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on Education |
|
Issue of 2007‒09‒09
twelve papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of the Beira Interior |
| By: | Giorgio Brunello (Università di Padova); Lorenzo Rocco (Università di Padova) |
| Abstract: | When school quality increases with the educational standard set by schools, education before college needs not be a hierarchy with private schools offering better quality than public schools. 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 public schools excessively demanding. With the key parameters calibrated for the US and Italy, 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. An equilibrium with low quality private schools is supported instead in Italy. |
| Keywords: | private schools, public schools, majority voting |
| JEL: | J24 H42 |
| Date: | 2007–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pad:wpaper:0043&r=edu |
| By: | Abbas, Qaisar; Foreman-Peck, James (Cardiff Business School) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates and interprets returns to education for three sub-sectors of labour market by gender in Pakistan, using the most recent data set of Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) Survey 2004-05. The results show two distinctive features of Pakistani education, the high apparent returns to female education outside agriculture, and the remarkable increase of returns with successive levels of education, are to be explained primarily by two departures from the basic Mincer model; generally poor quality primary schooling and family unwillingness to invest in female education because of lack of earning opportunities. There is some signaling in Pakistani education investment but mainly the education is productivity-enhancing investment in human capital, according to a comparison of self-employed and paid employed earnings equations. Returns to public spending of education are extremely high, suggesting very considerable state underinvestment. The policy challenge is in the low wages and high education in the female paid employment sector, and the low participation rate. |
| Keywords: | Rates of return; gender; occupation; Pakistan |
| JEL: | J16 J18 J24 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2007/24&r=edu |
| By: | Tali Regev |
| Abstract: | This paper explores how the steady trends in increasing tuition costs, college enrollment, and the college wage gap might be related to the quality of college graduates. The model shows that the signaling role of education might be an important yet largely neglected ingredient in these recent changes. I develop a special signaling model in which workers of heterogeneous abilities face the same costs, yet a larger proportion of able individuals self-select to attend college since they are more likely to get higher returns. With imperfect information, the skill premium is an outcome which depends on the equilibrium quality of college attendees and nonattendees. Incorporating a production function of college education, I discuss the properties of the college market equilibrium. A skill-biased technical change directly decreases self-selection into college, but the general equilibrium effect may overturn the direct decline, since increased enrollment and rising tuition costs increase self-selection. Higher initial human capital has an external effect on subsequent investment in school: All agents increase their education, and the higher equilibrium tuition costs increase self-selection and the college premium. |
| Keywords: | College costs ; Education, Higher - Economic aspects |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2007-18&r=edu |
| By: | Yavuz, Elif; Ragatz, Andy; Fengler, Wolfgang; Arze del Granado, F. Javier |
| Abstract: | What are the current trends and main characteristics of public education spending in Indonesia? Is education spending insufficient? Are expenditures in education efficient and equitable? This study reports the first account of Indonesia ' s aggregated (national and sub-national) spending on education, as well as the economic composition of education spending and its breakdown by programs. It presents estimations of the expected (average) level of education spending for a country with its economic and social characteristics. This analysis sheds light on the efficiency and equity of education spending by presenting social rates of return by level of education, by assessing the adequacy of current teacher earnings relative to other paid workers and the distribution of teachers across urban, rural, and remote regions, and by identifying the main determinants of education enrollment. It concludes that the current challenges in Indonesia are no longer defined by the need of additional spending, but rather the need to improve the quality of education services, and to improve the efficiency of education expenditures by re-allocating teachers to undersupplied regions and re-adjusting the spending mix within and between education programs for future additional spending in the sector. The study finds that poverty and student-aged labor are also significant constraints to education enrollment, stressing the importance of policies aimed at addressing demand-side factors. |
| Keywords: | Education For All,Primary Education,Tertiary Educat ion,Teaching and Learning, |
| Date: | 2007–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4329&r=edu |
| By: | Bettina Müller (Centre for European Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | Academic spin-offs are one way in which employability of university graduates is reflected. Using the ZEW spinoff-survey, this paper studies empirically the impact of human capital on the success of academic spin-offs founding in knowledge and technology intensive sectors. The focus is thereby on the composition of human capital which is described according to whether or not the founders have studied several subjects and whether or not they all come from the same research establishment. Additionally the impact of having founded as a team is analyzed. Success is measured by employment growth. The findings suggest that it is advantageous to found within a team, but that the human capital composition both for single entrepreneurs and team foundations is rather irrelevant. |
| Keywords: | Higher Education , Human Capital , Entrepreneurship , Spin-off |
| JEL: | C12 L25 M13 |
| Date: | 2006–12–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:knz:hetero:0614&r=edu |
| By: | Nathalie Picard (THEMA, Université de Cergy-Pontoise, France and INED, Paris, France.); François-Charles Wolff (LEN, Université de Nantes, BP 52231 Chemin de la Censive du Tertre, 44322 Nantes Cedex 3, France; CNAV and INED, Paris, France.) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate whether educational inequalities stem rather from differences between families or within families. In a poor economy, schooling is costly for parents and education is likely to be unequally distributed among siblings. Drawing on discrete ordered choice models, we present a simple method to estimate the between and within components of both the explained and unexplained variances of education. For our empirical analysis, we use the LSMS survey conducted in 2002 in Albania. We explain about 40% of the total variance and find that inequalities in education are mainly due to differences between families. Differences within family are lower and far less easily explained. |
| Keywords: | Education, intra-household inequality, random effects ordered Probit models, siblings |
| JEL: | D13 I2 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ema:worpap:2007-21&r=edu |
| By: | Tim Callan (Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI)); Tim Smeeding (Syracuse University); Panos Tsakloglou (Athens University of Economics and Business) |
| Abstract: | Empirical studies of inequality and poverty are usually based on disposable cash incomes, disregarding incomes in-kind (non-cash incomes). Since individuals also derive utility from the consumption of goods and services provided in-kind monetary income is not always a good indicator of an individual’s utility or “command over resources”. Thus, distributional analysis based on cash incomes may be seriously biased. Inclusion of non-cash incomes (arising from private sources or from public provision of services such as health, housing and education) may allow for better targeting and allocation of resources in fighting poverty and social exclusion. The present paper focuses on non-cash incomes arising from publicly provided education in seven European countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK), as part of a broader research project (AIM-AP Accurate Income Measurement for the Assessment of Policy) investigating the distributional implications of including elements of non-cash income in the measurement of wider resources. In all countries under examination public education transfers account for a considerable proportion of the total transfers of the state to the citizens. The paper uses static incidence analysis under the assumption that public education transfers do not create noticeable externalities, combining the information of existing nationwide income surveys with external information on spending per student in particular levels of the education system. In all countries public education transfers are found to reduce aggregate inequality. These effects are driven by the impact of primary and, especially, secondary education transfers at the time of their receipt and assuming benefits are valued at cost by recipients. In a static framework, transfers in the field of tertiary education appear to have a small distributional impact while the size and the sign of this impact depend on the treatment of tertiary education students living away from the parental home. |
| Date: | 2007–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp207&r=edu |
| By: | Michael Gorski (University of Paderborn); Tim Krieger (University of Paderborn); Thomas Lange (Ifo institute for economic research & University of Konstanz) |
| Abstract: | In a two-period model with agent heterogeneity we analyze a pension reform toward a stronger link between contributions and benefits (as recently observed in several countries) in a pension system with a Bismarckian and a Beveridgian component. We show that such a policy change reduces the educational level in an economy. The life expectancy differential between skilled and unskilled individuals drives this result. Furthermore, we investigate the consequences on the intragenerational redistribution characteristics of the pension system – in the sense of the number of net-recipients relative to net-payers – as well as welfare effects. |
| Keywords: | social security, education, life expectancy, pension reform, redistribution |
| JEL: | H55 I21 D39 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pdn:wpaper:4&r=edu |
| By: | Edmark, Karin (Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This study tests for strategic competition in public spending on childcare and primary education, and care for the elderly, using panel data on Swedish municipalities over 1996-2005. The high degree of decentralization in the organization of the public sector implies that Swedish data is highly suitable for this type of study. The study is not limited to interactions in the same type of expenditure, but also allows for e¤ects across expenditures. The results give no robust support for the hypothesis that municipalities react on the spending policy of neighbouring municipalities in the decision on own spending on care of the elderly, childcare and education. |
| Keywords: | Strategic interactions; Spatial econometrics; Decentralization; Local Public Spending |
| JEL: | C31 H72 H77 |
| Date: | 2007–09–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2007_021&r=edu |
| By: | Ketteni Elena (University of Cyprus); Mamuneas Theofanis (University of Cyprus); Stengos Thanasis (University of Guelph, Canada and Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis, Italy) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we compare the impact of hardware, software and com munication equipments, widely referred to as information and communication technologies (ICT) on economic growth among the advanced industrialized countries. We use nonparametric techniques that allow us to directly estimate the elasticity of ICT and human capital for each country and time period. We also examine whether the nonlinear relationship between human capital and growth, found in the literature, still persists in the presence of ICT e¤ects. The data covers the period from 1980-2004, for a range of OECD countries and the results indicate that there exist a nonlinear relationship between ICT and productivity along with a nonlinear relationship between human capital and productivity. Additionally, we observe that in high levels of ICT capital the output elasticities of human capital are larger and the more educated workers in a country the higher are the output elasticities of ICT. |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:03-07&r=edu |
| By: | Frances Ruane (Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI)); Richard S.J Tol (Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI); Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI)) |
| Abstract: | Using publication, citation and h-numbers from the Scopus and Web of Science databases, we find that research output and academic influence of economists in the Republic of Ireland are heavily skewed by researcher and by institution. A subset of the results is confirmed by similar analyses based on EconLit and IDEAS/REPEC. The analysis shows that while one university dominates in terms of numbers of economists, the more productive and most cited Irish research economists are spread across a range of institutions that are heavily concentrated in the Greater Dublin Area. |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp180&r=edu |
| By: | Milena Valens Upegui |
| Date: | 2007–04–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000149:003964&r=edu |