Using DEA for measuring teachers’ performance and the impact on students’ outcomes: evidence for Spain

This research contributes to the ongoing debate about differences in teachers’ performance. We introduce a new methodology that combines production frontier and impact evaluation insights that allows using DEA as an identification strategy of a treatment with high and low quality teachers within schools to assess their performance. We use a unique database of primary schools in Spain that, for every school, supplies information on two classrooms at 4th grade where students and teachers were randomly assigned into the two classrooms. We find considerable differences in teachers’ efficiency across schools with significant effects on students’ achievement. In line with previous findings, we find that neither teacher experience nor academic training explains teachers’ efficiency. Conversely, being a female teacher, having worked five or more years in the same school or having smaller class sizes positively affects the performance of teachers.     

Does school ownership matter? An unbiased efficiency comparison for regions of Spain

The programme for international student assessment (PISA) 2006 Report (OECD, PISA 2006: science competencies for tomorrow’s world, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris in 2007) showed significant differences among Spanish students attending publicly financed schools. Publicly financed schools include entirely public schools and schools that are privately managed but publicly funded. Families with a lower socioeconomic status may self-select into public schools, so a direct efficiency comparison between the two school types could lead to flawed conclusions because of the possible school selection bias. In this paper, we suggest using a propensity score matching approach in order to correctly analyze the impact of school ownership on student performance. After tackling the self-selection problem, we use a stochastic parametric distance function framework to compare student efficiency and productivity in both school types across ten Spanish regions using PISA 2006 data. Furthermore, we propose two original measures to analyze the impact of school ownership on academic performance across regions: the average treatment effect on the treated on the production frontier and the average treatment effect on the treated assuming school inefficiency. We find that, on average, private government-dependent schools are more productive than public schools, although efficiency results across regions are highly divergent.     

The impact of the low income housing tax credit program on local schools

The low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) program has developed over two million rental homes for low-income households since 1986. The perception of deterioration in school quality has been a main reason for community opposition to LIHTC projects in middle- and upper-income areas. In this paper, we examine the impact of LIHTC projects on the nearby school performance using data on all LIHTC projects and elementary schools in Texas from the 2003–04 through 2008–09 academic years. We employ the longitudinal structure of the data to control for school fixed effects and estimate the relationship between the opening of nearby LIHTC on campus-level standardized test scores and performance ratings. We address the potential selection biases by controlling for preexisting trends in school performance prior to the study period. We find no robust evidence that the opening of LIHTC units negatively impacts the performance of nearby elementary schools.     

Born on the wrong day? School entry age and juvenile crime

Kindergarten entry age is known to impact schooling outcomes. Less is known, however, about the role of school starting age on economic outcomes outside of the classroom. In this paper we use administrative data from Louisiana to analyze the effect of school starting age on juvenile crime. We find that late school entry by one year reduces the incidence of juvenile crime for young black females, particularly in high crime areas. The mediating effects of late school entry for this subgroup appear to be driven by reductions in non-felony offenses. We propose age related differences in human capital accumulation as a potential explanation for our findings.     

Maternal employment,migration, and child development

We analyze the roles of and interrelationships among school inputs and parental inputs in affecting child development through the specification and estimation of a behavioral model of household migration and maternal employment decisions. We integrate information on these decisions with observations on child outcomes over a 13-year period from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY). We find that the impact of our school quality measures diminishes by factors of 2 to 4 after accounting for the fact that families may choose where to live in part based on school characteristics and labor market opportunities. The positive statistical relationship between child outcomes and maternal employment reverses sign and remains statistically significant after controlling for its possible endogeneity. Our estimates imply that when parental responses are taken into account, policy changes in school quality end up having only minor impacts on child test scores.     

Heterogeneous effects of child disability on maternal labor supply: Evidence from the 2000 US Census

Previous research has documented a negative relationship between child disability and maternal labor supply. Because of data limitations, most studies in this literature use broad measures of disability, which may obscure important differences among children with limiting health conditions. This paper presents new evidence on the labor supply of women with disabled children, exploiting disability information provided by 2000 US Census. This large nationally representative sample allows us to test for differences across different types of disabling conditions. We find that accounting for this heterogeneity in conditions is important. Using a broad definition of disability results in small differences between women with and without a disabled child. When we use a more detailed classification, we find larger labor supply reductions for mothers of children with physical disabilities or limitations in their ability to care for themselves. There is less evidence that having a child with either mental or emotional limitations or a sensory impairment is negatively related to employment or weekly hours. We also test for heterogeneous effects related to child age and maternal education. We find no clear pattern with respect to age and some evidence that the relationship between child disability and maternal labor supply is stronger for less educated mothers.     

Does Ethnic Discrimination Vary Across Minority Groups? Evidence from a Field Experiment*

We conduct a large‐scale field experiment to measure labour market discrimination in Australia, one quarter of whose population was born overseas. To denote ethnicity, we use distinctively Anglo‐Saxon, Indigenous, Italian, Chinese and Middle Eastern names. We compare multiple ethnic groups, rather than a single minority as in most other studies. In all cases we applied for entry‐level jobs and submitted a CV indicating that the candidate attended high school in Australia. We find significant differences in callback rates: ethnic minority candidates would need to apply for more jobs in order to receive the same number of interviews. These differences vary systematically across ethnic groups.     

School district quality and property values: Examining differences along school district boundaries

Examining differences across school district boundaries rather than school attendance zone boundaries has several advantages. These advantages include being applicable when attendance zones are not available or less relevant to educational outcomes as arises with within district school choice and for examining the effect of factors like school spending or property taxes that do not vary within districts. However, school district boundaries have often been in place for many years allowing households to sort based on school quality and potentially creating distinct neighborhoods on either side of boundaries. We estimate models of housing prices using repeated cross-sections of housing transactions near school district boundaries in Connecticut. These models exploit changes over time to control for across boundary differences in neighborhood quality. We find significant effects of test scores on property values, but those effects are notably smaller than both OLS and traditional boundary fixed effects estimates.     

Six Sigma adoption: Operating performance impacts and contextual drivers of success

We assess the operational impacts of Six Sigma program adoptions through an event study methodology, comparing financial data for 200 Six Sigma adopting firms against data for matched firms, which serve as control groups for the analyses. We employ various matching procedures using different combinations of pre-adoption return on assets (ROA), industry, and size as matching criteria. By comparing performance outcomes across a hierarchy of operating metrics, we establish a pattern of Six Sigma adoption effects that provides strong evidence of a positive impact on ROA. Interestingly, these ROA improvements arise mostly from significant reductions in indirect costs; significant improvements in direct costs and asset productivity are not evident. We also find small improvements in sales growth due to Six Sigma adoption. Cross-sectional analyses of the performance results reveal that distinctions in Six Sigma impacts across manufacturing and service firms are negligible. Interestingly, we find that the performance impact of Six Sigma adoption is negatively correlated to the firm's quality system maturity (indicated by prior ISO 9000 certification). Further analyses of manufacturing and service firms reveals that Six Sigma benefits are significantly correlated with intensity in manufacturing, and with financial performance before adoption in services. We discuss the implications of these findings for practice and for future research.     

A finite‐sample hierarchical analysis of wage variation across public high schools: evidence from the NLSY and high school and beyond

Using data from both the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and High School and Beyond (HSB), we investigate if public high schools differ in the “production” of earnings and if rates of return to future education vary with public high school attended. Given evidence of such variation, we seek to explain why schools differ by proposing that standard measures of school “quality” as well as proxies for community characteristics can explain the observed parameter variation across high schools. Since analysis of widely‐used data sets such as the NLSY and HSB necessarily involves observing only a few students per high school, we employ an exact finite sample estimation approach. We find evidence that schools differ and that most proxies for high school quality play modest roles in explaining the variation in outcomes across public high schools. We do find evidence that the education of the teachers in the high school as well as the average family income associated with students in the school play a small part in explaining variation at the school‐level. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exploring the effectiveness of research and innovation policies among European Union countries

In this paper we explore the effectiveness of selected research and innovation policies among EU countries. Using data from the AEGIS database and information from the 2015 Bruegel’s Partnership report on research and innovation polices in EU countries, we compare and contrast the response of knowledge intensive firms to a sample of policies. We find that the impact of the policies in our sample varies not only across countries but also across the age of affected firms in those countries. We conclude our analysis with a call for policy makers to begin to investigate the incidence of the impact of their research and innovation policies as measured not only by the age of firms but also by other dimensions.     

Employee attitudes,customer satisfaction,and sales performance: assessing the linkages in US grocery stores

Using store‐level panel data for a major supermarket company, we investigate the linkages between employee attitudes, customer satisfaction, and sales performance, while controlling for observed and unobserved differences across stores. We find that employee attitudes positively affect customer satisfaction with service but do not affect customer satisfaction with quality or value. Additionally, we find that customer satisfaction with service positively affects sales performance. Our results suggest that employee attitudes affect sales performance through their impact on customer service. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Public school availability for two-year olds and mothers' labour supply

French children start public school either the year they turn two or the year they turn three. We evaluate the impact of this unique schooling policy on maternal labour supply. Using a Regression–Discontinuity design, we show that early school availability has a significant employment effect on lone mothers, but no effect on two-parent families. Also we show that the effect grows larger as the child grows older and as the family loses eligibility for child benefits. Finally, we provide some new evidence that school enrolment at the age of two has no adverse effect on children's subsequent educational outcomes.     

Understanding the determinants of crime

In this paper, we use an overlapping generations model where individuals are allowed to engage in both legitimate market activities and criminal behavior in order to assess the role of certain factors on the property crime rate. In particular, we investigate if differences in the unemployment rate, fraction of low human capital individuals in an economy, apprehension probability, duration of a jail sentence, and income inequality could be capable of generating large differences in crime rates that are observed across countries. We find that small differences in the apprehension probability and income inequality can generate quantitatively significant differences in the crime rates across similar environments.     

School Choice and the Distributional Effects of Ability Tracking: Does Separation Increase Inequality?

Tracking programs have been criticized on the grounds that they harm disadvantaged children. The bulk of empirical research supports this view, but existing studies compare outcomes across students placed in different tracks. Track placement is likely to be endogenous with respect to student outcomes. We use a new strategy for overcoming the endogeneity of track placement and find no evidence that tracking hurts low-ability children. Previous studies have also been based on the assumption that students' enrollment decisions are unrelated to whether or not the school tracks. When we account for the possibility that tracking programs affect school choice, we find evidence that they may help low-ability children.     

Guaranteed minimum income and unemployment duration in France

In this article, we use data from the European Community Household Panel to evaluate the impact of a French guaranteed income program, the RMI, on the hazard out of unemployment. Self-selection into the program is corrected using a multivariate duration model developed by [Abbring, J.H., van den Berg, G.J., 2003. The non-parametric identification of treatment effects in duration models. Econometrica 71 (5), 1491–1517]. We find that RMI receipt has a strong negative impact during the first months of program participation, but that this disincentive effect quickly falls to insignificant levels after six months. Household structure also appears to be an important determinant of the importance of the adverse effect of program participation.     

Does federal financial aid affect college enrollment? Evidence from drug offenders and the Higher Education Act of 1998

In 2001, amendments to the Higher Education Act made people convicted of drug offenses ineligible for federal financial aid for up to two years after their conviction. Using rich data on educational outcomes and drug charges in the NLSY 1997, we show that this law change had a large negative impact on the college attendance of students with drug convictions. On average, the temporary ban on federal financial aid increased the amount of time between high school graduation and college enrollment by about two years, and we also present suggestive evidence that affected students were less likely to ever enroll in college. Students living in urban areas are the most affected by these amendments. Importantly, we do not find that the law deterred young people from committing drug felonies nor did it substantively change the probability that high school students with drug convictions graduated from high school. We find no evidence of a change in college enrollment of students convicted of non-drug crimes, or of those charged by not convicted of drug offenses. In contrast to much of the existing research, we conclude that, for this high-risk group of students, eligibility for federal financial aid strongly impacts college investment decisions.     

Impact of Basel III liquidity regulations on U.S. Bank performance in different conditional profitability spectrums

We study the impact of the Basel III liquidity constraints, represented by the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) and the net stable funding ratio (NSFR), on bank profitability, by employing the simultaneous quantile regression framework with time fixed effects. We find a positive and significant relationship between the LCR and profitability and the NSFR and profitability over most quantiles. However, the small magnitudes of the coefficients on LCR and NSFR across all quantiles of profitability suggest that LCR and NSFR have a minor quantitative impact on bank profitability. We then test and find that the Basel III liquidity constraints have a significantly different impact on banks with very low profits compared to banks who enjoy high profitability, emphasizing the need to use a quantile approach. We plot the coefficients to illustrate the impact of liquidity constraints across different conditional profitability spectrums. Lastly, we find that small banks are more vulnerable to short term liquidity risks (LCR) and big banks are more susceptible to medium to long term liquidity risks (NSFR). This suggests that considerations should be given to tailoring liquidity regulations based on the bank size and the relative bank profitability. The quantitatively small impact of the constraints suggest that Basel III has successfully set liquidity requirements to minimize the impact on bank profitability and the likelihood of an industry-wide liquidity crisis.     

Private and public investment in sub-Saharan Africa: The role of instability risks

This paper explores the impact of public investment on private investment in sub-Saharan Africa using the finite mixture model. We argue that the impact of public investment on private investment differs across groups of countries with similar but unobserved characteristics. Contrary to previous studies, the paper incorporates the potential presence of hidden heterogeneity and tries to explain the group membership. Using a sample of 42 countries, we find that the impact of public investment on private investment differs across three different groups of countries. Moreover, we find that countries with high risk of conflict, terrorism and repatriation of profits are less likely to be in the group where public investment crowds in private investment. The paper underscores the need for sub-Saharan African countries to ensure private investment security by reducing the risks associated with conflicts and terrorism, and preserving contract viability and repatriation of profits.     

Family size and child outcomes: Is there really no trade-off?

We study the impact of family size on intermediate and long-term outcomes using twin births as an exogenous source of variation in family size in an unusually rich dataset. Similar to recent studies, we find no evidence of a causal effect on long-term outcomes and show that not taking selection effects into account will likely overstate the effects. We do, however, find a small but significant negative impact of family size on grades in compulsory and secondary school among children who are likely to be vulnerable to further restrictions on parental investments.