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on Education |
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Issue of 2010‒05‒22
thirteen papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Macdonald, Kevin; Patrinos, Harry Anthony |
| Abstract: | The 2003 PISA Korea sample is used to examine the association between within-school ability tracking and mathematics achievement. Estimates of a variety of econometric models reveal that tracking is positively associated with mathematics achievement among females and that this association declines for higher achieving females. Noevidence of an association between males and tracking is detected. While this association for females cannot be interpreted as a causal effect, the presence of a measurable association indicates the need for further research on tracking in Korea with a particular focus on gender differences. |
| Keywords: | Tertiary Education,Secondary Education,Teaching and Learning,Education For All,Educational Sciences |
| Date: | 2010–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5266&r=edu |
| By: | McCoy, Selina; Byrne, Delma |
| Date: | 2010–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:rb2010/1/5&r=edu |
| By: | Pierre Koning; Karen van der Wiel |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes whether information on high school quality published by a national newspaper affects school choice in the Netherlands. For this purpose, we use both school level and individual student level data. First, we study the causal effect of quality scores on the influx of new high school students using a longitudinal school dataset. We find that negative (positive) school quality scores decrease (increase) the number of students choosing a school after the year of publication. The positive effects are particularly large for the academic school track. An academic school track receiving the most positive score sees its inflow of students rise by 15 to 20 students. Second, we study individual school choice behavior to address the relative importance of the quality scores, as well as potential differences in the quality response between socio-economic groups. Although the probability of attending a school is affected by its quality score, it is mainly driven by the traveling distance. Students are only willing to travel about 200 meters more in order to attend a well-performing rather than an average school. In contrast to equity concerns that are often raised, we cannot find differences in information responses between socio-economic groups. |
| Keywords: | School quality; school choice; information; media |
| JEL: | I20 D10 D83 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpb:discus:150&r=edu |
| By: | Booth, Alison L. (University of Essex); Kee, Hiau Joo (Australian National University) |
| Abstract: | The first Australian universities were established in the 1850s, well before the introduction of compulsory schooling. However it was not until the twentieth century that growing industrialisation, technological change and the development of the so-called 'knowledge industries' fed into an increased demand in Australia for better-educated workers. As the twentieth century progressed, technological change and industrial restructuring saw a shift from brawn to brain. From the middle of the twentieth century, the introduction of mass secondary school education and the expansion of the number of universities widened access. At the same time, subjects offered in higher education increased in scope, and explicit and implicit labour market discrimination began to be eroded. These factors, together with a series of supply-side changes, meant that women were more easily able to shift into investing in the skills in which labour demand was increasing. By 1987, Australian women were more likely than men to be enrolled at university. These aggregate figures disguise considerable heterogeneity across fields of study. |
| Keywords: | higher education, gender, Australia |
| JEL: | I23 J1 N3 |
| Date: | 2010–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4916&r=edu |
| By: | Antonio Di Paolo (Departament d'Economia Aplicada, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Campus de Bellaterra, Edifici B 08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola), Spain. Institut d’Economia de Barcelona (IEB), Universitat de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | Drawing on data contained in the 2005 EU-SILC, this paper investigates the disparities in educational opportunities in Italy and Spain. Its main objective is to analyse the predicted probabilities of successfully completing upper-secondary and tertiary education for individuals with different parental backgrounds, and the changes in these probabilities across birth cohorts extending from 1940 to 1980. The results suggest that the disparities in tertiary education opportunities in Italy tend to increase over time. By contrast, the gap in educational opportunity in Spain shows a marked decrease across the cohorts. Moreover, by using an intuitive decomposition strategy, the paper shows that a large part of the educational gap between individuals of different backgrounds is “composed” of the difference in the endowment of family characteristics. Specifically, it seems that more highly educated parents are more able to endow their children with a better composition of family characteristics, which accounts for a significant proportion of the disparities in educational opportunity. |
| Keywords: | Educational Opportunity, Family Background, Birth cohorts, Italy, Spain |
| JEL: | I21 J12 J62 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:xrp:wpaper:xreap2010-5&r=edu |
| By: | Juan D. Barón; Deborah Cobb-Clark |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the link between young people's sense (locus) of control over their lives and their investments in education. We find that young people with a more internal locus of control have a higher probability of finishing secondary school and, conditional on completion, meeting the requirements to obtain a university entrance rank. Moreover, those with an internal locus of control who obtain a university entrance rank achieve somewhat higher rankings than do their peers who have a more external locus of control. Not surprisingly, there is a negative relationship between growing up in disadvantage and educational outcomes. However, this effect does not appear to operate indirectly by increasing the likelihood of having a more external locus of control. In particular, we find no significant relationship between family welfare history and young people's locus of control. |
| Date: | 2010–05–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000094:006978&r=edu |
| By: | Terance J. Rephann (Center for Economic and Policy Studies); John Knapp (Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service); William Shobe (University of Virginia) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the effect of the public higher education sector on Virginia’s economy. The study consists of three distinct parts. The first part consists of a full accounting of the current flow of economic activity in Virginia that can be directly tied to the expenditures and activities of publicly supported institutions of higher education. The second part is a forecast of the additional economic impact of a policy initiative to increase the number of undergraduate and graduate degrees by Virginia public institutions by 70,000 over the period 2010 to 2020. The third part is an evaluation of a broader set of economic and social benefits generated by the public higher education sector, including enhancements to graduates’ life circumstances such as improved health, community benefits such as reduced crime, and economic benefits that stem from industrial attraction, entrepreneurial activity, innovation, and workforce development. |
| Keywords: | higher education, Virginia, colleges, universities |
| JEL: | I21 R11 |
| Date: | 2010–04–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vac:report:rpt10-01&r=edu |
| By: | Hanushek, Eric A. (Stanford University); Woessmann, Ludger (Ifo Institute for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | Critics of international student comparisons argue that results may be influenced by differences in the extent to which countries adequately sample their entire student populations. In this research note, we show that larger exclusion and non-response rates are related to better country average scores on international tests, as are larger enrollment rates for the relevant age group. However, accounting for sample selectivity does not alter existing research findings that tested academic achievement can account for a majority of international differences in economic growth and that institutional features of school systems have important effects on international differences in student achievement. |
| Keywords: | sample selection, international student achievement tests, economic growth, educational production |
| JEL: | H4 I20 O40 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4926&r=edu |
| By: | Pierre Koning; Karen van der Wiel |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the response of secondary schools to changes in quality ratings. In doing this, we contribute to the literature in two respects. First, the current analysis is the first to address the impact of quality scores that have been published by a newspaper (Trouw), rather than public interventions that aim to track and improve failing schools. Second, our research design exploits the substantial lags in the registration and publication of the Trouw scores and that takes into account all possible outcomes of the ratings, instead of the lowest category only. Overall, we find evidence that school quality performance does respond to Trouw quality scores. Both average grades increase and the number of diplomas go up after receiving a negative score. These responses cannot be attributed to gaming activities of the school board as an improvement is also observed in the gaming-proof quality indicators. For schools that receive the most negative ranking, the short-term effects (one year after a change in the ranking of schools) of quality transparency on final exam grades equal 10% to 30% of a standard deviation compared to the average of this variable. The estimated long run impacts are roughly equal to the short-term effects that are measured. |
| Keywords: | school quality; school accountability |
| JEL: | H75 I20 D83 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpb:discus:149&r=edu |
| By: | Sandra E Black (UCLA); Paul J Devereux (University College Dublin); Kjell G Salvanes (Norwegian School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | A variety of public campaigns, including the “Just Say No” campaign of the 1980s and 1990s that encouraged teenagers to “Just Say No to Drugs”, are based on the premise that teenagers are very susceptible to peer influences. Despite this, very little is known about the effect of school peers on the long-run outcomes of teenagers. This is primarily due to two factors: the absence of information on peers merged with long-run outcomes of individuals and, equally important, the difficulty of separately identifying the role of peers. This paper uses data on the population of Norway and idiosyncratic variation in cohort composition within schools to examine the role of peer composition in 9th grade on longer-run outcomes such as IQ scores at age 18, teenage childbearing, postcompulsory schooling educational track, adult labor market status, and earnings. We find that outcomes are influenced by the proportion of females in the grade, and these effects differ for men and women. Other peer variables (average age, average mother’s education) have little impact on the outcomes of teenagers. |
| Keywords: | Peer Effects, Education |
| Date: | 2010–05–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201016&r=edu |
| By: | Rehana , Fowzia |
| Abstract: | Abstract Audit expectation gap is the difference between what auditors actually do and what third parties think auditors do or should do in conducting the audit practice. Conflicting views have been expressed regarding the role of auditing education in narrowing this gap. This study has been carried out to investigate whether there is evidence that the provision of auditing subject as part of business degree programmes contributes to narrowing that part of the audit expectation gap which results from a misunderstanding of audit regulations. |
| Keywords: | Keywords: Auditor; Audit expectation gap; Auditing education. |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2010–05–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:22708&r=edu |
| By: | Farré, Lídia (Institut d’Anàlisi Econòmica (IAE)); Klein, Roger (Rutgers University); Vella, Francis (Georgetown University) |
| Abstract: | An innovation which bypasses the need for instruments when estimating endogenous treatment effects is identification via conditional second moments. The most general of these approaches is Klein and Vella (2010) which models the conditional variances semiparametrically. While this is attractive, as identification is not reliant on parametric assumptions for variances, the non-parametric aspect of the estimation may discourage practitioners from its use. This paper outlines how the estimator can be implemented parametrically. The use of parametric assumptions is accompanied by a large reduction in computational and programming demands. We illustrate the approach by estimating the return to education using a sample drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Accounting for endogeneity increases the estimate of the return to education from 6.8% to 11.2%. |
| Keywords: | return to education, heteroskedasticity, endogeneity |
| JEL: | J31 C31 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4935&r=edu |
| By: | Hanushek, Eric A. (Stanford University); Woessmann, Ludger (Ifo Institute for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | An emerging economic literature over the past decade has made use of international tests of educational achievement to analyze the determinants and impacts of cognitive skills. The cross-country comparative approach provides a number of unique advantages over national studies: It can exploit institutional variation that does not exist within countries; draw on much larger variation than usually available within any country; reveal whether any result is country-specific or more general; test whether effects are systematically heterogeneous in different settings; circumvent selection issues that plague within-country identification by using system-level aggregated measures; and uncover general-equilibrium effects that often elude studies in a single country. The advantages come at the price of concerns about the limited number of country observations, the cross-sectional character of most available achievement data, and possible bias from unobserved country factors like culture. This chapter reviews the economic literature on international differences in educational achievement, restricting itself to comparative analyses that are not possible within single countries and placing particular emphasis on studies trying to address key issues of empirical identification. While quantitative input measures show little impact, several measures of institutional structures and of the quality of the teaching force can account for significant portions of the large international differences in the level and equity of student achievement. Variations in skills measured by the international tests are in turn strongly related to individual labor-market outcomes and, perhaps more importantly, to cross-country variations in economic growth. |
| Keywords: | human capital, cognitive skills, international student achievement tests, education production function |
| JEL: | I20 O40 O15 H40 H52 J24 J31 P50 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4925&r=edu |