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on Education |
|
Issue of 2007‒06‒18
eight papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of the Beira Interior |
| By: | David A. Penn; Reuben Kyle |
| Abstract: | The Tennessee lottery scholarship (TELS) program is intended to make college more affordable for young people in Tennessee, with the aim of increasing higher education enrollment and retention rates. One way to evaluate the effectiveness of TELS is to determine to what extent did the scholarship change student behavior? That is, does TELS induce desirable behavior that would not otherwise occur? Using a logit model to predict year-over-year college retention, we conclude that TELS has a positive, but small, effect on student behavior in Tennessee. The biggest impact of TELS occurs among continuing students, with no effect for first-time students. |
| Keywords: | lottery, scholarship |
| JEL: | H75 H7 I21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mts:wpaper:200707&r=edu |
| By: | Florian Hoffman; Philip Oreopoulos |
| Abstract: | Many wonder whether teacher gender plays an important role in higher education by influencing student achievement and subject interest. The data used in this paper helps identify average effects from male and female college students assigned to male or female teachers. In contrast to previous work at the primary and secondary school level, our focus on large first-year undergraduate classes isolates gender interaction effects due to students reacting to instructors rather than instructors reacting to students. In addition, by focusing on college, we examine the extent to which gender interactions may exist at later ages. We find that assignment to a same-sex instructor boosts relative grade performance and the likelihood of completing a course, but the magnitudes of these effects are small. A same-sex instructor increases average grade performance by at most 5 percent of its standard deviation and decreases the likelihood of dropping a course by 1.2 percentage points. The effects are similar when conditioning on initial ability (high school achievement), and ethnic background (mother tongue not English), but smaller when conditioning on mathematics and science courses. The effects of same-sex instructors on upper-year course selection are insignificant. |
| JEL: | I2 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13182&r=edu |
| By: | Maite Blázquez, José Ignacio García Pérez; José Ignacio García Pérez |
| Abstract: | In this paper we analyse how the decentralization process of the Spanish educational system has affected the school-to-work transition of youths over the last years. Using individual data from the Spanish Labor Force Survey for the period 1993-2002, we estimate a simultaneous equation model for the unemployment and employment hazard rates of these workers. We include public expenditure on education, at the regional level, as an explanatory factor in both hazards. Furthermore we account for cross-regional differences regarding the decision-making authority over education. Our results reveal that for both, university and non-university levels, public expenditure on education significantly improves the chances of Spanish youths in finding the first job after completing the educational system. However, it seems that the decentralization of university education has negative effects on youths’ labor market prospects in terms of exiting from unemployment, while no effects are observed for the case of non-university education. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fda:fdaddt:2007-13&r=edu |
| By: | Sriram M.S. |
| Abstract: | The paper reviews the state of rural management education in India. Using the setting up of the Institute of Rural Management Anand [IRMA] as a pivot, the paper examines the difficulties in establishing specialized management schools, the design of the curriculum and the management of the expectations of both the students who come in and the recruiters. It then identifies the problems in running rural management programmes particularly the dilemma between explicit value orientation towards the betterment of the poor and the value neutral optimization approach of conventional management education. The paper then examines the paradigm shift that has happened in the marketplace for rural managers, and concludes with some further questions on how the future of rural management education can be addressed. |
| Date: | 2007–04–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iim:iimawp:2007-04-01&r=edu |
| By: | Konstantinos Angelopoulos; Jim Malley; Apostolis Philippopoulos |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study the quantitative macroeconomic effects of public education spending in USA for the post-war period. Using comparable measures of human and physical capital, from Jorgenson and Fraumeni (1989, 1992a,b), we calibrate a standard dynamic general equilibrium model where human capital is the engine of long-run endogenous growth and government education spending is justified by externalities in human capital. Our base calibration, based on moderate sized human capital externalities, suggests that public spending on education is both growth and welfare promoting. However, given that pubic education spending crowds-out private consumption, the welfare maximising size of the government is less than the growth maximising one. Our results further suggest that welfare gains, as high as four percent of consumption, are obtainable if the composition of public spending can be altered in favour of education spending relative to the other components of total government spending. |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gla:glaewp:2007_09&r=edu |
| By: | Aguayo, Ernesto; Chapa, Joana; Rangel, Erick; Treviño, Lourdes; Valero-Gil, Jorge |
| Abstract: | There is considerable evidence that resources are not allocated randomly within households, and that resources are unequally distributed within the family in many developing countries. Such an unequal distribution of goods usually takes the form of a bias against females. For example, girls lag markedly behind boys in schooling in many developing countries even though this gender gap has been declining in recent years. Using an OLS-Robust model and a ML-Random Effects model for the years 1992, 1998 and 2004 of ENIGH, we did not find enough statistical evidence to support the idea that poor families, nether in rural nor in urban areas, provide more education to their 12 to 18 years old sons or daughters. In fact, contrary to the common belief, we found that non-poor families, invest more in the education of their daughters, especially in the urban areas. However, this education discrimination against male children has been decreasing over the years. It is also found that female head of households are more likely to have children with higher levels of schooling and that children having both parents at home or having older brothers or sisters present higher levels of educational attainment. |
| Keywords: | Gender-bias; discrimination; Poverty; Mexican studies; intra-household allocation; |
| JEL: | I39 I29 O54 |
| Date: | 2007–05–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:3561&r=edu |
| By: | Martin Davies; Joe Hirschberg; Jenny Lye; Carol Johnston |
| Abstract: | This paper is the first attempt to perform an analysis of the internal Quality of Teaching Surveys (QTS) used in all Australian Universities by investigating how they compare across Universities. We categorize the questions on each university’s QTS into one of 18 types and then define a proximity measure between the surveys. We then use an agglomerative cluster analysis to establish groupings of these institutions on the basis of the similarity of their QTSs as well as groupings of question types by their frequency of use. In addition, we also determine if the form of the survey is related to the responses recorded by the Course Evaluation Questionnaire (CEQ) that is administered to all graduates of Australian Universities. This was done by the use of regression analysis to establish if the form of the questionnaire is related to the overall good teaching scores earned by the universities from the CEQ. |
| Keywords: | Tertiary Education; University Rankings; CEQ |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mlb:wpaper:994&r=edu |
| By: | Albert Yung-Hsu Liu; Ronald G. Ehrenberg; Jesenka Mrdjenovic |
| Abstract: | We study the adoption of Common Application membership by private four-year postsecondary institutions and its role in explaining the growth in undergraduate applications. Using data from the College Board's Annual Survey of Colleges, our estimation of proportional hazard models suggest that institutions respond to the net benefit of adoption. We estimate that membership increases applications by 5.7 to 7.0 percent and decreases yield rates by 2.8 to 3.9 percent. Acceptance rates decrease for members when their local networks are large. Membership is also associated with a decline in SAT scores and an increase in the percentage of students of color. Finally, falsification tests indicate that membership effects occur as a one-time adoption shock that persists thereafter. |
| JEL: | I21 L11 L14 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13175&r=edu |