schoolwork and for general purposes. At school, the evidence indicates that immigrant students may be overusing ICT at school for educational purposes, suggesting that the use of ICT by immigrants needs to be balanced with other face-to-face interactions and support. There are significant cross-country differences in our results, which should be taken into account to guide policy actions. |
| Keywords: | digital technology, immigrants, educational achievement, PISA |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc109246&r=edu |
| By: | Picchio, Matteo (Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona); Pigini, Claudia (Marche Polytechnic University); Staffolani, Stefano (Marche Polytechnic University); Verashchagina, Alina (Marche Polytechnic University) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of childbirth and its timing on female labour market outcomes in Italy. The impact on yearly labour earnings and fraction of time at work is traced up to 21 years since school completion by estimating a factor analytic model with dynamic selection into treatments. We find that childbearing, especially the first delivery, negatively affects female labour supply. Women having their first child soon after school completion are able to catch up with childless women after about 10 years. The timing matters, with minimal negative consequences on yearly earnings (fraction of days at work) observed if the first child is delayed up to 7–12 (10–12) years after exiting formal education. |
| Keywords: | female labour supply, fertility, discrete choice models, dynamic treatment effect, factor analytic model |
| JEL: | C33 C35 J13 J22 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11270&r=edu |
| By: | Backes-Gellner, Uschi; Herz, Holger; Kosfeld, Michael; Oswald, Yvonne |
| Abstract: | Evidence suggests that acquiring human capital is related to better life outcomes, yet young peoples' decisions to invest in or stop acquiring human capital are still poorly understood. We investigate the role of time and reference-dependent preferences in such decisions. Using a data set that is unique in its combination of real-world observations on student outcomes and experimental data on economic preferences, we find that a low degree of long-run patience is a key determinant of dropping out of upper-secondary education. Further, for students who finish education we show that one month before termination of their program, present-biased students are less likely to have concrete continuation plans while loss averse students are more likely to have a definite job offer already. Our findings provide fresh evidence on students' decision-making about human capital acquisition and labor market transition with important implications for education and labor market policy. |
| Keywords: | dropout; economic preferences; education; Human Capital; job search |
| JEL: | D01 D03 D91 I21 J64 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12609&r=edu |
| By: | Backes-Gellner, Uschi (University of Zurich); Herz, Holger (University of Zurich); Kosfeld, Michael (Goethe University Frankfurt); Oswald, Yvonne (University of Zurich) |
| Abstract: | Evidence suggests that acquiring human capital is related to better life outcomes, yet young peoples' decisions to invest in or stop acquiring human capital are still poorly understood. We investigate the role of time and reference-dependent preferences in such decisions. Using a data set that is unique in its combination of real-world observations on student outcomes and experimental data on economic preferences, we find that a low degree of long-run patience is a key determinant of dropping out of upper-secondary education. Further, for students who finish education we show that one month before termination of their program, present-biased students are less likely to have concrete continuation plans while loss averse students are more likely to have a definite job offer already. Our findings provide fresh evidence on students' decision-making about human capital acquisition and labor market transition with important implications for education and labor market policy. |
| Keywords: | economic preferences, education, dropout, human capital, job search |
| JEL: | D01 D03 D91 I21 J64 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11288&r=edu |
| By: | Gianko Michailidis (Universitat de Barcelona); Concepció Patxot (Universitat de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | Public intergenerational transfers (IGTs) may arise because of the failure of private arrangements to provide optimal economic resources for the young and the old. We examine the political sustainability of the system of public IGTs by asking what the outcome would be if the decision per se to reallocate economic resources between generations was put to the vote. By exploiting the particular nature of National Transfer Accounts data – transfers for pensions and education and total public transfers – and the political economy application proposed by Rangel (2003) we show that most developed countries would vote in favor of a joint public education and pension system. Moreover, our results indicate that a system of total public IGTs to the young and elderly would attract substantial political support and, hence, would be politically viable for most countries in the sample. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational Transfers, Population Ageing, Pay-As-You-Go Financing, National Transfer Accounts, Political Economy. |
| JEL: | D70 H50 J10 P16 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ewp:wpaper:370web&r=edu |
| By: | Robert W. Fairlie; Peter Riley Bahr |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first evidence on the earnings, employment and college enrollment effects of computers and acquired skills from a randomized controlled trial providing computers to entering college students. We matched confidential administrative data from California Employment Development Department (EDD)/Unemployment Insurance (UI) system earnings records, the California Community College system, and the National Student Clearinghouse to all study participants for seven years after the random provision of computers. The experiment does not provide evidence that computer skills have short- or medium-run effects on earnings. These null effects are found along both the extensive and intensive margins of earnings (although the estimates are not precise). We also do not find evidence of positive or negative effects on college enrollment. A non-experimental analysis of CPS data reveals large, positive and statistically significant relationships between home computers, and earnings, employment and college enrollment, raising concerns about selection bias in non-experimental studies. |
| JEL: | I23 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24276&r=edu |
| By: | Susan W. Parker; Tom Vogl |
| Abstract: | Conditional cash transfer programs have spread to over 80 countries in the past two decades, but little is known about their long-term effects on the youth they target. This paper estimates the impact of childhood exposure to the Mexican program Progresa on economic outcomes in early adulthood by leveraging the age structure of program benefits and geographic variation in early program penetration nationwide. The study design avoids the representativeness and attrition issues that have plagued efforts to estimate longer-run impacts of Progresa and other similar programs. Childhood exposure to the program improves educational attainment, geographic mobility, labor market outcomes, and household economic outcomes in early adulthood. Schooling impacts are similar for men and women, at roughly 1.5 years, while labor market impacts are more pronounced for women, amounting to 30-40% of mean labor force participation and 50% of mean labor income in pre-program cohorts. Indexes capturing household economic impacts increase on the order of 0.2 standard deviations. |
| JEL: | I25 I38 J24 O15 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24303&r=edu |
| By: | Titus J. Galama; Adriana Lleras-Muney; Hans van Kippersluis |
| Abstract: | Education is strongly associated with better health and longer lives. However, the extent to which education causes health and longevity is widely debated. We develop a human capital framework to structure the interpretation of the empirical evidence. We then review evidence on the causal effects of education on mortality and its two most common preventable causes: smoking and obesity. We focus attention on evidence from Randomized Controlled Trials, twin studies, and quasi-experiments. There is no convincing evidence of an effect of education on obesity, and the effects on smoking are only apparent when schooling reforms affect individuals’ track or their peer group, but not when they simply increase the duration of schooling. An effect of education on mortality exists in some contexts but not in others, and seems to depend on (i) gender; (ii) the labor market returns to education; (iii) the quality of education; and (iv) whether education affects the quality of individuals’ peers. |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24225&r=edu |
| By: | Zhiyan, Zhao (School of Management, Northwestern Polytechnical University); Broström , Anders (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology); Jianfeng, Cai (School of Management, Northwestern Polytechnical University,) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to explore the impact of organizational context on individuals’ industry activities in Chinese universities. Academic engagement, which includes collaborative research, contract research, consulting and other informal outreach activities, is posited as being jointly determined by organizational and individual level factors. Based on 564 Chinese scientists’ survey responses, our results show that scientists perceiving their university as having a strong entrepreneurial mission or supportive policy context are more active in academic engagement. This relationship is, however, moderated by individual-level factors. Specifically, entrepreneurially oriented university mission and supportive policy are more strongly associated with intra-individual differences in academic engagement for junior scientists, and for scientists with established personal networks to industry. Our analysis also shows that several individual-level predictors of academic engagement identified in studies set in Europe and the US carry over to the Chinese context. |
| Keywords: | academic engagement; entrepreneurial mission; policy context; individual characteristics |
| JEL: | J18 L52 O31 |
| Date: | 2018–02–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0466&r=edu |
| By: | Tani, Massimiliano (University of New South Wales) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies whether migration policy, besides managing a country's population size, is a suitable tool to influence immigrants' labour market outcomes. To do so, it uses a migration policy change that occurred in Australia in the late 1990s and data collected by the Longitudinal Survey of Migrants to Australia. The statistical techniques employed in the empirical analysis consistently reveal that the policy change has no detectable impact on the employment rate, wages, over-education, occupational downgrading, and (self-reported) use of skills for male immigrants, who account for about 75% of the sample, while they have a modest short-term positive impact on female immigrants. These results support the view that migration policy is an ineffective policy tool to influence migrants' labour market outcomes. However, the economic relevance of making an effective use of migrants' skills provides scope for close coordination between immigration and employment policy to ensure that efforts in attracting foreign talent are not dissipated by labour market frictions and other inefficiencies. |
| Keywords: | skilled immigration, labour market, over-education, immigration policy |
| JEL: | J15 J24 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11241&r=edu |
| By: | Fletcher, Jason M. (University of Wisconsin-Madison) |
| Abstract: | This research note explores the consequences of dispositional optimism and hopefulness when the environment changes. Much literature has documented the importance of a positive outlook in pursuing investments in health and education that pay off in the future. A question that has received less attention is whether a positive outlook creates resilience in the face of setbacks or whether a positive outlook may be a disadvantage in extreme circumstances, especially when there is a large mismatch between expectations and reality. This paper uses the coincidental interview schedule of the Add Health data (N=15,024) around the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 to examine interactions with this environmental shock and previously elicited measures of hopefulness. The results suggest that increases in depressive symptoms following the attack are concentrated among those young adults who initially expressed the most hopefulness in the future as teenagers. |
| Keywords: | evolutionary psychology, hopefulness, mismatch, depressive symptoms, trauma |
| JEL: | D91 I12 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11291&r=edu |
| By: | Kauhanen, Antti |
| Abstract: | I study the effect of an education leave subsidy for the employed on labor-market outcomes and educational attainment using Finnish administrative linked employer-employee panel data and matching methods. The adult education allowance is available to employees with at least eight years of work experience and allows them to take a leave for 2–18 months to participate in an education program while being compensated for a substantial part of their forgone earnings. I find large positive treatment effects on educational attainment and changing occupation. The treatment effects on earnings and employment are negative during the lock-in period and close to zero afterward. Treatment effects on pseudo-outcomes are small and with one exception not statistically significant, which supports the credibility of the identification strategy. Sensitivity analyses show that unobserved variables should have a fairly large effect on treatment assignment to change the results. |
| Keywords: | Adult education, education leave, linked employer‐employee data, program evaluation |
| JEL: | I22 J24 H43 C21 M53 |
| Date: | 2018–02–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:wpaper:56&r=edu |
| By: | Marcello Perez-Alvarez; Holger Strulik |
| Abstract: | Schooling outcomes matter for economic development. At the same time, educational policies around the globe often fail to effectively improve them. This paper suggests perceived nepotism as an important barrier to the development of cognitive skills as schooling outcomes. We argue that students in countries that perceive labor markets to be nepotistic experience a weaker economic motive to invest in human capital. To formally motivate this relationship, we develop a dynamic general equilibrium model in which nepotism is explained as an evolving cultural norm. We test the central prediction of the model by relating the PISA scores to an indicator for perceived nepotism at the country level. The findings show that, on average, an increase in one standard deviation of the perceived nepotism indicator decreases the PISA reading scores by 0.21 standard deviations, conditioning for overall corruption perception. Several robustness checks corroborate the stability of our estimate. The analysis implies that recruitment practices in labor markets strongly shape individual's efforts to accumulate human capital. Accordingly, the consideration thereof may enhance educational policy efforts. |
| Keywords: | nepotism; cognitive skills; human capital; economic growth; norm transmission |
| JEL: | E24 I21 I25 O10 O40 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2018-02&r=edu |
| By: | Magdalena Bennett; Peter Leopold S. Bergman |
| Abstract: | Truancy correlates with many risky behaviors and adverse outcomes. We use detailed administrative data on by-class absences to construct social networks based on students who miss class together. We simulate these networks and use permutation tests to show that certain students systematically coordinate their absences. Leveraging a parent-information intervention on student absences, we find spillover effects from treated students onto peers in their network. We show that an optimal-targeting algorithm that incorporates machine-learning techniques to identify heterogeneous effects, as well as the direct effects and spillover effects, could further improve the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of the intervention subject to a budget constraint. |
| Keywords: | social networks, peer effects, education |
| JEL: | D85 I20 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6848&r=edu |
| By: | Piopiunik, Marc (Ifo Institute for Economic Research); Schwerdt, Guido (University of Konstanz); Simon, Lisa (CESifo); Woessmann, Ludger (Ifo Institute for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | As skills of labor-market entrants are usually not directly observed by employers, individuals acquire skill signals. To study which signals are valued by employers, we simultaneously and independently randomize a broad range of skill signals on pairs of resumes of fictitious applicants among which we ask a large representative sample of German human-resource managers to choose. We find that signals in all three studied domains – cognitive skills, social skills, and maturity – have a significant effect on being invited for a job interview. Consistent with the relevance, expectedness, and credibility of different signals, the specific signal that is effective in each domain differs between apprenticeship applicants and college graduates. While GPAs and social skills are significant for both genders, males are particularly rewarded for maturity and females for IT and language skills. Older HR managers value school grades less and other signals more, whereas HR managers in larger firms value college grades more. |
| Keywords: | signals, cognitive skills, social skills, resume, hiring, labor market |
| JEL: | J24 J21 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11283&r=edu |