nep-edu New Economics Papers
on Education
Issue of 2018‒07‒30
seven papers chosen by
Marco Novarese
Università del Piemonte Orientale

  1. Teacher turnover: does it matter for pupil achievement? By Gibbons, Stephen; Scrutinio, Vincenzo; Telhaj, Shqiponja
  2. Higher education funding reforms: a comprehensive analysis of educational and labour market outcomes in England By Azmat, Ghazala; Simion, Stefania
  3. Rank Concerns, Peer Effects, and Ability Tracking in University. Evidence from a Randomized Experiment By Marco Bertoni; Roberto Nisticò
  4. Autonomous schools and strategic pupil exclusion By Machin, Stephen; Sandi, Matteo
  5. Male pupils taught by female homeroom teachers show higher preference for Corporate Social Responsibility in adulthood By Eiji Yamamura; Yoshiro Tsutsui; Shunsuke Managi
  6. Students’ numeracy skills and practices By Nicolas Jonas
  7. The Effect of Education on Health: Evidence from National Compulsory Schooling Reforms By Raquel Fonseca; Pierre-Carl Michaud; Yuhui Zheng

  1. By: Gibbons, Stephen; Scrutinio, Vincenzo; Telhaj, Shqiponja
    Abstract: Recent research has established that teachers matter for student achievements, albeit because of dimensions of ‘teacher quality’ that are largely unexplained. A less closely investigated issue is whether teacher turnover directly harms student academic achievement. In this paper, we examine whether teacher turnover affects academic achievement of 16 year old state secondary school students using a unique data set of linked students and teachers in England. Identification comes from either: a school fixed effects design which exploits year-on-year variation in turnover in different subject groups, within schools; or student fixed effect design that where the variation comes from the cross sectional variation in turnover in different subjects, in the same school, experienced by a student. Both methods give similar results, suggesting that a higher teacher entry rate reduces students’ test scores, albeit by small amounts.
    Keywords: teachers; turnover; student attainment; schools
    JEL: H4 I2 J24
    Date: 2018–02–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:88681&r=edu
  2. By: Azmat, Ghazala; Simion, Stefania
    Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of changes in the funding of higher education in England on students’ choices and outcomes. Over the last two decades – through three major reforms in 1998, 2006 and 2012 – undergraduate university education in public universities moved from being free to students and state funded to charging substantial tuition fees to all students. This was done in conjunction with the government offering generous means-tested maintenance grants and loans. Using detailed longitudinal micro-data that follows all students attending state schools in England (more than 90 percent of all schoolaged children) from lower education to higher education, we document the socio-economic distributional effects of the 2006 and 2012 policy reforms on a comprehensive set of outcomes, including enrolment, relocation decisions, selection of institution, program of study, and performance within university. For a subset of students, we track them after completing higher education, allowing us to study the labour market effects of the policy reforms. Despite the substantial higher education funding reforms, we do not find large aggregate effect on student enrolment or on other margins. Moreover, the small negative impacts found on enrolment were largely borne on those in higher parts of the wealth distribution – reducing the enrolment gap across socioeconomic groups.
    Keywords: Higher education; tuition fees; means-tested support; career choices; career outcomes
    JEL: I22 I23 I29 I30
    Date: 2018–02–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:88680&r=edu
  3. By: Marco Bertoni (Università di Padova); Roberto Nisticò (Università di Napoli Federico II and CSEF)
    Abstract: If relative rank within classes enhances student achievement, tracking will help low-ability students and may harm high achievers. Using data from a randomized experiment generating a wide range of support of group ability composition, we show that students with higher ordinal ability rank within groups have better academic outcomes. We use our flexible education production function and the ample support of the data to predict the effects of alternative grouping polices. When we unpack the mechanisms behind ability tracking, we show that rank and peer effects work in opposite directions in generating outcomes for low- and high-ability students.
    Keywords: ability tracking, rank concerns, peer effects.
    JEL: I21 I24 J24
    Date: 2018–07–27
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:506&r=edu
  4. By: Machin, Stephen; Sandi, Matteo
    Abstract: This paper studies whether pupil performance gains achieved by autonomous schools – specifically academy schools in England – can be attributed to the strategic exclusion of poorly performing pupils. In England there have been two phases of academy school introduction, the first in the 2000s being a school improvement programme for schools serving disadvantaged pupil populations, the second a mass academisation programme in the 2010s which by contrast enabled better performing schools to become academies. Overall, on average across both programmes, exclusion rates are higher in academy schools. When the two programmes are considered separately, the earlier programme featured a much higher increase in the incidence of permanent exclusion. However, a number of simulated counterfactual experiments based on the statistical estimates show that rather than being used as a strategic means of manipulation to boost measured school performance, the higher rate of exclusion is instead a feature of the rigorously enforced discipline procedures that the pre-2010 academies adopted.
    Keywords: academies; discipline; exclusion
    JEL: I2 I21 I28
    Date: 2018–01–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:88678&r=edu
  5. By: Eiji Yamamura (Department of Economics, Seinan Gakuin University); Yoshiro Tsutsui (Faculty of Economics, Konan University); Shunsuke Managi (Urban Institute & School of Engineering, Kyushu University)
    Abstract: On the demand side, we test how early childhood education creates preferences for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) through teacher-student gender randommatching. Using originally collected individual-level data, we examine how female teachers in elementary school influence students f CSR stated preferences in their adulthood. In a quasi-natural experiment setting, our major findings are: (1) female teachers affect pupils f preferences for corporate responsibility later in life, (2) the effect of a female teacher is robust if she was a class teacher in first grade, (3) the effect of a female teacher is observed only for different-gender pupils but not for same-gender ones. These findings imply that the gender gap in adulthood is reduced by matching female teachers with male students in earlier years. We examine and support the female socialization hypothesis.
    Keywords: Gender difference, Female socialization, Teacher-Student Gender Matches, Corporate Social Responsibility, ESG.
    JEL: G32 G34 J16 M14 I21 H89
    Date: 2018–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:1821&r=edu
  6. By: Nicolas Jonas
    Abstract: The results of the Survey of Adult Skills confirm that there is a strong link between the level of numeracy performance and the use of these skills in practice. In view of these findings, countries could further encourage the teaching of numeracy-related disciplines in a wider variety of higher education pathways. Such a measure is particularly important as numeracy skills and practices play a crucial role in many dimensions of individual well‑being.
    Date: 2018–07–26
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduabb:8-en&r=edu
  7. By: Raquel Fonseca; Pierre-Carl Michaud; Yuhui Zheng
    Abstract: This paper sheds light on the causal relationship between education and health outcomes. We combine three surveys (SHARE, HRS and ELSA) that include nationally representative samples of people aged 50 and over from fifteen OECD countries. We use variations in the timing of educational reforms across these countries as an instrument for education. Using IV-Probit models, we find causal evidence that more years of education lead to a lower probability of reporting poor health, less likely of having limitations in functional status (ADL and iADLs), and lower prevalence for diabetes. These effects are larger than those from the Probit that do not control for the endogeneity of education. The relationship between education and cancer is positive in both Probit and IV-Probit models. The causal impacts of education on other chronic conditions as well as functional status are not established using IV-Probit models.
    Keywords: education, health, causality, compulsory schooling laws
    JEL: I1 I2
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:criacr:1802&r=edu

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