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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2005‒04‒30
three papers chosen by |
| By: | Eric A. Hanushek; Ludger Woessmann |
| Abstract: | Even though some countries track students into differing-ability schools by age 10, others keep their entire secondary-school system comprehensive. To estimate the effects of such institutional differences in the face of country heterogeneity, we employ an international differences-in-differences approach. We identify tracking effects by comparing differences in outcome between primary and secondary school across tracked and non-tracked systems. Six international student assessments provide eight pairs of achievement contrasts for between 18 and 26 cross-country comparisons. The results suggest that early tracking increases educational inequality. While less clear, there is also a tendency for early tracking to reduce mean performance. Therefore, there does not appear to be any equity-efficiency trade-off. |
| Keywords: | tracking, streaming, ability grouping, selectivity, comprehensive school system, educational performance, inequality, international student achievement test, TIMSS, PISA, PIRLS |
| JEL: | I20 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1415&r=ltv |
| By: | Giorgio Brunello; Lorenzo Rocco |
| Abstract: | We show that, when school quality is measured by the educational standard and attaining the standard requires costly effort, secondary education needs not be a hierarchy with private schools offering better quality than public schools, as in Epple and Romano, 1998. An alternative configuration, with public schools offering a higher educational standard than private schools, is also possible, in spite of the fact that tuition levied by private schools is strictly positive. In our model, private schools can offer a lower educational standard at a positive price because they attract students with a relatively high cost of effort, who would find the high standards of the public school excessively demanding. With the key parameters calibrated on the available micro-econometric evidence from the US, our model predicts that majority voting in the US supports a system with high quality private schools and low quality public schools, as assumed by Epple and Romano, 1998. This system, however, is not the one that would be selected by the social planner, who prefers high quality public schools combined with low quality private schools. |
| Keywords: | private schools, public schools, majority voting |
| JEL: | H42 J24 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1418&r=ltv |
| By: | Mahmud, Minhaj (Department of Economics, School of Economics and Commercial Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | Using the contingent valuation method in developing countries to value mortality risk reduction is particularly challenging because of the low level of education of the respondents. In this paper, we examine the effect of training the respondents regarding probabilities and risk reductions, in addition to using visual aids to communicate risk and risk reductions, in a contingent valuation survey. Our results indicate a significantly higher WTP for the trained sub-sample, and WTP is sensitive to the magnitude of risk reduction both with and without the training. <p> |
| Keywords: | contingent valuation; risk reduction; WTP; effect of training; sensitivity to scope; Bangladesh |
| JEL: | D60 D80 H40 I10 |
| Date: | 2005–04–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0169&r=ltv |