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on Education |
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Issue of 2007‒03‒10
twenty-one papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of the Beira Interior |
| By: | Simon Burgess; Helen Slater |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of school choice on test score outcome. It has generally proved difficult to isolate exogenous differences in the degree of competition faced by schools. We run a difference-in-difference analysis, exploiting a local government reorganisation to provide identification. This reorganisation changed the boundaries of education markets. We analyse one cohort of children passing through secondary school before the change, and one afterwards, both for the treated (re-organised) area and for similar control areas. Our point estimates suggest that the fall in competition experienced reduced test scores, but the estimates are not statistically significant. |
| Keywords: | School choice, school competition, educational outcomes |
| JEL: | I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:cmpowp:06/158&r=edu |
| By: | Frédéric Gonand |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the impact on economic growth of increased efficiency of public spending in primary and lower-secondary education. Higher efficiency in public spending in schools can bolster growth through two main channels. On the one hand, it can allow a transfer of labour from the public sector to the business sector at unchanged educational output. On the other, it can enhance educational output and productivity of the future labour force at unchanged public employment and expenditures. The paper argues that, in most cases, efficiency gains... <P>Effet sur la croissance d'un système éducatif primaire et secondaire plus efficace <BR>Ce document de travail évalue l'effet sur le PIB d'une efficacité accrue de la dépense publique dans le secteur de l'éducation primaire et secondaire. Une plus grande efficacité du système éducatif peut soutenir l'activité notamment grâce à des transferts d'effectifs du secteur public vers le secteur privé, ou une hausse de la performance des élèves et de leur productivité future à dépenses... |
| Keywords: | human capital, réforme structurelle, capital humain, structural reforms, Public education, Public spending efficiency, Education nationale, Efficacité de la dépense publique, long-run economic growth, croissance à long terme |
| JEL: | H11 I20 I28 |
| Date: | 2007–02–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:547-en&r=edu |
| By: | Harvey Goldstein; Simon Burgess; Brendon McConnell |
| Abstract: | The recently introduced National Pupil Database in England allows the tracking of every child through the compulsory phases of the state education system. The data from Key Stage 2 for three Local Education Authorities are studied, following cohorts of pupils through their schooling. The mobility of pupils among schools is studied in detail using multiple membership multilevel models that include prior achievement and other predictors and the results are compared with traditional ‘value added’ approaches that ignore pupil mobility. The analysis also includes a cross classification of junior and infant schools attended. The results suggest that some existing conclusions about schooling effects may need to be revised. |
| Keywords: | Multilevel model, multiple membership model, mobility, value added, National Pupil database, educational attainment, cross classified model, random effects, school effectiveness |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:cmpowp:06/156&r=edu |
| By: | Sorokina, Olga |
| Abstract: | Does globalization and sectoral changes in the economy drive adults back to school? Globalization promotes the demand for adult education in two important ways. First, deindustrialization in the OECD countries deepens the need for retraining of workers displaced from manufacturing. Second, by enhancing knowledge transmission between the countries, globalization speeds up the dissemination of innovations, hence creating the need for frequent updating of workers’ knowledge and skills base. In this paper I examine the demand for adult education in the light of industrial change and knowledge transformation. I estimate the returns to adult education at different points during the lifetime, while taking into account the participation decisions. My finding show that returns to education are positive for young adults and middle-aged individuals, suggesting the need for expansion of education systems to accommodate the demand for lifelong learning in the new globalized economy. |
| Keywords: | globalization; sectoral change; deindustrialization; adult education; human capital |
| JEL: | I2 J62 M53 |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:2079&r=edu |
| By: | Simon Burgess; Adam Briggs; Brendon McConnell; Helen Slater |
| Abstract: | There is considerable debate on the merits of extending and strengthening school choice. In England, the controversial Education and Inspections Bill, published on the 28 February 2006, contains a prominent role for ‘school choice’. But the debate lacks some basic information on these issues, and this paper provides some background facts to fill this gap. We first consider the transport issue and ask how many pupils have choice of schools. We report the distance of school commutes for various breakdowns of LEA and school type, and for sub-groups of pupils. We also turn the question around and tabulate the proportion of pupils who have 3 schools within 2km of their home, and within 5km and 8km. The conclusion from all this is that most pupils do have considerable choice of school (as defined here). We also address a specific issue about school access ? which pupils attend their nearest school. We show that only about a half of pupils attend their nearest school, and 30% do not attend one of their nearest three schools. We investigate this to understand which pupils attend their local school, and the role played by the quality of that local school. |
| Keywords: | school choice; school commute; ethnicity and education |
| JEL: | I20 |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:cmpowp:06/159&r=edu |
| By: | David de la Croix (Department of Economics and CORE, Université Catholique de Louvain); Matthias Doepke (University of California, Los Angeles, CEPR, and NBER) |
| Abstract: | The governments of nearly all countries are major providers of primary and secondary education to its citizens. In some countries, however, public schools coexist with private schools, while in others the government is the sole provider of education. In this study,we askwhy different societiesmake different choices regarding the mix of private and public schooling. We develop a theory which integrates private education and fertility decisionswith voting on public schooling expenditures. In a given political environment, high income inequality leads to more private education, as rich people opt out of the public system. Comparing across political systems, we find that concentration of political power can lead to multiple equilibria in the determination of public education spending. |
| JEL: | D72 I21 H42 O10 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2007-60&r=edu |
| By: | Pietro Garibaldi; Francesco Giavazzi; Andrea Ichino; Enrico Rettore |
| Abstract: | For many students throughout the world the time to obtain an academic degree extends beyond the normal completion time while college tuition is typically constant during the years of enrollment. In particular, it does not increase when a student remains in a program beyond the normal completion time. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design on data from Bocconi University in Italy, this paper shows that a tuition increase of 1,000 euro in the last year of studies would reduce the probability of late graduation by 6.1 percentage points with respect to a benchmark average probability of 80%. We conclude suggesting that an upward sloping tuition profile is efficient in situations in which effort is suboptimally supplied, for instance in the presence of public subsidies to education, congestion externalities and/or peer effects. |
| Keywords: | tuition, student performance, regression discontinuity. |
| JEL: | I2 C31 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cca:wpaper:38&r=edu |
| By: | Jean-Paul Faguet; Fabio Sánchez |
| Abstract: | The effects of decentralization on public sector outputs is much debated but little agreed upon. This paper compares the remarkable case of Bolivia with the more complex case of Colombia to explore decentralization’s effects on public education outcomes. In Colombia, decentralization of education finance improved enrollment rates in public schools. In Bolivia, decentralization made government more responsive by re-directing public investment to areas of greatest need. In both countries, investment shifted from infrastructure to primary social services. In both, it was the behavior of smaller, poorer, more rural municipalities that drove these changes. |
| Date: | 2006–03–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:001049:002817&r=edu |
| By: | Douglas Sutherland; Robert Price; Isabelle Joumard; Chantal Nicq |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the potential to raise public spending efficiency in the primary and secondary education sector. Resource availability per pupil has increased significantly over the past decade in a number of countries; often in attempting to exploit the link between educational attainment and growth. However, available evidence reveals only a weak correlation between increased resource availability and pupil performance. In order to draw cross-country comparisons... <P>Indicateurs de performance de l'efficacité des dépenses publiques d'éducation dans l'enseignement primaire et secondaire <BR>Ce document évalue les possibilités d'accroître l'efficacité des dépenses publiques d'éducation dans l'enseignement primaire et secondaire. Les ressources disponibles par élève se sont accrues sensiblement au cours de la dernière décennie dans un certain nombre de pays, souvent dans l?espoir d'exploiter le lien entre niveau d'instruction et croissance. Pourtant les études disponibles ne révèlent qu'une faible corrélation entre la disponibilité croissante des ressources... |
| Keywords: | education, dépenses publiques, éducation, public spending, efficiency, efficacité, nonparametric methods, méthodes non paramétriques, data envelopment analysis, analyse par enveloppement des données, stochastic frontier analysis, analyse de frontière stochastique |
| JEL: | C14 C21 D24 H41 H52 I21 I22 I28 |
| Date: | 2007–02–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:546-en&r=edu |
| By: | Anna Cuxart; Clara Riba |
| Abstract: | The paper deals with the comparative study of European citizens’ satisfaction with the state of education in their respective countries. Individual and contextual effects are tested applying multilevel analysis. The results show that educational public policies (level of decentralization, degree of comprehensiveness and public spending) as well as the students’ social environment (socioeconomic and cultural status) have a sound impact on the opinions about the state of education. |
| Keywords: | education, public opinion, public policies, multilevel analysis, comparative studies, European Social Survey |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1004&r=edu |
| By: | Nadir Altinok (IREDU - Institut de recherche sur l'éducation : Sociologie et Economie de l'Education - [CNRS : FRE5211] - [Université de Bourgogne]) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to test the existence of an education production function based on data resulting from international surveys of pupil assets. The results of the estimates, using first the total sample, and then making distinctions according to the economic level of the country, show significant differences concerning the relationships between educational inputs and outputs. Thus, inconsistencies found in former analyses in terms of estimating the education production function can partially be explained by the fact that they failed to take into account the economic level of the countries analysed. |
| Keywords: | Education quality ; Human Capital ; Public Expenditure |
| Date: | 2007–02–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00133559_v1&r=edu |
| By: | Yee-Yee, Hla; Gnanajothy, Ponnudurai; Chan, Tze-Haw |
| Abstract: | Many schools in the developed world have adopted portfolios in an attempt to address the scholarship of teaching. This is because of the atmosphere of “publish or perish” which pervades academia. Buying off teaching obligations with research dollars is an increasingly pervasive practice in many institutions and Faculty caught up in this system have generally gone along with it, focusing on the scholarship of discovery at the expense of the scholarship of integration, application, and teaching - little of which carries the financial consequence or peer recognition of sponsored research.1 Add to this the fact that many medical schools world wide have adopted teacher- intensive, integrated hybrid PBL curricula and the result is frustrated teachers who undergo occupational burnout. An ideal faculty reward system should support the priorities and mission of the institution e.g. if improving the quality of teaching and learning is a high priority, then the tenure, promotion, and merit pay system must support quality efforts to redesign the curriculum, improve courses, and increase the effectiveness of teaching.2 Education Portfolios are not widely used in this part of the world, and few Faculty have even heard of the term “Education Scholarship”. This study is a preliminary report on perception of the faculty rewards in place in their institution and their familiarity with the concept of education scholarship. A questionnaire was posted to Faculty of medical schools in Malaysia and also distributed to staff of the National University of Singapore, during an international conference. A total of 54 responses were collected from six institutions (14 were unidentified); representing a response rate of about twenty per cent. Thirty two were teaching in a hybrid curriculum; and 26 were clinical teachers. Thirty three had been in their respective institutions for more than three years. |
| Keywords: | Faculty Rewards; Education Portfolios; medical schools |
| JEL: | I00 I23 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:2022&r=edu |
| By: | Simon Burgess; Adam Briggs |
| Abstract: | We estimate the chances of poor and non-poor children getting places in good schools, analysing the relationship between poverty, location and school assignment. Our dataset allows us to measure location and distance very precisely. The simple unconditional difference in probabilities of attending a good school is substantial. We run an analysis that controls completely for location, exploiting within-street variation and controlling for other personal characteristics. Children from poor families are significantly less likely to go to good schools. We show that the lower chance of poor children attending a good school is essentially unaffected by the degree of choice. |
| Keywords: | School assignment, social mobility, school choice |
| JEL: | I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:cmpowp:06/157&r=edu |
| By: | Thomas Siedler |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether schooling has a positive impact on individual's political interest, voting turnout, democratic values, political involvement and political group membership, using the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS). Between 1949 and 1969 the number of compulsory years of schooling was increased from eight to nine years in the Federal Republic of Germany, gradually over time and across federal states. These law changes allow one to investigate the causal impact of years of schooling on citizenship. Years of schooling are found to be positively correlated with a broad range of political outcome measures. However, when exogenous increase in schooling through law changes is used, there is no evidence of a causal effect running from schooling to citizenship in Germany. |
| Keywords: | Voting, civic engagement, education, externalities, instrumental variables estimation |
| JEL: | I2 H4 H23 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp665&r=edu |
| By: | McKnight, Abigail (London School of Economics); Naylor, Robin (University of Warwick); Smith, Jeremy (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | We exploit individual-level administrative data for whole populations of UK university students for the leaving cohorts of 1985-1993 (together with that of 1998) to investigate the influence of degree performance on graduate occupational earnings. We find that there is a significant premium associated with a good performance at university. We also find that this premium increased between 1985/6 and 1993/4, a period of substantial expansion in the graduate population. Among other results, we find that there are significant differences in the occupational earnings of leavers according to university attended, subject studied, and pre-university educational and social background, ceteris paribus. |
| Keywords: | Graduate earnings ; degree class ; educational performance |
| JEL: | J3 J4 I2 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:786&r=edu |
| By: | David Audretsch; Ronnie J. Phillips |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we discuss the nature of the university-industry relationship and recommend specific policies to help achieve the goal of greater economic growth. We argue that state-supported research universities can be used to integrate entrepreneurship into state economic development and incubate entrepreneurial companies. Regional entrepreneurship policy is a new strategy that regards economic development as a process that goes from supporting research and development to creating and growing new businesses. Specifically, we believe that an entrepreneurial higher education system is a key to state-level economic policies. There is an opportunity at research universities to combine the human capital talent available on faculties with the needs and expertise of private industry to accelerate entrepreneurship and economic growth. |
| Date: | 2007–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:egpdis:2007-11&r=edu |
| By: | Anita Ratcliffe; Sarah Smith |
| Abstract: | Against a background of falling and low fertility, this paper presents an analysis of trends in fertility in the UK across cohorts born between 1935 and 1975. The decline in fertility is shown to have two distinct phases – first, a fall in third and higher-order births (affecting cohorts born 1935-45) and second, a delay in childbearing and a rise in childlessness (affecting cohorts born since 1945). The delay in childbearing and rise in childlessness cannot all be explained by the rise in female participation in higher education, rather there has been increasing polarization in fertility and employment by education. |
| Keywords: | cohort fertility trends, education |
| JEL: | J13 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:cmpowp:07/165&r=edu |
| By: | Heijke Hans; Meng Christoph (ROA wp) |
| Abstract: | This paper summarizes the outlines of three empirical studies that we have carried out on actual labour market value of the various types of competencies acquired in higher education and how these competencies may be taught most effectively. The focus is on the discipline-specific competencies and academic competencies. In all three studies, use was made of the European CHEERS dataset. The main results with regard to the labour market value of the various competencies are that a high level of discipline-specific competencies provides graduates with a comparative advantage in jobs within their own professional domain, where they also earn more than outside this domain. Graduates who possess a high level of academic competencies, have a comparative advantage outside their own professional domain, where they may initially earn less than in their own domain. As they are more inclined to take part in training activities and are able to obtain the required competencies for a supervisory position more quickly, their salaries rise more quickly with time. With regard to the organization of the education process, we found that activating learning methods contribute effectively to both the acquisition of academic competencies and the acquisition of discipline-specific competencies. By combining these methods with a more prominent position for knowledge transfer by teachers, the acquired level of discipline-specific competencies can be increased without affecting the acquisition of academic competencies. |
| Keywords: | education, training and the labour market; |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umarow:2007001&r=edu |
| By: | Josep Lluís Boned; Llorenç Bagur |
| Abstract: | Organisations are becoming increasingly aware of the need for management information systems, due largely to the changing environment and a continuous process of globalisation. All of this means that managers need to adapt the structures of their organisations to the changes and, therefore, to plan, control and manage better. The Spanish public university cannot avoid this changing (demographic, economic and social changes) and globalising (among them the convergence of European qualifications) environment, to which we must add the complex organisation structure, characterised by a high dispersion of authority for decision making in different collegiate and unipersonal organs. It seems obvious that these changes must have repercussions on the direction, organisation and management structures of those public higher education institutions, and it seems natural that, given this environment, the universities must adapt their present management systems to the demand by society for the quality and suitability of the services they provide. |
| Keywords: | Management accounting, balanced scorecard, public universities |
| JEL: | M41 M49 |
| Date: | 2006–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:976&r=edu |
| By: | Antonio Estache; Marianela González; Lourdes Trujillo (Department of Economics, City University, London and DAEA, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) |
| Abstract: | All interested parties seem to agree that it’s important to be able to monitor public-sector performance at the sectoral level, but most current work based on multicountries databases doesn’t lend itself to country-specific conclusions. This is due to a large extent to major data limitations both on sectoral expenditures and on sectoral outcomes. This paper discusses the related issues and shows what we can do with the current data in spite of the drastic limitations. The main conclusion of the paper is that any efforts to assess country specific performances in relative terms are likely to be difficult in view of the data problems. A rough sense of performance across sectors can be estimated for groups of countries, allowing some modest benchmarking exercises. These estimates show that low income countries generally lag higher income countries significantly. However, efficiency has improved during the 1990s in energy and education but has not improved significantly in transport. |
| Date: | 2007–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cty:dpaper:0703&r=edu |
| By: | Emanuele Bacchiocchi (University of Milan, Italy.); Fabio Montobbio (University of Insubria, Varese and CESPRI - Bocconi University, Milan, Italy.) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the process of diffusion and decay of knowledge from university, public laboratories and corporate patents in six countries and tests the differences across countries and across technological fields using data from the European Patent Office. It finds that university and public research patents are more cited relatively to companies’ patents. However these results are mainly driven by the Chemical, and Drugs & Medical fields and US universities. In Europe and Japan, where the great majority of patents from public reserach comes from national agencies, there is no evidence of a superior fertility of university and public laboratories patents vis `a vis corporate patents. The distribution of the citations lags shows that knowledge embedded in university and public research patents tends to diffuse more rapidly relatively to corporate ones in particular in US, Germany, France and Japan. |
| Keywords: | University patents, Citations, Spillovers, Knowledge Diffusion, Public Research. |
| JEL: | O30 O33 O34 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cri:cespri:wp193&r=edu |