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on Education |
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Issue of 2014‒05‒17
27 papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao Universidade da Beira Interior and Universidade de Lisboa |
| By: | OECD |
| Abstract: | Students in OECD countries are expected to receive a total of 7 751 hours of instruction on average during their primary and lower secondary education – the bulk of that time is compulsory. In general, the higher the level of education, the greater the number of instruction hours a year. Reading, mathematics and science take up around 50% of the compulsory curricular time in primary education but only 40% at the lower secondary level. The wide variation in instruction hours across OECD countries suggests there is little consensus on the most effective policies related to school time. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaf:22-en&r=edu |
| By: | Michela Tincani (University College London) |
| Abstract: | Countries around the world are adopting market-oriented school choice reforms. Evidence shows that they aect both student and teacher sorting across school sectors. Previous studies have analyzed student and teacher sorting in isolation from each other. This is the first paper to unify parental school choice and teacher sorting in an equilibrium framework. Using data from the large-scale Chilean voucher plan, this paper extends the existing literature in three ways. First, it evaluates how much of the treatment effect of Chilean voucher schools is due to teacher quality. Second, it examines the welfare implications of school specialization in different types of students. Third, it evaluates the impact of school choice expansion with endogenous public and private school teacher quality. There are three main results. First, better teacher quality accounts for 19 percent of the private school eectiveness in Chile. Second, assortative matching of students to teachers by ability can be welfare improving for low-ability students if the schools that have less able teachers are also those that specialize in the weakest students. Third, under the Chilean plan, highly skilled teachers are attracted into private schools from outside of teaching, with only limited cream skimming of teachers from public schools. |
| Keywords: | school vouchers, teachers, student sorting, structural model, Structural estimation |
| JEL: | I22 J45 C51 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2014-012&r=edu |
| By: | OECD |
| Abstract: | On average across OECD countries, students who are highly motivated to learn mathematics because they believe it will help them later on score better in mathematics – by the equivalent of half a year of schooling – than students who are not highly motivated. Students’ motivation to learn mathematics is lower in education systems that sort and group students into different schools and/or programmes. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduddd:39-en&r=edu |
| By: | Renata Lemos |
| Abstract: | Better school management is associated with better pupil achievement, according to CEP analysis of the quality of management practices in schools in a range of developed and developing countries. Renata Lemos notes that the quality of school management is related to leadership traits of the head teachers - and that management practices have a greater effect on pupil outcomes than the effects of class size, competition or teaching quality. |
| Keywords: | Education, management, school management index, pupil outcomes, school performance |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:424&r=edu |
| By: | Ackah, Charles; Adjasi, Charles; Turkson, Festus; Acquah, Adjoa |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence on the nature of returns to education in Ghana and confirms the emerging empirical literature on the convexity of returns to education in Ghana. Using a basic Mincerian, model we find that returns to education more than triple |
| Keywords: | education, earnings, convexity, Ghana |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2014-073&r=edu |
| By: | Luis Fernando Gamboa |
| Abstract: | Abstract: This paper provides recent evidence about the benefits of doing preschool on future performance. Anon-parametric matching procedure is used employing data for Colombia. In addition, the number of years at preschool is also considered as a way to check the existense of an intensity effect. The importance is measured through two outcomes: math and verbal scores at a national mandatory test (Saber11). It is found that students who had the chance of going to a preschool obtain higher scores in math (6.7%) and verbal (5.4%) than those who do not attending to preschool and a considerable fraction of this gaps comes from the upper quintiles of student's performance suggesting that preschool matters when is done at high quality instituions. When we include the number of years at the preschool, the gap rises up to 12% in verbal and 17% in math. |
| Keywords: | Preschool, Education, Colombia |
| JEL: | C14 I21 O54 |
| Date: | 2014–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000092:011084&r=edu |
| By: | Brian Gill; Brittany English; Joshua Furgeson; Moira McCullough |
| Keywords: | teacher effectiveness, alternative assessment, high stakes test , student evaluation, curriculum based assessment, teacher expectations of students, teacher made tests, student educational objectives, case studies |
| JEL: | I |
| Date: | 2014–04–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:8118&r=edu |
| By: | Maiga, Eugenie W.H. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of foreign aid on gender equality in education outcomes in developing countries. Heterogeneity effects by type of aid received and by type of recipients are investigated using system GMM methods. The results indicate that ag |
| Keywords: | education, foreign aid, gender |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2014-048&r=edu |
| By: | Davide Cantoni; Yuyu Chen; David Y. Yang; Noam Yuchtman; Y. Jane Zhang |
| Abstract: | We study the causal effect of school curricula on students’ stated beliefs and attitudes. We exploit a major textbook reform in China that was rolled out between 2004 and 2010 with the explicit intention of shaping youths’ ideology. To measure its effect, we present evidence from a novel survey we conducted among 2000 students at Peking University. The sharp, staggered introduction of the new curriculum across provinces allows us to identify the effects of the new educational content in a generalized difference in differences framework. We examine government documents articulating desired consequences of the reform, and identify changes in textbook content and college entrance exams that reflect the government’s aims. These changes were often effective: study under the new curriculum is robustly associated with changed views on political participation and democracy in China, increased trust in government officials, and a more skeptical view of free markets. |
| JEL: | I20 P00 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20112&r=edu |
| By: | Pritchett, Lant |
| Abstract: | The incredibly low levels of learning and the generally dysfunctional public sector schooling systems in many (though not all) developing countries are the result of a capability trap (Pritchett et al. 2010). Two phenomena reinforce persistent failure of |
| Keywords: | education, institutions, systems |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2014-039&r=edu |
| By: | Luis Fernando Gamboa; Erika Londoño |
| Abstract: | Abstract: This document aims to provide evidence about the existence of different patterns in equality of opportunities in academic achievement during the last fifteen years in Colombia. The outcomes selected for measuring inequality are the scores obtained on SABER 11 in math as well as reading. It is found that inequality has grown around 11% in the country, and that this trend is common for all the metropolitan areas included in the analysis. Most of the increase found comes from factors related to the school market. The fraction of unfair inequality, conditional to the circumstances included in the definition of “types”, is higher than 20% of gross ine quality in 2012. |
| Keywords: | Inequality of Opportunities, Education, Colombia |
| JEL: | I24 O15 O54 |
| Date: | 2014–03–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000092:011040&r=edu |
| By: | Barbara H. Partee (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Olga I. Vinogradova (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to present and describe a teaching tool for linguistics students who are learning English, a tool which furthers their linguistic education at the same time as it gives them some challenging experience with reading practice with the kinds of tests they will encounter in the main international English language examinations, mainly, IELTS and TOEFL, and with English academic writing. The selected reading material introduces the foundations of formal semantics through a set of extracts from the works of classical semanticists of the 20th century, accompanied by a set of test-type questions for each of the reading passages. The comments after each test outline the characteristic features of test types presented. The importance of advancement in students’ reading potential is highlighted as crucial for their academic life in general and for their overall performance in English. |
| Keywords: | SEMANTICS; FORMAL SEMANTICS; MATHEMATICAL LOGIC; READING SKILLS; ENGLISH TESTS. |
| JEL: | Z19 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:08/lng/2014&r=edu |
| By: | ITO Takahiro; KUBOTA Kohei; OHTAKE Fumio |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of the informal school curriculum (hidden curriculum) on subsequent preference formation. The estimation results using Japanese data show that the hidden curriculum at public elementary schools varies widely from place to place, and is associated with preference formation. In particular, those who have experienced "participatory and cooperative learning" practices are more likely to be altruistic, cooperative, reciprocal, and have national pride. In contrast, the influence of educational practices emphasizing "anti-competition" is negatively associated with these attributes. Robustness checks also show that our estimates are less likely to be biased due to omitted variables or reverse causality. These findings imply that elementary school education, as a place for early socialization, plays a role in the formation of social preferences. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:14024&r=edu |
| By: | Calsamiglia, Caterina (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona); Guell, Maia (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis) |
| Abstract: | School choice aims to improve (1) the matching between children and schools and (2) students’ educa-tional outcomes. Yet, the concern is that disadvantaged families are less able to exercise choice, which raises (3) equity concerns. The Boston mechanism (BM) is a procedure that is widely used around the world to resolve overdemands for particular schools by defining a set of priority points based on neigh-borhood and socioeconomic characteristics. The mechanism design literature has shown that under the BM, parents may not have incentives to provide their true preferences, thereby establishing a trade-off between preferences and perceived safety. However, the set of possible Nash equilibria arising from the BM is large and has varying properties, and what will actually happen is an empirical question. We exploit an unexpected change in the definition of neighborhood in Barcelona, which provides an exogenous change in the set of schools perceived as safe and allows us to separate housing and schooling decisions to assess the importance of this trade-off in the data. We find that safety carries a large weight in family choice. The huge majority of parents opt for schools for which they have the highest priority—the neighborhood schools—excluding other preferred schools. Similar to the previous literature, we also find that some parents seem naive, but using school registry data, we find that a significant fraction of them have the outside option of private schools, which allows them to take higher risks to access the best public schools. At the other extreme, some of the naive are not matched to any of the schools they applied for. Our results suggest that when allowing school choice under the BM with priorities: (1) the gains in terms of matching seem limited, because the equilibrium allocation is not very different from a neighborhood-based assignment, (2) estimating the effect of choice on outcomes by implementing such a mechanism may lead to a lower bound on the potential effects of having choice, and (3) important inequalities emerge beyond parents’ naivete found in the literature. |
| Keywords: | School choice; Boston mechanism; Priorities |
| JEL: | C78 D63 I24 |
| Date: | 2014–05–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmwp:712&r=edu |
| By: | Gelli, Aulo; Espejo, Francisco; Shen, Jing; Kristjansson, Elizabeth |
| Abstract: | School-feeding is an important intervention to attract children to school and augment their learning. The benefits of school-feeding cover several domains. Key to the overall assessment of these benefits is understanding how different implementation model |
| Keywords: | impact, school-feeding, learning, economic indicators |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2014-036&r=edu |
| By: | Vincent Corluy; Gerlinde Verbist |
| Abstract: | The employment rates of non-EU immigrants compared to natives in Belgium continue to be low. In this chapter we examine whether differences in educational attainments offer an adequate explanation for these persisting labour market disadvantages. We decompose the gap in labour market outcomes between immigrants and natives, using the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method. The decomposition shows that for EU born immigrants three quarters of the gap can be attributed to differences in the observed, socio-economic characteristics between the two populations. For non-EU born immigrants, the differences in observed characteristics with natives can account for around one third of the gap. Although the explanatory power of our model remains limited for this group, substantial increases in the effect of observed characteristics are found over the last fifteen years. A detailed decomposition shows that lower educational levels, larger families and diverse regional settlement can, at least partly, explain the lower labour market attachment of non-EU born immigrants. Over the period in focus, the impact of differences in educational level between immigrants and natives has significantly grown, indicating a declining socio-economic profile of more recent immigrants as compared with natives. |
| Keywords: | Employment rate gap, education, immigrants, Belgium |
| JEL: | I32 J21 J68 |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hdl:improv:1402&r=edu |
| By: | Edgar Villa; Martha Misas Arango; Mary Berrío Norman; Stephany Santacruz Rincón |
| Abstract: | Este trabajo forma parte del Proyecto de Investigación, del Departamento de Economía de la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana - Bogotá (PUJ-B), sobre deserción en los programas de pregrado de esta universidad. Inicialmente se desarrolla un modelo micro-fundamentado que busca explicar los determinantes de la deserción universitaria modelando explícitamente la interacción entre los tres agentes principales del sector de la educación superior: universidades, hogares y estudiantes. El modelo teórico muestra que la deserción universitaria ocurre en estudiantes que tienen un nivel bajo de habilidad innata que los lleva óptimamente a no esforzarse, así como en estudiantes que tienen expectativa de no poder graduarse independientemente de su habilidad innata. Los hallazgos del modelo teórico se evalúan a través de la aplicación empírica de un modelo econométrico de probabilidad (probit) sobre la información recolectada a partir de una encuesta elaborada por los autores y aplicada a una muestra representativa de 473 estudiantes de la población de neo-javerianos de la cohorte del 2006. Se encuentra que el perfil de un desertor está asociado con alguna de las siguientes características: dificultades en matemáticas y expresión oral por baja competencia previa al ingreso a la universidad, pérdida de asignaturas en la universidad, factores disciplinarios con impacto negativo en desempeño, falta de motivación, bajo nivel de esfuerzo durante su permanencia en la universidad y finalmente, la existencia de problemas de índole económico y familiar. ****************************** ABSTRACT This work is part of the Research Project, Department of Economics, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana - Bogotá (PUJ- B), on attrition in undergraduate programs of the university. Initially, a micro - based model that seeks to explain the determinants of university dropout, explicitly modeling the interaction between the three main players in the sector of higher education is developed: Universities, households and students. The theoretical model shows that the college dropout occurs in students who have a low level of innate ability that makes no effort optimally, as well as students who do not expect to graduate regardless of their innate ability. The findings of the theoretical model are evaluated through the application of an econometric empirical probability model (probit) on data collected from a survey conducted by the authors and applied to a representative sample of 473 students from the population of Neo - Javerianos cohort 2006. It is found that the profile of a defector is associated with any of the following: difficulties in math and speaking low competition for pre- college entrance, failure of academic courses in the university, disciplinary factors with negative impact on performance, lack of motivation, low effort while in college and finally, the existence of problems of economic and family reasons . |
| Keywords: | Determinantes de la Deserción Universitaria, Competencia de estudiantes, producción de servicios de educación superior, capital humano, modelo econométrico probit. |
| JEL: | D01 D41 I21 I23 |
| Date: | 2013–11–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000416:011065&r=edu |
| By: | Kirstin Hallgren; Susanne James-Burdumy; Irma Perez-Johnson |
| Keywords: | Race to the Top, State Improvement Grants, Teacher Evaluation, Education |
| JEL: | I |
| Date: | 2014–04–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:8122&r=edu |
| By: | Kristin Hallgren; Susanne James-Burdumy; Irma Perez-Johnson |
| Keywords: | Race to the Top, State Improvement Grants, Teacher Evaluation, Education |
| JEL: | I |
| Date: | 2014–04–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:8121&r=edu |
| By: | Paolo Lucchino; Dr Richard Dorsett |
| Abstract: | We investigate young people's labour market transitions beyond compulsory schooling and, in particular, the dynamic effects of early experiences. We use a UK longitudinal survey to model transitions between four states: employment, unemployment, education and a residual category of those neither in education nor economically active. The results provide new evidence on the causal impact of prior experience and show the importance of distinguishing between unemployment and inactivity among non-students. A simulation exercise illustrates the evaluation potential of the model and provides some clues for the design of interventions aimed at improving young people's employment prospects. |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nsr:niesrd:11735&r=edu |
| By: | Michael LeGower; Randall Walsh |
| Abstract: | Following the example of the Kalamazoo Promise initiated in 2005, place-based "Promise'' scholarship programs have proliferated over the past 8 years. These programs guarantee money towards the costs of attendance at selected colleges and universities provided that a student has resided and attended school within a particular public school district continuously for at least the four years prior to graduation. While some early programs have been studied in isolation, the impact of such programs in general is not well understood. In addition, although there is substantial and controversial variation from the original program's design, there is no direct evidence on how outcomes vary along with these design choices. We use a difference-in-difference approach to compare the evolution of both school enrollments and residential real estate prices around the announcement of these programs within the affected Promise zone and in the surrounding area. Taken together, our estimates suggest that these scholarships have important distributional effects that bear further examination. In particular, while estimates indicate that public school enrollments increase in Promise zones relative to their surrounding areas following Promise announcements, schools associated with merit-based programs experience increases in white enrollment and decreases in non-white enrollment. Furthermore, housing price effects are larger in neighborhoods with high quality schools and in the upper half of the housing price distribution, suggesting higher valuation by high-income households. These patterns lead us to conclude that such scholarships are primarily affecting the behavior of households living above the median income for whom they present the greatest value and that merit-based versions disproportionately impact white households. |
| JEL: | I22 I24 R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20056&r=edu |
| By: | C. Kirabo Jackson; Rucker Johnson; Claudia Persico |
| Abstract: | The school finance reforms (SFRs) that began in the early 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s caused some of the most dramatic changes in the structure of K–12 education spending in U.S. history. We analyze the effects of these reforms on the level and distribution of school district spending, as well as their effects on subsequent educational and economic outcomes. In Part One, using a newly compiled database of school finance reforms and a recently available long panel of annual school district data on per-pupil spending that spans 1967–2010, we present an event-study analysis of the effects of different types of school finance reforms on per-pupil spending in low- and high-income school districts. We find that SFRs have been instrumental in equalizing school spending between low- and high-income districts and many reforms do so by increasing spending for poor districts. While all reforms reduce spending inequality, there are important differences by reform type: adequacy-based court-ordered reforms increase overall school spending, while equity-based court-ordered reforms reduce the variance of spending with little effect on overall levels; reforms that entail high tax prices (the amount of taxes a district must raise to increase spending by one dollar) reduce long-run spending for all districts, and those that entail low tax prices lead to increased spending growth, particularly for low-income districts. In Part Two, we link the spending and reform data to detailed, nationally-representative data on children born between 1955 and 1985 and followed through 2011 (the Panel Study of Income Dynamics) to study the effect of the reform-induced changes in school spending on long-run adult outcomes. These birth cohorts straddle the period in which most of the major school finance reform litigation accelerated, and thus the cohorts were differentially exposed, depending on place and year of birth. We use the timing of the passage of court-mandated reforms as an exogenous shifter of school spending across cohorts within the same district. Event-study and instrumental variable models reveal that a 20 percent increase in per-pupil spending each year for all 12 years of public school for children from poor families leads to about 0.9 more completed years of education, 25 percent higher earnings, and a 20 percentage-point reduction in the annual incidence of adult poverty; we find no effects for children from non-poor families. The magnitudes of these effects are sufficiently large to eliminate between two-thirds and all of the gaps in these adult outcomes between those raised in poor families and those raised in non-poor families. We present several pieces of evidence to support a causal interpretation of the estimates. |
| JEL: | H0 H52 H71 H72 I0 I24 I3 J0 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20118&r=edu |
| By: | LEE SunYoun; OHTAKE Fumio |
| Abstract: | By analyzing the Japanese and U.S. survey data, this study investigates whether non-cognitive skills, as measured by Big 5 personality traits and behavioral characteristics indicated by risk aversion rate, time discount rate, and (over) confidence, explain the variation in educational and labor market outcomes. The obtained results indicate that non-cognitive skills, as well as behavioral characteristics, account for a significant portion in explaining the variation in schooling, wages, and career promotion. Some interesting country differences, particularly in educational attainment, are found in agreeableness and consciousness, which may suggest the existence of country-specific, non-cognitive determinants of educational success. With respect to labor market outcomes, in both Japan and the United States, conscientiousness seems to contribute to male earnings, whereas extraversion and emotional stability are more important predictors of female earnings. For career promotion, extraversion is an important determinant for the probability of being promoted to a management position among males in both countries. The overall findings suggest that personality traits are associated with educational and career success to different degrees between countries and genders. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:14023&r=edu |
| By: | Slobodan Djajić; Michael S. Michael (IHEID, The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva) |
| Abstract: | We study the interaction between the optimal immigration policy of a host country and education policy of a source country in a model of international migration of skilled workers. Acquisition of human capital is driven by the academic and career opportunities at home and abroad. Greater opportunities to migrate are found to increase the source country's net stock of human capital only under very stringent conditions concerning the shape of the utility function and of the production function for human capital, the country's emigration rate, and the international wage dierential. We use the model to examine the eects of technological improvements in the educational sector, changes in the academic curricula in the source country, and attitudes to immigration in the host country. Of key interest are the implications for the optimal spending on education in the source country and the optimal immigration quota of the host country. |
| Keywords: | Migration of skilled workers, immigration policy, education policy |
| JEL: | F22 J24 O15 |
| Date: | 2014–05–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gii:giihei:heidwp09-2014&r=edu |
| By: | Guimón, José (Department of Economic Structure and Development Economics, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid); Salazar, Juan Carlos (Department of Economic Structure and Development Economics, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) |
| Abstract: | Collaboration between foreign subsidiaries and universities is relevant for multinational companies that aim at absorbing knowledge from abroad, as well as for policymakers attempting to maximize the spillovers associated with FDI. In this paper, we explore how multinational companies collaborate with universities in the foreign countries where they locate and provide new empirical evidence for Spain as a host country. Using a probit model with panel data from the Community Innovation Survey, we failed to find significant differences between the propensity of foreign subsidiaries and comparable Spanish firms to collaborate with universities. Subsequently, building on a new survey and five case studies, we were able to relate the scale and scope of such collaborations with the dynamic mandates of foreign subsidiaries in global innovation networks and to explore further the variety of motivations that drive collaboration. |
| Keywords: | collaboration in innovation; FDI; foreign subsidiaries; global innovation networks; multinational companies; open innovation; spillovers; university-industry collaboration |
| JEL: | F23 O32 |
| Date: | 2014–05–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2014_005&r=edu |
| By: | Mary Berrío Norman; Martha Misas Arango; Stephany Santacruz Rincón; Edgar Villa Pérez |
| Abstract: | La deserción estudiantil de la Educación Superior es uno de los problemas que inciden, en forma importante, sobre la formación de capital humano. Siendo éste un factor determinante para el crecimiento económico y por ende, para el incremento en la calidad de vida de la población. Hecho relevante, sobre todo, en países en desarrollo como Colombia donde el proceso de acumulación de capital humano es aún bajo. El presente artículo es el primero de una serie de trabajos enfocados en el estudio de la deserción estudiantil en la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana de Bogotá (PUJ-B). En particular, el objetivo de este trabajo es caracterizar estadísticamente a la población Neo-Javeriana 2006, partiendo de una encuesta diseñada por los autores y aplicada con tal propósito por el Centro Nacional de Consultoría, sobre una muestra aleatoria estratificada y representativa de dicha población. Los resultados muestran que, la calidad académica y la imagen de la universidad son los dos aspectos señalados por los estudiantes como los más importantes al momento de elegir la universidad. Más aún, la decisión sobre la escogencia de la universidad es llevada a cabo principalmente por los estudiantes y no por sus padres, con base en las posibilidades laborales futuras. La mayoría de estudiantes pertenecen, según estratos de vivienda, a la denominada “clase-media” lo cual significa, para la universidad, una oportunidad de generar un impacto social positivo. ****************************** Abstract The dropout in Higher Education levels is one of the problems that affect, significantly, human capital formation which is a decisive factor for economic growth and which is related to a higher quality of life of the population. This is especially true for developing countries like Colombia where the human capital accumulation process is still low. This article is the first in a series of studies focused on studying the decision of dropping out of Pontificia Universidad Javeriana-Bogotá (PUJ-B). In particular, the aim of this work is to reach a statistical characterization of the Neo-Javerianos 2006 population, based on a survey designed by the authors and applied for this purpose by the Centro Nacional de Consultoria, on a representative stratified random sample of that population. The results show that the academic quality and public image of the PUJ-B are the two areas reported by students as the most important characteristics when choosing the university the wish to attend. We find that the decision on which university to attend is carried out mainly by students, not their parents, which is based on future job opportunities. Most students that enter PUJ-B come from the so-called "middle-class", which allows a positive social impact on this population in the city |
| Keywords: | Deserción universitaria, post-estratificación, inferencia poblacional, y caracterización estudiantil. |
| JEL: | C1 I21 |
| Date: | 2013–10–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000416:011063&r=edu |
| By: | Bacci, Silvia; Bartolucci, Francesco; Chiavarini, Manuela; Minelli, Liliana; Pieroni, Luca |
| Abstract: | Objectives We investigate about the differences in birthweight between firstand second-borns, evaluating the impact of changes in pregnancy (e.g., gestational age), demographic (e.g., age), and social (e.g., education level, marital status) maternal characteristics. Data and Methods All analyses are performed on data collected in Umbria (Italy) taking into account a set of 792 women who delivered twice from 2005 to 2008. Firstly, we use a univariate paired t-test for the comparison between weights of first- and second-borns. Secondly, we use linear and nonlinear regression approaches in order to: (i) evaluate the effect of demographic and social maternal characteristics and (ii) predict the odds-ratio of low and high birthweight infants, respectively. Results We find that the birthweight of second-borns is significantly higher than that of first-borns. Statistically significant effects are related with a longer gestational age, an increased number of visits during the pregnancy, and the gender of infants. On the other hand, we do not observe any significant effect related with mother’s age and with other characteristics of interest. |
| Keywords: | Birthweight; Maternal characteristics; Standard Certificate of Live Birth |
| JEL: | I00 |
| Date: | 2014–05–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:55789&r=edu |