Date:

2011-11-01

By:

Coupe, Tom
  Olefir, Anna
  Alonso, Juan Diego

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5879&r=edu  

Using a rich data set of almost the entire population of  Ukrainian secondary schools, the authors estimate the effect of school size  and class size on the performance of secondary schools on Ukraine's External  Independent Test. They find that larger schools tend to have somewhat better  performance, both in terms of test scores and in terms of test participation.  The size of this effect is relatively small, however, especially in rural  areas for which the estimates are likely to be more clean estimates. Class  size is found to be insignificant in most specifications and, if significant,  of negligible size.

Keywords:

Tertiary Education,Secondary Education,Teaching and  Learning,Education For All,Primary Education

Date:

2011-11-15

By:

Wen Fan (University College Dublin)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201124&r=edu  

While much empirical work concerns job tenure, this paper  introduces the concept of school tenure -- the length of time one student has  been in a given school. I examine whether and how school tenure impacts  students’ output using rich cohort data on England’s secondary schools.  Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimates suggest that, on average, students  benefit from longer own school tenure but suffer from that of their peers.  Using the number of times the student moved school during the academic year  as an instrument for school tenure to deal with potential endogeneity, the  resulting Two-Stage Least Squares (TSLS) estimates suggest the effects of  school tenure are positive and heterogeneous across students. While  advantaged students are more likely to gain from own longer school tenure,  disadvantaged ones are benefit if their peers have longer tenure.

Keywords:

school tenure; school moving; peer effects

Date:

2011-11

By:

J. Ignacio García-Pérez (Department of Economics, Universidad  Pablo de Olavide)
  Marisa Hidalgo-Hidalgo (Department of Economics, Universidad Pablo de  Olavide)
  J. Antonio Robles-Zurita (Department of Economics, Universidad Pablo de  Olavide)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pab:wpaper:1109&r=edu  

Grade retention practices are at the forefront of the  educational debate. In this paper, we use PISA 2009 data for Spain to measure  the effect of grade retention on students’ achievement. One important problem  when analyzing this question is that school outcomes and the propensity to  repeat a grade are likely to be determined simultaneously. We address this  problem by estimating a Switching Regression Model. We find that grade  retention has a negative impact on educational outcomes, but we confirm the  importance of endogenous selection, which makes observed differences between  repeaters and non-repeaters appear 14.6% lower than they actually are. The  effect on PISA scores of repeating is much smaller (-10% of non-repeaters’  average) than the counterfactual reduction that non-repeaters would suffer  had they been retained as repeaters (-24% of their average). Furthermore,  those who repeated a grade during primary education suff

Keywords:

Grade retention, educational scores, PISA

JEL:

D63

Date:

2011-11-01

By:

Carneiro, Pedro
  Lokshin, Michael
  Ridao-Cano, Cristobal
  Umapathi, Nithin

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5878&r=edu  

This paper estimates average and marginal returns to schooling  in Indonesia using a non-parametric selection model estimated by local  instrumental variables, and data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey. The  analysis finds that the return to upper secondary schooling varies widely  across individual: it can be as high as 50 percent per year of schooling for  those very likely to enroll in upper secondary schooling, or as low as -10  percent for those very unlikely to do so. Returns to the marginal student (14  percent) are well below those for the average student attending upper  secondary schooling (27 percent).

Keywords:

Education For All,Secondary Education,Teaching and  Learning,Primary Education,Population Policies

Date:

2011-10

By:

Bauer, Thomas (RWI)
  Grave, Barbara S. (RWI)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6073&r=edu  

German universities are regarded as being under-financed,  inefficient, and performing below average if compared to universities in  other European countries and the US. Starting in the 1990s, several German  federal states implemented reforms to improve this situation. An important  part of these reforms has been the introduction of indicator-based funding  systems. These financing systems aimed at increasing the competition between  universities by making their pubic funds dependent on their relative  performance concerning different output measures, such as the share of  students obtaining a degree or the amount of third party funds. This paper  evaluates whether the indicator-based funding created unintended incentives,  i.e. whether the reform caused grade inflation. Estimating mean as well as  quantile treatment effects, we cannot support the hypothesis that increased  competition between universities causes grade inflation.

Keywords:

grade inflation, higher education funding, university  competition

JEL:

H52

Date:

2011-11

By:

Marina Murat

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:recent:073&r=edu  

This paper uses data from PISA 2006 on science, mathematics and  reading to analyse immigrant school gaps – negative difference between  immigrants’ and natives’ scores - and the structural features of educational  systems in two adjacent countries, Italy and France, with similar migration  inflows and with similar schooling institutions, based on tracking. Our  results show that tracking and school specific programs matter; in both  countries, the school system upholds a separation between students with  different backgrounds and ethnicities. Residential segregation or  discrimination seem also to be at work, especially in France. Given the  existing school model, a teaching support in mathematics and science in  France and in reading in Italy would help immigrant students to converge to  natives’ standards.

Keywords:

International migration; educational systems; PISA

JEL:

F22

Date:

2011-11

By:

Francois Keslair
  Eric Maurin
  Sandra McNally

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:ceedps:0129&r=edu  

The need for education to help every child rather than focus on  average attainment has become a more central part of the policy agenda in the  US and the UK. Remedial programmes are often difficult to evaluate because  participation is usually based on pupil characteristics that are largely  unobservable to the analyst. In this paper we evaluate programmes for  children with moderate levels of 'special educational needs' in England. We  show that the decentralized design of the policy generates significant variations  in access to remediation resources across children with similar prior levels  of difficulty. However, this differential is not reflected in subsequent  educational attainment - suggesting that the programme is ineffective for  'treated' children. In the second part of our analysis, we use demographic  variation within schools to consider the effect of the programme on whole  year groups. Our analysis is consistent with no over

Keywords:

education, special needs, evaluation,

JEL:

I2

Date:

2011-10

By:

Antonella D'Agostino
  Stefania Fruzzetti
  Giulio Ghellini
  Laura Neri

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:619&r=edu  

Recently the quality of Higher Education (HE) system and its  evaluation have been key issues of the political and scientific debate on  education policies all over Europe. In the wide landscape that involves the  entire HE system we draw attention on the third level of its organization,  i.e. the Ph.D. In particular, this paper discusses the necessity of  monitoring the recruitment process of Ph.D. system because it represents a  fundamental aspect of the Ph.D. system as a whole. We introduce a set of  concepts related to the recruitment process and then we make them computable  with synthetic indicators. The study provides an empirical analysis based on  doctoral schools of four academic years at the University of Siena. Proposed  indicators are finally used for detecting weakness and strength of each Ph.D.  school.

Keywords:

Ph.D. schools, Ph.D.s. recruitment, diversity, external  attractiveness, polarization

JEL:

I21

Date:

2011-11-15

By:

Lindahl, Lena (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm  University)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2011_013&r=edu  

Many countries have had to tackle escalating youth unemployment  in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, but compared with other  countries in the European Union, youth unemployment has increased  particularly sharply in Sweden. Currently, Swedish 20-24 year olds are more  than three times as likely to be unemployed than are adult workers, which is  the greatest such ratio within the EU-15. The bulk of youth unemployment  spells starts directly after upper secondary school ends, which in turn  suggests special attention should be directed to the interaction of  vocational education and labor markets. This paper discusses in the light of  international research findings how to ease the transition from school into  the labor market for vocational students. The evidence discussed in the paper  centers on which educational structures lead to good labor market outcomes  for vocational students and especially what we know about the relat

Keywords:

-

Date:

2011-11

By:

Eric A. Hanushek
  Susanne Link
  Ludger Woessmann

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17591&r=edu  

Decentralization of decision-making is among the most intriguing  recent school reforms, in part because countries went in opposite directions  over the past decade and because prior evidence is inconclusive. We suggest  that autonomy may be conducive to student achievement in well-developed  systems but detrimental in low-performing systems. We construct a panel  dataset from the four waves of international PISA tests spanning 2000-2009,  comprising over one million students in 42 countries. Relying on panel estimation  with country fixed effects, we identify the effect of school autonomy from  within-country changes in the average share of schools with autonomy over key  elements of school operations. Our results show that autonomy affects student  achievement negatively in developing and low-performing countries, but  positively in developed and high-performing countries. These results are  unaffected by a wide variety of robustness and s

JEL:

H4

Date:

2011-10

By:

Corak, Miles (University of Ottawa)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6072&r=edu  

The successful acquisition of a language is often characterized  in terms of critical periods. If this is the case it is likely that children  who migrate face different challenges in attaining high school credentials  depending upon their age at immigration. This paper examines the education  outcomes of a cohort of immigrants who arrived in Canada as children. The  2006 Census is used and it is found that there is in fact a distinct change  in the chances that children will hold a high-school diploma according to the  age at which they arrived in the country. The chances of being a high-school  dropout do not vary according to age at arrival up to about the age of nine,  with children arriving after that age facing a distinct and growing increase  in the chances that they will not graduate from high school. The findings  suggest that public policy addressing the long run success of immigrant  children needs to be mindful of the variation i

Keywords:

education, immigration, children

JEL:

I29

Date:

2011-06

By:

Piero Cipollone (World Bank and Bank of Italy)
  Alfonso Rosolia (Bank of Italy and CEPR)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_811_11&r=edu  

We examine the relationship between education and mortality in a  young population of Italian males. In 1981 several cohorts of young men from  specific southern towns were unexpectedly exempted from compulsory military  service after a major quake hit the region. Comparisons of exempt cohorts  from least damaged towns on the border of the quake region with similar ones  from neighbouring non-exempt towns just outside the region show that, by  1991, the cohorts exempted while still in high school display significantly  higher graduation rates. The probability of dying over the decade 1991-2001  was also significantly lower. Several robustness checks confirm that the  findings do not reflect omitted quake-related confounding factors, such as  the ensuing compensatory interventions. Moreover, cohorts exempted soon after  high school age do not display higher schooling or lower mortality rates,  thus excluding that the main findings reflect dir

Keywords:

education, mortality, health, schooling, human capital

JEL:

I20

Date:

2011

By:

Yuan-Cheih Chang
  Phil Yihsing Yang
  Tung-Fei Tsai-Lin
  Hui-Ru Chi

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:11-07&r=edu  

This paper examines how universities can develop a new  organizational structure to cope with the rise of academic entrepreneurship.  By deploying the Pasteurian quadrant framework, knowledge creation and  knowledge utilization in universities are measured. The relationships between  university antecedents, Pasteurian orientation, and research performance are  analyzed. A survey of university administrators and faculty members collected  634 responses from faculty members in 99 departments among 6 universities. The  findings indicate that university antecedents of strategic flexibility and  balancing commitment contribute to a greater Pasteurian orientation in  university departments. The higher degree of Pasteurian orientation has  significantly positive impacts on the performance both of knowledge creation  and knowledge utilization. Moreover, the Pasteurian orientation acts as a  mediator between university antecedents and research perfor

Keywords:

Academic entrepreneurship, Pasteur’s quadrant, research excellence,  research commercialization

Date:

2011-10

By:

Lundborg, Petter (Lund University)
  Nordin, Martin (Lund University)
  Rooth, Dan-Olof (Linneaus University)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6099&r=edu  

In this paper, we focus on possible causal mechanisms behind the  intergenerational transmission of human capital. For this purpose, we use  both an adoption and a twin design and study the effect of parents' education  on their children's cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills, and health. Our  results show that greater parental education increases children's cognitive  and non-cognitive skills, as well as their health. These results suggest that  the effect of parents' education on children's education may work partly  through the positive effect that parental education has on children's skills  and health.

Keywords:

intergenerational transmission, human capital, education,  health, cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills, adoptees, twins

JEL:

I12

Date:

2011-06

By:

Sébastien Massoni (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS  : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I)
  Jean-Christophe Vergnaud (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS :  UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00639571&r=edu  

The Action Lecture program is an innovative teaching method run  in some nursery and primary schools in Paris and designed to improve pupils'  literacy. We report the results of an evaluation of this program. We describe  the experimental protocol that was built to estimate the program's impact on  several types of indicators. Data were processed following a  Differences-in-Differences (DID) method. Then we use the estimation of the  impact on academic achievement to conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis and  take a reduction of the class size program as a benchmark. The results are  positive for the Action Lecture program.

Keywords:

Economics of education, evaluation, cost-effectiveness analysis,  field experiment.

Date:

2011-10

By:

Winkler, Anne E. (University of Missouri-St. Louis)
  Levin, Sharon (University of Missouri-St. Louis)
  Stephan, Paula (Georgia State University)
  Glänzel, Wolfgang (K.U.Leuven)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6082&r=edu  

There is good reason to think that non-elite programs in  economics may be producing relatively more research than in the past:  Research expectations have been ramped-up at non-PhD institutions and new  information technologies have changed the way academic knowledge is produced  and exchanged. This study investigates this question by examining publishing  productivity in economics (and business) using data from the Web of Science  (Knowledge) for a broad set of institutions – both elite and non-elite – over  a 17-year period, from 1991 through 2007. Institutions are grouped into six  tiers using a variety of sources. The analysis provides evidence that  non-elite institutions are gaining on their more elite counterparts, but the  magnitude of the gains are small. Thus, the story is more of constancy than  of change, even in the face of changing technology and rising research  expectations.

Keywords:

higher education, research productivity, publishing trends,  inequality

JEL:

A14

Date:

2011-09

By:

Jaromir Cekota (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe)
  Claudia Trentini (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ece:dispap:2011_2&r=edu  

This paper investigates the educational attainment, labour  market participation and living conditions of young Roma adults in Bulgaria,  Hungary and Romania based on data from the generations and gender surveys and  other sources of information. It shows that in spite of a small improvement  in the educational attainment of young Roma in comparison to the generation  of their parents, the educational achievement and employment gaps have  increased considerably during the post-communist period. The paper also compares  living conditions of the Roma with other population groups. It concludes with  a discussion of policy challenges.

Keywords:

minorities, Roma, discrimination, employment, education,  transition

JEL:

I31

Date:

2011-10-11

By:

Mendolicchio, Concetta (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und  Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research,  Nuremberg, Germany])
  Rhein, Thomas (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg  [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany])

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201120&r=edu  

"We study the returns on education in Europe in a  comparative perspective. We extend the model of de la Fuente [(2003). Human  Capital in a Global and Knowledgebased Economy. part II: Assessment at the EU  Country Level. Report for the European Commission], by estimating the values  of the relevant parameters for men and women and introducing several  variables specifically related to maternity leaves and benefits. As a  preliminary step, we evaluate the effect of education on the wage profile. We  estimate the Mincerian coefficients for 12 West European countries using the  EU-SILC data for 2007 and use them as input in the optimisation problem of  the individual to calibrate the model. Finally, we analyse the impact and  relevance of several public policy variables. In particular, we evaluate the  elasticities of the returns on education with respect to unemployment  benefits, marginal and average tax rates, maternity leaves and childcare

Keywords:

Bildungsertrag - internationaler Vergleich, Humankapital, geschlechtsspezifische  Faktoren, Westeuropa, Österreich, Belgien, Dänemark, Frankreich,  Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Irland, Italien, Luxemburg, Niederlande,  Portugal, Spanien, Schweden

JEL:

I21