The role of educational choice in occupational gender segregation: Evidence from Trinidad and Tobago

We analyse the role of educational choice on the degree of occupational segregation in Trinidad and Tobago during a period in which educational policies intent on equating gender opportunities in education were implemented. To this end we utilize waves of the Trinidad and Tobago labour force survey over the period 1991–2004. Our results show that while educational segregation has fallen substantially over our sample period, this has not translated into less occupational segregation. This suggests that the educational policy has not been sufficient to combat occupational segregation. However, results at a more disaggregated level show that experiences have been heterogeneous across educational and occupational groups.     

Decomposing achievement gaps among OECD countries

In this study, we use decomposition methods on PISA 2006 data to compare student academic performance across OECD countries. We first establish an empirical model to explain the variation in academic performance across individuals, and then use the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method to decompose the achievement gap between each of the OECD countries and the OECD average. Results indicate that the explained portion of the achievement gap varies across countries. In some countries, our empirical models are able to account for almost all the achievement gap, while unexplained country-specific effects still dominate in other countries. Finally, we use two Asian countries, Japan and Korea, to demonstrate how to identify major factors that have contributed to the observed achievement gap across countries.     

Benefits of early childhood interventions across the world: (Under) Investing in the very young

This paper reviews the international (non-U.S.) evidence on the benefits of early childhood interventions. A total of 38 contrasts of 30 interventions in 23 countries were analyzed. It focuses on studies applying a quasi-experimental or random assignment. Studies were coded according to: the type of intervention (cash transfer, nutritional, educational or mixed); sample size; study design and duration; country; target group (infants, prekindergarten); subpopulations of interventions; and dosage of intervention. Cohen's D effect sizes were calculated for four outcomes: cognitive gains; behavioral change; health gains; and amount of schooling. We find children from different context and countries receive substantial cognitive, behavioral, health and schooling benefits from early childhood interventions. The benefits are sustained over time. Interventions that have an educational or stimulation component evidenced the largest cognitive effects.     

Effort allocation in tournaments: The effect of gender on academic performance in Italian universities

We consider the academic performance of Italian university graduates and their labor market position 3 years after graduation. Our data confirm the common finding that female students outperform male students in academia but are overcome in the labor market. Assuming that academic competition is fair and that individual talent is equally distributed by gender, we suggest that the gender gap evident in degree scores is endogenously due to the greater effort exerted by female students. We find that females face a greater increase in labor market returns from signalling through academic performance. This higher prize explains the greater effort exerted by females and the higher probability of winning the academic competition.     

Estimating teacher effectiveness from two-year changes in students’ test scores

Using a dataset covering over 10,000 Australian school teachers and over 90,000 pupils, I estimate how effective teachers are in raising students’ test scores. Since the exams are biennial, it is necessary to take account of the teacher's work in the intervening year. Even adjusting for measurement error, the teacher fixed effects are widely dispersed, and there is a strong positive correlation between a teacher's gains in literacy and numeracy. Teacher fixed effects show a significant association with some, though not all, observable teacher characteristics. Experience has the strongest impact, particularly in the early years of a teacher's career. Female teachers do better at teaching literacy. Teachers with a master's degree or some other form of further qualification do not appear to achieve significantly larger test score gains. Overall, teacher characteristics found in the departmental payroll database explain only a small fraction of the variance in teacher performance.     

The implications of changing educational and family circumstances for children's grade progression in rural Pakistan: 1997–2004

We assess factors affecting primary and middle school dropout in rural Punjab and NorthWest Frontier Province over 6 years (1997–2004). These data are unique in a developing-country setting in longitudinally tracking changes in both school and household environments. While grade retention has improved, girls’ dropout rates remain fairly high. Results suggest the importance of both household and school factors. For girls, arrival in the family of an unwanted birth in the last 6 years and enrollment in a government (not private) primary school significantly increase the likelihood of dropout, whereas availability of post-primary schooling, having a mother who attended school, and living in a better-off household reduce the probability of dropout. For boys, school quality, measured by the percent of residential teachers in the primary school, and living in a more developed community significantly reduce the probability of dropping out; loss of household remittances significantly increases the likelihood of dropout.     

Examining charter student achievement effects across seven states

Since their inception, charter schools have been a lighting rod for controversy, with much of the debate revolving around their effectiveness in improving student achievement. Previous research has shown mixed results for student achievement; this could be the consequence of different policy environments or varying methodological approaches with differing assumptions across studies. In our analysis, we discuss these approaches and their assumptions and estimate charter school achievement effects using a consistent methodology across seven locations.     

The Internet's effect on women's coauthoring rates and academic job market decisions: The case of political science

The late 1990s saw the introduction and spread of the Internet and email. For social scientists, these technologies lowered communication costs and made inter-department collaboration much easier. Using women in political science as a case study, we show that this change has disproportionately affected women in two ways. First, women have increased the rate at which they co-author journal articles faster than their male counterparts. Second, the lowered communication costs have made women more willing to take jobs at smaller departments because it is now easier to work with colleagues at other universities.     

Pennies from heaven? Using exogenous tax variation to identify effects of school resources on pupil achievement

Evidence on the effectiveness of school inputs remains inconclusive, partly due to the challenge of identification as families sort themselves into school districts and resources are potentially allocated to compensate (or reinforce) differences in pupil abilities. Using variation in school resources induced by the location of waterfalls in Norway, we examine the effect of school expenditures on pupil performance at age 16. Higher school expenditures, triggered by higher revenues from local taxes on hydropower plants, have a significantly positive effect on pupil performance. This positive IV estimate contrasts a zero effect based on least squares. A downward biased estimate using a standard cross section estimator is expected in a context of compensating resource allocation across educational units.     

Skills, standards, and disabilities: How youth with learning disabilities fare in high school and beyond

Learning disabled youth in the Child and Young Adult samples of the NLSY79 are more likely to graduate from high school than peers with the same measured cognitive ability, a difference that cannot be explained by differences in noncognitive skills, families, or school resources. Instead, I find that learning disabled students graduate from high school at higher rates than youth with the same cognitive abilities because of high school graduation policies that make it easier for learning disabled youth to obtain a high school diploma. The effects of these graduation policies are even more remarkable given that I find evidence that learning disabled youth have less unmeasured human capital than observationally equivalent youth as after high school they are less likely to be employed or continue on to college and earn less than their observationally equivalent non-learning disabled peers.     

Parental risk attitudes and children's secondary school track choice

Although it is well-known that individuals’ risk attitudes are related to behavioral outcomes such as smoking, portfolio decisions, and educational attainment, there is virtually no evidence of whether parental risk attitudes affect the educational attainment of their dependent children. We add to this literature and examine children's secondary school track choice in Germany where tracking occurs at age ten and has a strong binding character. Using risk indicators for different domains, we mainly find evidence of an inverse relation between parental risk aversion and children's secondary school track, with some heterogeneity depending on whether parents’ risk willingness is modeled separately or jointly, by child gender, or by the risk measure used.     

The effects of adult literacy on earnings and employment

This paper provides evidence of the effects of adult literacy on individuals’ income and employability in Brazil based on information obtained from the monthly employment survey (PME). The OLS results indicate that after controlling for observable characteristics, there is a 21.25% increase in wages for individuals who become literate; however, there is no significant impact on employability. Moreover, the findings show an 8.1% increase in the probability of being employed in the formal sector. We also explore the longitudinal structure of the dataset to control for unobservable fixed characteristics of individuals. The fixed-effects estimators show smaller effects compared to the OLS estimators. We find that literacy has a 4.4% effect on wages and a 4.3% impact on the probability of being formally employed. The effects are significantly different from zero.     

Three measures of returns to education: An illustration for the case of Spain

In this article, in a context of wage equations with sample selection, we propose a novel interpretation of the partial effects linked to education as additional measures of returns to education that complement the traditional one, which is directly obtained from the estimation of the wage offer equation. Using European Household Panel data for Spain these partial effects were calculated. The results show that there are incentives in Spain for investing in education not only because it means an increase in wages but also because it raises the probability of obtaining any wage at all.     

The effects of quarter of birth on academic outcomes at the elementary school level

This paper uses public schools data to examine the effects of age on student academic achievement in light of recent trends to delay children's entry into kindergarten. To avoid problems of endogeneity, students’ quarters of birth is employed as an instrument for age at entry. In particular, the effects of students’ quarters of birth on math and reading standardized test scores and grade retention at the elementary school level are estimated. Evidence of benefits to being among the oldest in one's age-grade cohort is found. Interestingly, over time, the youngest students begin to perform approximately on par with the oldest students, creating a u-shaped pattern to the data.     

Human capital background and the educational attainment of second-generation immigrants in France

In this paper, we study the impact of parental human capital background on ethnic educational gaps between second-generation immigrants using a large data set conducted in France in 2003. Estimates from censored random effect ordered Probit regressions show that the skills of immigrants explain in the most part, the ethnic educational gap between their children. Fluency in French and the length of their parents’ stay in France also matter. The impact of the immigrants’ education on the educational attainment of their children further depends on their country of origin, their place of schooling, and their proficiency in French.     

Human capital augmentation versus the signaling value of MBA education

Panel data on MBA graduates is used in an attempt to empirically distinguish between human capital and signaling models of education. The existence of employment observations prior to MBA enrollment allows for the control of unobserved ability or selection into MBA programs (through the use of individual fixed effects). In addition, variation in the amount of pre-MBA work experience allows for a test to distinguish between the models. In particular, a predominant signaling view is shown to predict smaller returns to the degree, the more pre-MBA work experience one has (controlling for total experience). Additionally, a unique feature of the data is that respondents were asked to report skills or abilities gained through their schooling, allowing us to determine the extent to which these purported skills are valued in the labor market. The combined evidence suggests that while human capital accumulation may contribute to the returns to an MBA, the majority of the returns is derived from the signaling/screening function of the degree.     

The impact of educational mismatch on firm productivity: Evidence from linked panel data

We provide first evidence regarding the direct impact of educational mismatch on firm productivity. To do so, we rely on representative linked employer–employee panel data for Belgium covering the period 1999–2006. Controlling for simultaneity issues, time-invariant unobserved workplace characteristics, cohort effects and dynamics in the adjustment process of productivity, we find that: (i) a higher level of required education exerts a significantly positive influence on firm productivity, (ii) additional years of over-education (both among young and older workers) are beneficial for firm productivity, and (iii) additional years of under-education (among young workers) are detrimental for firm productivity.     

Cognitive skills among children in Senegal: Disentangling the roles of schooling and family background

We use unique data to estimate the determinants of cognitive ability among 14–17-year olds in Senegal. Unlike standard school-based samples, tests were administered to current students as well as to children no longer – or never – enrolled. Years of schooling strongly affects cognitive skills, but conditional on years of school, parental education and household wealth, as well as local public school quality, have surprisingly modest effects on test performance. Instead, family background primarily affects skills indirectly through its impacts on years of schooling. Therefore closing the schooling gaps between poor and wealthy children will also close most of the gap in cognitive skills between these groups.     

Re-examining the impact of dropping out on criminal and labor outcomes in early adulthood

This paper shows that while high school dropouts fare far worse on average than otherwise similar high school completers in early adulthood outcomes such as success in the labor market and future criminal activity, there are important differences within this group of dropouts. Notably, those who feel “pulled” out of school (i.e., they say they dropped out of school to work or take care of family) do similarly with respect to labor market and criminal outcomes in their early twenties to individuals with similar pre-dropout characteristics who complete high school. It is only those who feel they are more “pushed” out of school (i.e., they say they drop out for other reasons including expulsion, poor grades, moving, and not liking school) who do substantially worse than otherwise similar high school completers. These results suggest that any detrimental impacts from dropping out of school arise primarily when the drop out does not have a plan for how to use his time after dropping out.     

The impact of international students on measured learning and standards in Australian higher education

International students, who are also often from non-English language speaking backgrounds (NESB students), are an important source of revenue for Australian universities. Yet little large-scale evidence exists about their performance once they arrive. Do these students perform worse than other students in Australian undergraduate classrooms? What happens to other students’ performance when these students are added to classrooms? I provide new empirical evidence on these questions using recent administrative panel data from the business schools of two Australian Technology Network universities. Results show strong and highly statistically significant main effects and spillover effects, raising concerns about the integration of international NESB students into the Australian tertiary environment.