PARENTS’ EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND,SUBJECTS “GOOD‐AT” IN SCHOOL AND INCOME: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY*

We analyze the effects of studying mathematics and of parents’ academic profile on the annual labour income of their children in later life. Data was obtained from graduates of departments of economics at major private universities in Japan. They show that respondents who are good at mathematics (and English) have a higher average income, and that the more educated the parents, the more children tend to excel in mathematics.     

Poverty,undernutrition and vulnerability in rural India: role of rural public works and food for work programmes

This paper analyses the effects of access to Rural Public Works (RPW) or Food for Work programme (FFW) on consumption poverty, vulnerability and undernutrition in India using the large household data sets constructed by the National Sample Survey for 1993 and 2004. The treatment-effects model is used to take account of sample selection bias in evaluating the effects of RPW in 1993 or FFW in 2004 on poverty. We have found significant and negative effects of participation in RPW and the Food for Work Programme on poverty, undernutrition (e.g. protein) and vulnerability in 1993 and 2004.     

The Dynamics of Poverty and the Promotion of Transition from Non‐Regular to Regular Employment in Japan: Economic Effects of Minimum Wage Revision and Job Training Support

Comparison between Japan and other advanced countries shows that the relative poverty rate is high in Japan, and that many of the poor households are those with a non‐regular worker. As for mobility between income classes, the proportion of households remaining in the poor class for a long period of time in Japan is close to the average for EU countries. The panel estimation of its effect on wages shows that the raising of the minimum wage is statistically significantly associated with an increase in wages of non‐regular workers, in particular, female, but does not seem to decrease employment. The result shows that for male non‐regular workers, firm‐provided training promotes their transition to regular employment, and that for female non‐regular workers, occupational training promotes their transition to regular employment at different firms.     

Higher Education in the United States: Laissez-Faire,Differentiation, and Research

The U.S. higher education system stands out in three dimensions. First, it has the highest number of leading research universities. Second, it displays significant differentiation: multiple types of institutions offer services that differ in cost, prestige, etc. Third, it has a laissez-faire/free-market orientation: private and public entities are free to open schools and compete; essentially all schools enjoy substantial autonomy. This paper makes the case that these features are systematically related. The development of the American higher education market—which allowed market forces to operate and lacked centralized planning—contributed to the emergence of differentiation and a set of leading research universities.     

Transforming Malaysia's Higher Education: Policies and Progress

Malaysia's higher education sector has a substantial number and diverse types of public and private providers, which have contributed toward improving access. Over time, with improved access, there are increasing policy efforts directed toward improving the quality of higher education to meet the desired human capital needed for advancing economic development. This paper assesses three key areas that have been undertaken to improve the quality of higher education, their measurements, achievements, outstanding challenges, and ensuing implications on future policy directions. The key performance indicators used for monitoring quality improvements show that some targets have been achieved. A review of the approach used to measure performance and a consolidation of the sector are needed for further quality improvement.     

Schooling as a Lottery: Racial Differences in School Advancement in Urban South Africa

This paper analyzes the large racial differences in progress through secondary school in South Africa. Using recently collected longitudinal data we find that grade advancement is strongly associated with scores on a baseline literacy and numeracy test. In grades 8-11 the effect of these scores on grade progression is much stronger for white and coloured students than for African students, while there is no racial difference in the impact of the scores on passing the nationally standardized grade 12 matriculation exam. We develop a stochastic model of grade repetition that generates predictions consistent with these results. The model predicts that a larger stochastic component in the link between learning and measured performance will generate higher enrollment, higher failure rates, and a weaker link between ability and grade progression. The results suggest that grade progression in African schools is poorly linked to actual ability and learning. The results point to the importance of considering the stochastic component of grade repetition in analyzing school systems with high failure rates.     

Education, segregation and marital sorting: theory and an application to the UK

This paper presents a model of the intergenerational transmission of education and marital sorting. Parents matter both because of their household income and because their human capital determines the distribution of a child's disutility from making an effort to become skilled. We show that an increase in segregation has potentially ambiguous effects on the proportion of individuals that become skilled in the steady state, and hence on marital sorting, the personal and household income distribution, and welfare. We calibrate the steady state of our model to UK statistics. We find that an increase in the correlation of spouses in their years of education will bring about a small increase in the proportion of skilled individuals when the relative supply of skilled individuals is variable at the family level and a decrease when this supply is fixed. Ex-ante utility (of an unborn individual) increases in the first case and decreases in the second. The welfare effect of increased sorting is negative for unskilled individuals and positive for skilled individuals. Increased segregation always leads to an increase in welfare inequality between skilled and unskilled individuals.     

Is Extending Compulsory Schooling Alone Enough to Raise Earnings? Evidence from French and British Compulsory Schooling Laws*

In this paper, I compare two reforms that raised the minimum school‐leaving age to 16 in France (1967) and in England and Wales (1972). Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that while the reform in England and Wales led to a 6?7 percent increase in hourly wages per additional year of compulsory schooling, the impact of the change to French law was close to zero. The results suggest that the major difference between the two reforms was that the fraction of individuals holding no qualifications dropped sharply after the introduction of the new minimum school‐leaving age in England and Wales, whereas it remained unchanged in France.     

The Cultural Revolution and returns to schooling in China: Estimates based on twins

This paper investigates the returns to schooling in China for the Cultural Revolution (CR) cohort and the non-CR cohort using a new set of Chinese twins data. Applying the fixed-effects model on twins data, which helps to control for the genetic and family background effects, this paper examines whether the CR cohort has smaller economic returns to schooling than the non-CR cohort. The empirical results in this paper indicate that the Cultural Revolution has not played a significantly adverse role in the returns to schooling.