Encouraging Tutorial Attendance at University Did Not Improve Performance

When tertiary education is subsidised the cost of poor student performance in university subjects falls not only on the individual student but also on society in general. Society therefore has an interest in promoting student performance. There is evidence in the literature that absenteeism from university classes is widespread and that absenteeism adversely affects student performance. In this paper I describe an incentive scheme that increased attendance of business and economics students in an introductory statistics subject at a typical Australian university. Like other authors I find a strong positive association between attendance and academic performance, both in the presence and absence of the scheme. However, there is no evidence that the incentive scheme caused student performance to improve. Although students attended more classes they did not perform better than students in the previous year's class who had the same observable characteristics and attendance levels but who were not exposed to the scheme.     

The Good,the Poor and the Wealthy: who Responds Most to College Financial Aid?

Financial aid programmes for students in the United States focus increasingly on academic merit, rather than financial need. There is little empirical evidence, however, on the distributional effects of merit–based aid – who benefits or responds most. We develop a bivariate probit model of the enrolment process estimated using data for a large public university over several years. Results show that merit–based aid increases enrolment for all students, but that financially–able students respond disproportionately, even with academic merit held constant. Thus, increased emphasis on merit in financial aid may exacerbate the trend toward greater income inequality in the US, even among students of equal academic merit.     

Distributing Student Places in Australian Higher Education

Higher education systems need policies for distributing student places between higher education providers, courses and students. In supply‐driven systems, government and university decisions dominate. In demand‐driven systems, student choices play a larger role. Over the last 35 years Australia has moved from a supply‐driven to a largely demand‐driven university system and then partly back again. When students pay their own costs, both major political parties have supported market distribution of student places for decades. But for subsidised student places there is policy instability, due to fluctuating priorities for containing public expenditure and responding to demographic and labour market changes.     

贫困大学生的心理健康与培养教育研究

自从1995年中国高校招生并轨制度开始实行,高校收费持续攀高,除极少数专业外,全部是自费上学。由于中国区域经济发展不平衡等原因,部分农村或城市的贫困家庭经济压力沉重,没有能力负担大学生的高额学费,这就形成了中国高校特有的贫困大学生群体。在高等教育迅速发展的过程中,贫困生现象日益突出,并呈逐年迅速上升趋势。由于中国大学生心理健康问题受到了高校的普遍重视,通过对贫困大学生的心理健康状况进行调查分析,对他们的心理现状、心理问题的成因进行调查研究,为解决高校贫困生心理问题提出基本对策。     

交易效率视角下的高校学生管理

高等学校的学生培养目标是要使其成为能独立自主发展的社会专业人才。学生个体的发展原动力并不是来源于通常意义上管理教育,而是来自学生所在大学的整体学习环境与这环境中个体间及群体间的交往水平。这种交往水平类似于经济发展中的分工水平,它既是增长的原动力,也是衡量最终个体水平的标志。交流交往的产生,一般认为是个体间各种差异的结果。实际通过超边际比较静态分析方法可以得出,这种水平的提升应为交流障碍的消除也就是制度经济学中的交易成本下降或交易效率的提升。通过不断减少交流交往的阻碍,才能真正提升学生自发交流的水平,也才能使学生在这样的交流交往中获得原发的进步。高等院校的学生管理的目标是力求学生成才,则着力点就应该是努力提升学生个体间的交流交往水平,形成群体间的交流氛围,促进学生的自我发展。     

Equality of opportunity and the expansion of higher education in the UK

Using nine waves of data from Understanding Society (UKHLS), we study the expansion of higher education in the UK and its consequences for levels of and inequalities in income, physical and mental health. University expansion was characterized by a large increase in the proportion of graduates, with higher rates of graduation among individuals from more advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. Having controlled for birth cohort and lifecycle effects, there is evidence of significant inequality of opportunity (IOp) in the actual outcomes. However, comparing actual outcomes with counterfactual projections, that freeze the likelihood of university graduation and the joint distribution of graduation and circumstances to the pre-1963 levels, we do not detect an impact of the expansion of higher education on IOp in income and only small reductions in IOp in physical and mental health.     

A Study on Happiness and Related Factors Among Indian College Students

Happiness is considered to be one of the ultimate goals of life. This paper studies the happiness of Indian college and university students aged between 18 and 24 years. It attempts to answer whether and to what extent happiness of a student is significantly related to aspects of social life such as time spent with family, friends, being in a relationship, logging into social networking sites; academic factors such as job prospects of the chosen field of study and academic environment; and other personal factors such as health condition, over thinking or dwelling on past bad memories, addiction to tobacco/drug/alcohol. Moreover, this paper also inquires about the relationship between a student’s average happiness with her gender as well as the income class to which she belongs. It has been observed that among different aspects of social life, time spent with family and friends are significant while logging into social networking site is found out to be insignificant. Also being in a relationship is significantly but negatively related to happiness for male students. Job Prospects of the current field of study is a highly significant covariate of happiness irrespective of the gender of the student. Among different aspects of the personal situation, dwelling on past bad memories decreases happiness of both male and female students. Addiction to tobacco/alcohol is a negative covariate of female happiness. Furthermore, income and gender are seen to play an insignificant role in the happiness of Indian college and university students.

     

How the source of the entrant's advantage limits entry‐deterring tying

I revisit a simple model of entry‐deterring tying—example 1 from Whinston's (1990) seminal paper—but allow the potential entrant to have either a cost advantage or a willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) advantage relative to the incumbent. I show that, compared to the usual case in which the potential entrant is cost‐advantaged, tying is less effective against an entrant with a WTP advantage because an entrant with a large WTP advantage may be able to induce the buyer to buy both the tied bundle and the entrant's product. I also show that tying but failing to deter entry can be less costly when facing an entrant with a WTP advantage than when facing an entrant with a cost advantage. For a firm facing uncertainty about, for example, the entrant's entry costs, this makes tying a more attractive entry deterrence strategy against a WTP‐advantaged entrant. These results shed light on the important policy question of which markets are most likely to be susceptible to entry‐deterring tying.     

Financing Tertiary Education: An Examination of the Issues

The subsidies provided to the tertiary sector in Australia are more generous than those offered in most other advanced countries and most other industries. Evaluated using the criteria of economic efficiency, equity and consistency with the stated aims for the tertiary sector, these subsidies do not appear to be given for the right reasons. It can therefore be argued that there is justification for the imposition of tuition fees and for consideration of loans as a method of student finance. Overseas experience with loan finance is reasonably encouraging. Income contingent loans have been advanced as a viable means of perfecting the market for investment in human capital and as a form of profit sharing in which taxpayers share in both the costs and benefits of the educational investments of a nation's youth. Many standard arguments against loan finance, such as their disadvantaging lowincome groups and their constituting a negative dowry for female students, do not stand up to close scrutiny of the empirical evidence. The gradual introduction of a student loans scheme characterised by a high degree of income contingency, lengthy repayment periods, decreasing marginal tax rates per unit of debt, and moderate interest rate subsidies, appears to have considerable merit as a means of passing on to graduates part of the cost of the expensive service they now receive largely for free.     

Does income inequality increase charitable giving?

Do households react to changes in the distribution of income in their localities by changing their charitable giving? The theoretical prediction of the effects of income inequality on giving is unclear. We study how changes in income inequality measured at the neighbourhood and municipality levels affect charitable giving by households in Canada between 1991 and 2006. We find that increases in inequality increase giving. Results are sensitive to the geographic dispersion of low‐ and high‐income households in neighbourhoods within a municipality. The effect on donations is smaller in areas with high levels of inequality at both neighbourhood and municipality levels.     

How do school ‘report cards’ affect school choice decisions?

Abstract. We estimate the effect of information about school achievement that is disseminated to the public through websites and school ‘report cards’ on school choice decisions. We find that students are more likely to leave their school when public information reveals poor school‐level performance. Some parents’ school choice decisions respond to information soon after it becomes available. Others, including non‐English‐speaking parents, alter their school choice decisions only in response to information that has been disseminated widely and discussed in the media. Parents in low‐income neighbourhoods are most likely to alter their school choice decisions in response to new information. JEL classification: I21, D83     

RISK AVERSION AND FIELD OF STUDY CHOICE: THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUAL ABILITY

Does the choice of field of study depend on individual risk aversion? The direction of the relationship between individual risk attitudes and type of university degree chosen is potentially ambiguous. On the one hand, risk averse individuals may prefer degree courses which allow high returns in the labour market; on the other hand, if these degrees expose students to a higher probability of dropping out, those who are more risk averse may be induced to choose less challenging fields. Using data from a sample of students enrolled at a middle‐sized Italian public university in 2009, we find that, controlling for a large number of individual characteristics, more risk averse students are more likely to choose any other field (Humanities, Engineering, and Sciences) rather than Social Sciences. We interpret this result bearing in mind that some of these fields, such as Humanities, involve a reduction in the risk of dropping out, while others (such as Engineering and Sciences) involve a lower risk in the labour market. It also emerges that the effect of risk aversion on degree choice is related to student ability. Risk averse students characterized by high abilities tend to prefer Engineering, while the propensity of risk averse students to enrol in Humanities decreases when ability increases, suggesting that the attention paid to labour market risks and drop‐out risk varies according to student skills.     

The Cost of High and Long-Term Unemployment

The sharp increase in unemployment in the 1990s has focused attention once again on the causes, extent and effects of high and long-term unemployment. This article presents a methodology for estimating the cost, in income terms, that individuals and their families bear as a result of becoming unemployed. Estimates of the cost of job loss are developed for Australia for the period 1973 to 1992. Two methods of estimating the cost of job loss are presented in this article. The first method is the conditional cost of job loss which refers to the loss in income an employed person would incur over a given period of time if they became unemployed. In Australia, the conditional cost of job loss rose sharply in the mid 1980s and again in the early 1990s because of a marked increase in the average duration of unemployment which more than offset a slight increase in the net replacement ratio (that is, the ratio of unemployment income to wage income). The second cost of job loss measure we estimate is the expected cost of job loss. This measure refers to the difference between the expected income stream of workers and the income stream associated with continued certain employment. We interpret the expected cost of job loss as an indicator of the bargaining strength of workers.     

LABOR EARNINGS AND HOUSEHOLD INCOME MOBILITY IN REUNIFIED GERMANY: A COMPARISON OF THE EASTERN AND WESTERN STATES

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we compare income mobility of persons from the eastern and western states of Germany between 1990 and 1995. We consider income mobility between consecutive years and between the first and the final year of this time period. We find that gross individual labor income mobility was much higher in the east than in the west during the first years after reunification, but that this difference has become much smaller until 1995. Changing to measures that reflect economic well-being more accurately, we observe that gross equivalent labor income mobility and net equivalent income mobility initially were also much higher in the eastern states than in the western states, but converged over time as well. This convergence has been particularly strong for net equivalent income mobility, suggesting that the social protection system has greatly reduced mobility risks associated with the transformation process in the eastern states of Germany.     

STUDENT OUTCOMES AT UNIVERSITY IN AUSTRALIA: A QUANTILE REGRESSION APPROACH*

Students’ success during their first year at university is largely influenced by their university entrance score. Personal characteristics and secondary school characteristics also impact on success. This paper uses quantile regression to investigate how the effects of these factors vary along the grade distribution. It finds that the factors which influence grades have a more pronounced impact on the success of low‐achieving students than on that of high‐achieving students. These results have implications for student selection and also for the way scholarships may be used to attract talented high school students.     

Sri Lankan households a decade after the Indian Ocean tsunami

This study estimates the causal effect of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on household consumption and income in Sri Lanka 8 years after the event, using a difference‐in‐differences methodology and extensive household survey data. The analysis finds a strong association between the area‐wide tsunami disaster shock and increases in household income and consumption in the long term. The increase in consumption is much smaller than the observed increase in income; while the increase in income is mostly observed in nonagricultural wage income (and a decline in agricultural income). We also find that households in high‐income regions and lower‐damage districts experienced a much better recovery, in terms of income, than those in poorer regions or those districts that experienced more destruction. Deviating from the common observation on short‐term adverse impacts of catastrophic disasters in low‐ and middle‐income countries, these results are suggestive of a potential for long‐lasting and more successful recovery scenarios. Still, Sri Lanka received a very large amount of external assistance post‐tsunami—an amount that may not be replicable elsewhere. It is likely that this massive inflow of assistance, further helped by the end of the armed conflict in 2009, has contributed significantly to this relatively successful recovery.     

论大学生就业适应性的提升——区域性就业系列研究之三

当前,大学生的就业问题引起了社会各界的高度重视,大学生就业适应性的高低已经成为影响大学生就业的一个重要因素。为此,如何提升大学生的就业适应性,为大学生就业创造更多的就业机会,这是摆在我们面前的严峻问题。为了提升大学生的就业适应性,我们必须从学生、高校、企业和政府等四个层面来加以落实,主要措施包括：一是学生要转变就业观念,确立大学生正确的就业观;二是高校要加快教育教学改革,提高大学生的就业竞争力;三是企业要提供稳定的实习基地,提高大学生的实践能力;四是政府要强化管理职能,切实提高大学生就业能力。     

EFFICIENCY AND EQUITY IMPLICATIONS OF CHARGING NONRESIDENTS FULL‐COST TUITIONS

With fixed costs and a break‐even constraint describing a public university, tuition and subsidy structures are endogenously determined that maximize constrained welfare, defined as students' value (net consumers' surplus) minus the taxpayer appropriation. Requiring nonresidents to pay full‐cost tuitions introduces relative deviations in demand that lead to efficiency losses and income transfers. To measure these effects, demand and cost expressions are developed to replicate standard decentralized budgeting frameworks for the University of Iowa and Iowa State University. Efficiency losses associated with requiring nonresidents to pay fully allocated costs are modest (2%–6%) compared to orders of magnitude larger distributional transfers from nonresidents to residents and taxpayers. (JEL I22, I28)     

Individual teacher incentives and student performance

This paper is the first to systematically document the relationship between individual teacher performance incentives and student achievement using the United States data. We combine data from the National Education Longitudinal Survey on schools, students, and their families with our own survey conducted in 2000 regarding the use of teacher incentives. This survey on teacher incentives has unique data on frequency and magnitude of merit raises and bonuses, teacher evaluation, and teacher termination. We find that test scores are higher in schools that offer individual financial incentives for good performance. Moreover, the estimated relationship between the presence of merit pay in teacher compensation and student test scores is strongest in schools that may have the least parental oversight. The association between teacher incentives and student performance could be due to better schools adopting teacher incentives or to teacher incentives eliciting more effort from teachers; it is impossible to rule out the former explanation with our cross sectional data.     

The Marginal Costs and Benefits of Redistributing Income and the Willingness to Pay for Status

The effect of status on aggregate welfare is ambiguous for marginal reforms that redistribute income. If average consumption falls, the change in relative consumption increases household utility but reinforces the decrease in household labor supply, raising welfare cost. For parameterizations of the model developed here, reforms which lower average consumption increase aggregate welfare. Numerical calculations show that status increases marginal welfare cost and marginal net benefit for a demogrant reform. Redistributing to high income households may increase aggregate welfare depending on the definition of average consumption and if the willingness to pay for status increases with income.