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on Education |
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Issue of 2013‒04‒27
twelve papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Yoshida, Kazuhiro; Yuki, Takako; Sakata, Nozomi |
| Abstract: | This paper examines institutional governance for a cross-border higher education program, focusing on the effects of introducing a new form of program. The paper analyzes the case of the Higher Education Loan Fund Project between Malaysia and Japan, in which the form of cross-border higher education has evolved from student mobility to program mobility through a twinning arrangement. Although academic staff sent from Japanese universities continued to play important roles and be involved in decision-making, the partner institution in Malaysia began to replace some of them with Malaysian teaching staff, had their initial part of the twinning program accredited as a diploma course, and used this experience to develop a fresh diploma course for engineering. Japanese universities successfully responded to the evolution of the project by adapting the existing curriculum, transferring credits and students, and developing new systems of staff training and quality assurance. By creating a consortium which has gradually become more formalized, the Japanese universities followed common procedures for placement and student support, thus reducing transaction costs. Certain universities have developed new cross-border programs by themselves. A program mobility model of cross-bordering is strengthening the governance and capacity of participating higher education institutions, but the sustainability of the program will depend on the commitment of the institutions and continued financial support by governments. |
| Keywords: | cross-border higher education , Malaysia , Japan , institutional governance , twinning |
| Date: | 2013–01–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jic:wpaper:52&r=edu |
| By: | OECD |
| Abstract: | <UL> <LI>The higher the level of education, the higher the salary cost of teachers per student. In Belgium (Flemish Community), France and Spain, the difference in the annual salary cost between the primary and upper secondary levels of education exceeds USD 1 800 in 2010. </LI> <LI>Between 2000 and 2010, the salary cost of teachers per student increased in nearly all countries at the primary and lower secondary levels of education and, on average, by one-third and one quarter respectively. </LI> <LI>Changes over time in the level of salary cost of teachers are mainly driven by teachers’ salaries; class size is the second main driver. </LI> <LI>Similar levels of expenditure among countries can mask a variety of contrasting policy choices. </LI></UL> |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaf:12-en&r=edu |
| By: | Robert Schwager (Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany) |
| Abstract: | The direct democratic choice of an examination standard, i.e., a performance level required to graduate, is evaluated against a utilitarian welfare function. It is shown that the median preferred standard is inefficiently low if the marginal cost of reaching a higher performance reacts more sensitively to ability for high than for low abilities, and if the right tail of the ability distribution is longer than the left tail. Moreover, a high number of agents who choose not to graduate may imply that the median preferred standard is inefficiently low even if these conditions fail. |
| Keywords: | examination, school, drop-outs, democracy, median voter. |
| JEL: | I21 D72 I28 |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gmf:wpaper:2013-11.&r=edu |
| By: | Tansel, Aysit |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the implications of private tutoring in Turkey for questions of equity regarding the provision of public education, based on an analysis of previously published research. The nature of the private tutoring and its relation to the two national selection examinations in Turkey are also discussed. |
| Keywords: | Turkey; Private tutoring; Educational equity; National Selection Examinations |
| JEL: | I21 I24 I25 |
| Date: | 2013–03–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:45061&r=edu |
| By: | Umut M. Dur; Scott Duke Kominers; Parag A. Pathak; Tayfun Sönmez |
| Abstract: | School choice plans in many cities grant students higher priority for some (but not all) seats at their neighborhood schools. This paper demonstrates how the precedence order, i.e. the order in which different types of seats are filled by applicants, has quantitative effects on distributional objectives comparable to priorities in the deferred acceptance algorithm. While Boston's school choice plan gives priority to neighborhood applicants for half of each school's seats, the intended effect of this policy is lost because of the precedence order. Despite widely held impressions about the importance of neighborhood priority, the outcome of Boston's implementation of a 50-50 school split is nearly identical to a system without neighborhood priority. We formally establish that either increasing the number of neighborhood priority seats or lowering the precedence order positions of neighborhood seats at a school have the same effect: an increase in the number of neighborhood students assigned to the school. We then show that in Boston a reversal of precedence with no change in priorities covers almost three-quarters of the range between 0% and 100% neighborhood priority. Therefore, decisions about precedence are inseparable from decisions about priorities. Transparency about these issues—in particular, how precedence unintentionally undermined neighborhood priority—led to the abandonment of neighborhood priority in Boston in 2013. |
| JEL: | C78 D50 D61 I21 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18981&r=edu |
| By: | Verwimp, Philip; Van Bavel, Jan |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of exposure to violent conflict on human capital accumulation in Burundi. It combines a nationwide household survey with secondary sources on the location and timing of the conflict. Only 20 percent of the birth cohorts studied (1971-1986) completed primary education. Depending on the specification, the probability of completing primary schooling for a boy exposed to violent conflict declines by 7 to 17 percentage points compared to a nonexposed boy, with a decline of 11 percentage points in the preferred specification. In addition, exposure to violent conflict reduces the gender gap in schooling, but only for girls from nonpoor households. Forced displacement is one of the channels through which conflict affects schooling. The results are robust to various specifications and estimation methods. |
| Keywords: | Post Conflict Reconstruction,Education For All,Population Policies,Rural Poverty Reduction,Primary Education |
| Date: | 2013–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6418&r=edu |
| By: | Jon H. Fiva,; Torbjørn Hægeland; Marte Rønning; Astri Syse (Statistics Norway) |
| Abstract: | The public health care systems in the Nordic countries provide high quality care almost free of charge to all citizens. However, social inequalities in health persist. Previous research has, for example, documented substantial educational inequalities in cancer survival. We investigate to what extent this may be driven by differential access to and utilization of high quality treatment options. Quasi-experimental evidence based on the establishment of regional cancer wards indicates that i) highly educated individuals utilized centralized specialized treatment to a greater extent than less educated patients and ii) the use of such treatment improved these patients' survival. |
| Keywords: | Education; Health; Inequality |
| JEL: | I10 I20 |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:735&r=edu |
| By: | Peter Boone; Ila Fazzio; Kameshwari Jandhyala; Chitra Jayanty; Gangadhar Jayanty; Simon Johnson; Vimala Ramachandrin; Filipa Silva; Zhaoguo Zhan |
| Abstract: | We conducted a survey covering 20% of villages with 200-1000 population in rural Guinea-Bissau. We interviewed household heads, care-givers of children, and their teachers and schools. We analysed results from 9,947 children, aged 7-17, tested for literacy and numeracy competency. Only 27% of children were able to add two single digits, and just 19% were able to read and comprehend a simple word. Our unannounced school checks found 72% of enrolled children in grades 1-4 attending their schools, but the schools were poorly equipped. Teachers were present at 86% of schools visited. Despite surveying 351 schools, we found no examples of successful schools where children reached reasonable levels of literacy and numeracy for age. Our evidence suggests that interventions that raise school quality in these villages, rather than those which target enrollment, may be most important to generate very sharp improvements in children's educational outcomes. |
| JEL: | F35 H43 I2 O1 O55 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18971&r=edu |
| By: | Sandner, Malte |
| Abstract: | This paper presents evidence from a natural-experiment which evaluates the effectiveness of a student mentoring program. The mentoring includes several compulsory, scheduled, faceto- face appointments between a mentor and a student in the first study year. All mentors are graduated and employed by the institution. For the evaluation, I use the fact that the mentoring is only offered to students in an economics and management program, whereas it is not offered to students in an industrial engineering program. However, students in both programs take the same classes and write the same exams in their first study year. I find that the mentoring program significantly decreases the failure rates in the first semester exams. |
| Keywords: | PStudent Mentoring, Natural Experiment |
| JEL: | I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-512&r=edu |
| By: | Tessa Bold; Mwangi Kimenyi; Germano Mwabu; Alice Ng'ang'a; Justin Sandefur |
| Abstract: | The recent wave of randomized trials in development economics has provoked criticisms regarding external validity. We investigate two concerns – heterogeneity across beneficiaries and implementers – in a randomized trial of contract teachers in Kenyan schools. The intervention, previously shown to raise test scores in NGO-led trials in Western Kenya and parts of India, was replicated across all Kenyan provinces by an NGO and the government. Strong effects of short-term contracts produced in controlled experimental settings are lost in weak public institutions: NGO implementation produces a positive effect on test scores across diverse contexts, while government implementation yields zero effect. The data suggests that the stark contrast in success between the government and NGO arm can be traced back to implementation constraints and political economy forces put in motion as the program went to scale. |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2013-04&r=edu |
| By: | Nicolas CARAYOL; Valerio STERZI |
| Abstract: | Although in most countries, professors are legally obligated to disclose their inventions to their university\'s technology transfer office, the latter often does not have the real authority to enforce this rule. We here introduce a model that endogenizes a professor\'s decision of a form of transfer for her idea. If she does not disclose the idea to the transfer office, she still faces, on her own, both the difficulty of identifying a good match for her technology with a company and the incomplete information of the company on the quality of her idea. She can, however, signal that quality to the company at some cost which is decreasing with quality. We find four types of pure strategy equilibria of this signaling game. Taking these four types of equilibria into account, the model predicts that the company ownership of academic patents are associated with higher patent quality, greater inventor experience in technology transfer, and lower technology transfer office experience. We estimate the model and confirm its predictions on an original sample of 1,260 patent-professor pairs built on UK data. Specific attention is paid to the control of various forms of potential reverse causality of the type of patent applicant on patent quality. |
| Keywords: | signaling game, academic patents, technology transfer. |
| JEL: | O31 O34 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2013-13&r=edu |
| By: | Clément Bosquet (AMSE - Aix-Marseille School of Economics - Aix-Marseille Univ. - Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - Ecole Centrale Marseille (ECM), SERC - Spatial Economic Research Center - London School of Economics and Political Science); Pierre-Philippe Combes (AMSE - Aix-Marseille School of Economics - Aix-Marseille Univ. - Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - Ecole Centrale Marseille (ECM), CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of a large set of department characteristics on individual publication records. We control for many individual time-varying characteristics, individual fixed-effects and reverse causality. Department characteristics have an explanatory power that can be as high as that of individual characteristics. The departments that generate most externalities are those where academics are homogeneous in terms of publication performance and have diverse research fields, and, to a lesser extent, large departments, with more women, older academics, star academics and foreign co-authors. Department specialisation in a field also favours publication in that field. More students per academic does not penalise publication. At the individual level, women and older academics publish less, while the average publication quality increases with average number of authors per paper, individual field diversity, number of published papers and foreign co-authors. |
| Keywords: | research productivity determinants; economic geography; networks; economics of science; selection and endogeneity |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00812490&r=edu |