School tracking and intergenerational income mobility: Evidence from the Finnish comprehensive school reform

This paper estimates the effect of a major education reform on intergenerational income mobility. The Finnish comprehensive school reform of 1972–1977 replaced the old two-track school system with a uniform nine-year comprehensive school and shifted the selection of students to vocational and academic tracks from age 11 to age 16. We estimate the effect of this reform on the intergenerational income elasticity using a representative sample of males born between 1960 and 1966. The identification strategy relies on a differences-in-differences approach and exploits the fact that the reform was implemented gradually across the country during a six-year period. The results indicate that the reform reduced the intergenerational income elasticity by 23% from the pre-reform elasticity of 0.30 to post-reform elasticity of 0.23.  

Skill-Specific rather than General Education: A Reason for US–Europe Growth Differences?

In this paper, we develop a model of technology adoption and economic growth in which households optimally obtain either a concept-based, general education or a skill-specific, vocational education. General education is costly to obtain, but enables workers to operate new production technologies. Firms weigh the cost of adopting and operating new technologies against increased profits and optimally choose the level of adoption. We show that an economy whose policies favor vocational education will grow slower in equilibrium than one that favors general education. More importantly, the gap between their growth rates will increase with the growth rate of available technology. By characterizing the optimal Ramsey education policy we also demonstrate that the optimal subsidy for general education increases with the growth rate of available technology. Our theory suggests that European education policies that favored specialized, vocational education might have worked well, both in terms of growth rates and welfare, during the 1960s and 1970s when available technologies changed slowly. However, in the information age of the 1980s and 1990s when new technologies emerged at a more rapid pace, they might have contributed to an increased growth gap relative to the United States.  

影响大学生“村官”留村任职的调查研究——基于安徽省的实地调研

通过问卷和访谈法对安徽省250名大学生＂村官＂进行调研研究,了解大学生＂村官＂的任职现状,分析影响大学生＂村官＂留村任职的因素,在此基础上提出从大学生＂村官＂自身出发,加强思想政治教育工作和从外部客观条件出发,调整完善村官相关政策的建议和对策。  

论我国的外语教育规划

外语教育规划是国家制定的外语教育政策,对外语教育的发展起着重要的作用。外语教育规划的缺失会带来外语教育发展的盲目性。我国的外语教育深受社会环境的影响,语种的选择随着国家的政治经济的发展起伏不定,在价值取向上在不同的历史时期呈现不同的特征,但总体上以满足社会的政治、经济、文化为核心。借鉴国外的经验,合理规划我国的外语教育是促进外语教育改革和发展的有效途径。  

我国实现教育公平的几点思考

我国由计划经济体制向市场经济体制转型过程中,社会财富的分配方式发生了巨大变化,人与人之间在社会财富的占有量和占有方式等方面出现了一定差异,公平遂成为社会财富分配中的突出问题。教育亦是如此,近年来,教育公平引起了人们的极大关注。因此,就教育公平定义、理论研究和教育公平现状进行了相应的论述,并就教育公平的对策谈了设想。  

Assessing the effect of educational programs on public schools’ performance

This paper provides evidence on the effectiveness in the implementation of an educational program which offered public schools in Catalonia (Spain) the opportunity to improve the quality of educational provision. We employ a difference-in-differences approach on rich balanced panel data of public schools. The results confirm that the program did effectively improve students’ achievement and reduce absenteeism, albeit not for all modules and school types or across all years. Our results highlight that it is important to condition the delivery of resources upon specific academic goals depending on the characteristics of the treated population. Additionally, program results suggest the need to enhance educational program design in order to get better evaluation feedback.

Abbreviations: DoE: Department of Education; EU: European Union; PMQCE: Projecte per a la Millora de la Qualitat dels Centres Educatius; DiD: Differences-in-Differences; SFDC: Schools Facing Disadvantaged Conditions; OECD: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development; REA: Regional Educational Authority  

Inequality and mobility

Acknowledging that wage inequality and intergenerational mobility are strongly interrelated, this paper presents a model in which both are jointly determined. The model enables us to study how inequality and mobility are affected by exogenous changes and what determines their correlation. A main implication of the model is that differences in the amount of public subsidies to education and educational quality produce cross-country patterns with a negative correlation between inequality and mobility. Differences in the labor market, like differences in skill-biased technology or wage compression instead produce a positive correlation. The predictions of the model are found to be consistent with various empirical observations on mobility and inequality.  

Preschool for all? Enrollment and maternal labour supply implications of a bilingual preschool policy

ABSTRACT

Previous research supports the effectiveness of preschool in various contexts, yet there is limited evidence whether universal-type preschool policies induce changes in enrollment. While certain states have enacted universal preschool policies, some have also considered bilingual preschool mandates, either as a supplementary or stand-alone policy, requiring schools to open up bilingual classrooms for children from non-English speaking families. The question of whether bilingual preschool policies can induce enrollment and close achievement gaps between English learners and English speakers is particularly important today for urban cities and states with large immigrant populations. In this study, I exploit exogenous variation from the first bilingual prekindergarten mandate in Illinois to estimate the causal effects on preschool enrollment and maternal labour supply of recently immigrated and Hispanic families. Utilizing a difference-in-differences strategy, estimates suggest significant effects on preschool enrollment between 18% and 20% and no effects of increasing maternal labour supply in Illinois. Estimates are robust to various specifications, control groups, and timeframes. I use the analysis to further discuss whether universal preschool policies are designed sufficiently for access and inclusion of various student types, and contribute to our understanding on the effectiveness of using childcare subsidies to increase the welfare of low-income families.  

Is external research assessment associated with convergence or divergence of research quality across universities and disciplines? Evidence from the PBRF process in New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Performance-based research evaluations have been adopted in several countries both to measure research quality in higher education institutions and as a basis for the allocation of funding across institutions. Much attention has been given to evaluating whether such schemes have increased the quality and quantity of research. This paper examines whether the introduction of the New Zealand Performance-Based Research Fund process produced convergence or divergence in measured research quality across universities and disciplines between the 2003 and 2012 assessments. Two convergence measures are obtained. One, referred to as β-convergence, relates to the relationship between changes in average quality and the initial quality level. The second concept, referred to as σ-convergence, relates to the changes in the dispersion in average research quality over time. Average quality scores by discipline and university were obtained from individual researcher data, revealing substantial β- and σ-convergence in research quality over the period. The hypothesis of uniform rates of convergence across almost all universities and disciplines is supported. The results provide insights into the incentives created by performance-based funding schemes.  

Selecting successful students? Undergraduate grades as an admission criterion

In Europe’s reformed education system, universities may be forced by law to consider undergraduate grade point average (UGPA) as the primary admission criterion in the selection of graduate students. In this article, we investigate whether UGPA predicts graduate student performance in order to discuss its usefulness as an admission criterion. In our theoretical framework, we show that undergraduate students may choose slower study progress in favour of receiving higher grades and conclude that UGPA is a relatively good (weak) predictor for graduate grade point average (study progress). Having data from a cohort of students whose selection was in clear conflict with the legal requirement, we empirically confirm our theoretical predictions by exploiting a unique opportunity for assessing educational policies. Discussion of our findings leads to some important conclusions concerning the Bologna reforms and the lawmakers’ idea of giving some independence to universities, but not too much of it.