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on Education |
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Issue of 2013‒08‒16
eight papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Brunello, Giorgio (University of Padova); Fort, Margherita (University of Bologna); Weber, Guglielmo (University of Padova); Weiss, Christoph T. (University of Padova) |
| Abstract: | In the large empirical literature that investigates the causal effects of education on outcomes such as health, wages and crime, it is customary to measure education with years of schooling, and to identify these effects using the exogenous variation provided by school reforms increasing compulsory education and minimum school leaving age. If these reforms are correlated to changes in school quality, and school quality is an omitted variable, this identification strategy may fail. We test whether this is the case by using the information provided by two distinct test scores on mathematics and reading and find that we cannot reject the internal validity of this popular identification strategy. |
| Keywords: | human capital, instrumental variables, nested models |
| JEL: | C26 I2 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7533&r=edu |
| By: | Randall Q. Akee (UCLA, Luskin School of Public Affairs); Timothy J. Halliday (UHERO, University of Hawaii at Manoa); Sally Kwak (U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on Taxation) |
| Abstract: | Due to the large social costs of juvenile crime, policymakers have long been concerned about its causes. In the 2009-10 school year, the State of Hawaii responded to fiscal strains by furloughing all school teachers employed by the Department of Education and cancelling class for seventeen instructional days. We examine the effects of this unusually short school year to draw conclusions about the relationship of time in school with juvenile crime rates. We calculate marginal effects from a negative binomial model and find that time off from school is associated with significantly fewer juvenile assault and drug-related arrests, although there are no changes in other types of crimes, such as burglaries. These results differ by region of the island and by average household incomes. |
| Keywords: | Education, Crime, Inequality |
| JEL: | J08 I24 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hae:wpaper:2013-7&r=edu |
| By: | Domadenik, Polona (University of Ljubljana); Farčnik, Daša (University of Ljubljana); Pastore, Francesco (University of Naples II) |
| Abstract: | We follow Brodaty et al. (2008) and develop a model within the signalling literature where an employer decides whether to hire a worker or not conditionally on the signals she sends – field and length of study and high education (HE) institution. The empirical design of our paper builds on evidence relative to first labour market entry of graduates to identify a signalling effect of individual and institutional quality of study on individual horizontal match quality. First, based on a matched unique employer-employee dataset we report the extent of horizontal mismatch for graduates of different fields of education for a post-transition economy (Slovenia). Second, we test the signal of HE institutions and above average study duration on the likelihood of a horizontal mismatch separately for each field of education. We find that graduates from specific HE institutions experience significantly higher likelihood to get a job that matches the field of study for social sciences, namely business and administration and to a smaller extent education. On the contrary, HE institutions do not signal skills or abilities in the most technical fields of education (engineering, computing, manufacturing). The above average study duration has mixed effects based on the field of education. It can either signal lower innate ability (i.e. for law graduates) or increased skills due to student work (i.e. computing graduates). |
| Keywords: | horizontal mismatch, signalling, Slovenia |
| JEL: | J21 J24 J44 I21 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7527&r=edu |
| By: | Jürgen Janger; Anna Strauss; David Campbell |
| Abstract: | Asymmetric international mobility of highly talented scientists is well documented. We try contributing to the explanation of this phenomenon, looking at the “competitiveness” of higher education systems in terms of being able to attract talented scientists in their field. We characterise countries’ capability to offer attractive entry positions into academic careers using the results of a large scale experiment on the determinants of job choice in academia. Examined areas refer to the level of salaries, quality of life, PhD-studies, career perspectives, research organisation, balance between teaching and research, funding and probability of working with high quality peers. Our results indicate that overall, the US research universities offer the most attractive jobs for early stage researchers, consistent with the asymmetric flow of talented scientists to the US. Behind the US is a group of well performing European countries, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. Austria and Germany are next, closely followed by France, which in turn is followed by Italy. Spain and Poland are, according to our results, least able to offer attractive entry positions to an academic career. |
| Keywords: | Academic careers, academic labour market, university organisation, brain drain |
| JEL: | I23 I25 I28 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:feu:wfewop:y:2013:m:8:d:0:i:37&r=edu |
| By: | Sjaak Braster (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Jaap Dronkers (Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | According to Robert Putnam (2007) ethnic diversity in cities and neighborhoods does not lead to an increase of trust and social capital as previously predicted by intergroup contact theory (Pettigrew, 1998); instead it triggers a reaction of hunkering down that leads to a decrease in trust and social capital of both in-group and out-groups. But what happens if we focus on youngsters that are growing up in a multi-ethnic metropole, that are considering ethnic diversity as a something "normal", and that are bridging their ethnic differences by sharing a common street culture and language? In this article we use data about 905 pupils, 41 classes and 11 schools in a European metropole to confirm the hypothesis that in this specific context ethnic diversity in classrooms does lead to positive effects on educational performance. |
| Keywords: | ethnic diversity, educational performance, classroom effects, multi-ethnic cities |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:1318&r=edu |
| By: | Jürgen Janger; Klaus Nowotny |
| Abstract: | Based on a unique survey, we conduct a stated choice experiment to examine the determinants of career choice in academia. Both early and later stage researchers value a balance between teaching and research, appropriate salaries, working with high-quality peers and good availability of external grants. Attractive academic jobs for early stage researchers feature in addition a combination of early independence and career (tenure) perspectives; later stage researchers favour jobs which make it easy to take up new lines of research, which pay according to a public scheme including a performance element and where research funding is provided by the university. Ourfindings have important implications for the structure of academic careers and for the organisational design of research universities. Furthermore, they shed light on the institutional determinants of the asymmetric mobility of highly talented scientists between the EU and the U. S. |
| Keywords: | Academic careers, academic labour market, university organisation, brain drain |
| JEL: | I23 I25 I28 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:feu:wfewop:y:2013:m:8:d:0:i:36&r=edu |
| By: | Liu, Yanyan; Yamauchi, Futoshi |
| Abstract: | Rapid population growth in many developing countries has raised concerns regarding food security and household welfare. To understand the consequences of population growth on in the general equilibrium setting, we examine the dynamics of population density and its impacts on household outcomes using panel data from Indonesia. More specifically we explicitly highlight the importance of migration to urban sectors in the analysis. Empirical results show that human capital in the household determines the effect of increased population density on per capita household consumption expenditure. The effect of population density is positive if the average educational attainment is high (above junior high school), while it is negative otherwise. |
| Keywords: | Population growth, Migration, Land ownership, Rural economy, economic growth, Education, High value agriculture, Land rights, rural areas, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1271&r=edu |
| By: | Bartelsman, Eric (VU University Amsterdam); Dobbelaere, Sabien (VU University Amsterdam); Peters, Bettina (ZEW Mannheim) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how productivity effects of human capital and innovation vary at different points of the conditional productivity distribution. Our analysis draws upon two large unbalanced panels of 6,634 enterprises in Germany and 14,586 enterprises in the Netherlands over the period 2000-2008, considering 5 manufacturing and services industries that differ in the level of technological intensity. Industries in the Netherlands are characterized by a larger average proportion of high-skilled employees and industries in Germany by a more unequal distribution of human capital intensity. Except for low-technology manufacturing, average innovation performance is higher in all industries in Germany and the innovation performance distributions are more dispersed in the Netherlands. In both countries, we observe non-linearities in the productivity effects of investing in product innovation in the majority of industries. Frontier firms enjoy the highest returns to product innovation whereas the most negative returns to process innovation are observed in the best-performing enterprises of most industries. In both countries, we find that the returns to human capital increase with proximity to the technological frontier in industries with a low level of technological intensity. Strikingly, a negative complementarity effect between human capital and proximity to the technological frontier is observed in knowledge-intensive services, which is most pronounced for the Netherlands. Suggestive evidence for the latter points to a winner-takes-all interpretation of this finding. |
| Keywords: | human capital, innovation, productivity, quantile regression |
| JEL: | C10 I20 O14 O30 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7540&r=edu |