|
on Education |
| By: | Marta De Philippis; Federico Rossi |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the contribution of parental influence in accounting for cross-country gaps in human capital achievements. We argue that the cross-country variation in unobserved parental characteristics is at least as important as the one in commonly used observable proxies of parental socio-economic background. We infer this through an indirect empirical approach, based on the comparison of the school performance of second-generation immigrants. We document that, within the same host country or even the same school, students whose parents come from high-scoring countries in the PISA test do better than their peers with similar socio-economic backgrounds. Differential selection into emigration does not explain this finding. The result is larger when parents have little education and have recently emigrated, suggesting the importance of country-specific cultural traits that parents progressively lose as they integrate in the new host country, rather than of an intergenerational transmission of education quality. Unobserved parental characteristics account for about 15% of the cross-country variance in test scores, roughly doubling the overall contribution of parental influence. |
| JEL: | O15 J24 E24 I25 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1617&r=all |
| By: | Pastore, C.; Jones, A.M.; |
| Abstract: | What is the value added of grammar schools? This paper disentangles the effect of selection into an academic rather than a vocational track from that of individual background on long-term human capital. Identification relies on a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, using entry test scores for grammar schools, selective secondary schools in England, and estimating discontinuities in school assignment directly from the data. We find that for the marginal admitted student, grammar attendance positively affects educational attainment, likely due to higher-ability peers, while adult labour market outcomes and health are not affected. Observed differences in human capital by school type can largely be traced back to background. |
| Keywords: | selective schooling; human capital; health; fuzzy regression discontinuity design; |
| JEL: | I1 I28 C21 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:hectdg:19/08&r=all |
| By: | Valentina Paredes; Francisco Pino; David Díaz |
| Abstract: | Dominance is usually viewed as a positive male attribute, but this is not typically the case for women. Using a novel dataset of teacher evaluations in a school of Business and Economics of a selective university, we construct the face width-to-height ratio (fWHR) as a proxy for dominance to assess whether individuals with a higher ratio obtain better student evaluations of teaching. Our results suggest that a higher fWHR is associated with a better evaluation for male faculty, while the opposite is the case for females. These results are not due to differences in teachers’ productivity. Because teacher evaluations are relevant for pay and promotion, this might contribute to the underrepresentation of women in economics. |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udc:wpaper:wp483&r=all |
| By: | Simon Briole (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Eric Maurin (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | In France, secondary school teachers are evaluated every six or seven years by senior experts of the Ministry of education. These external evaluations mostly involve the supervision of one class session and a debrie_ng interview, but have nonetheless a direct impact on teachers' career advancement. In this paper, we show that these evaluations contribute to improving students' performance, especially in math. This e_ect is seen not only for students taught by teachers the year of their evaluations but also for students taught by the same teachers the subsequent years, suggesting that evaluations improve teachers' core pedagogical skills. These positive e_ects persist over time and are particularly salient in education priority schools, in contexts where teaching is often very challenging. |
| Keywords: | Teacher quality,Evaluation,Feedback,Teaching practices,Supervision,Education |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-02102295&r=all |