Easy A
Immigration and spending on public education: California, 1970-2000
Daniele Coen-Pirani
Journal of Public Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The evolution of education spending in California has received plenty of attention from both academics and practitioners after this state's education finance reform in the 1970's. This paper quantifies the contribution of immigration to the relative decline in elementary and secondary public education spending per student in California in the period 1970-2000. A quantitative model of school choice and voting over public education is used to perform the counterfactual experiments of interest. The model predicts that education spending per student in California would have been 24 percent higher in the year 2000 if U.S. immigration had been restricted to its 1970 level.
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Back to School Blues: Seasonality of Youth Suicide and the Academic Calendar
Benjamin Hansen & Matthew Lang
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research has found evidence of academic benefits to longer school years. This paper investigates one of the many potential costs of increased school year length, documenting a dramatic decrease in youth suicide in months when school is not in session. A detailed analysis does not find that other potential explanations such as economic conditions, weather or seasonal affeective disorder patterns can explain the decrease. This evidence suggests that youth may face increased stress and decreased mental health when school is in session.
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Election Timing and the Electoral Influence of Interest Groups
Sarah Anzia
Journal of Politics, April 2011, Pages 412-427
Abstract:
It is an established fact that off-cycle elections attract lower voter turnout than on-cycle elections. I argue that the decrease in turnout that accompanies off-cycle election timing creates a strategic opportunity for organized interest groups. Members of interest groups with a large stake in an election outcome turn out at high rates regardless of election timing, and their efforts to mobilize and persuade voters have a greater impact when turnout is low. Consequently, policy made by officials elected in off-cycle elections should be more favorable to the dominant interest group in a polity than policy made by officials elected in on-cycle elections. I test this theory using data on school district elections in the United States, in which teacher unions are the dominant interest group. I find that districts with off-cycle elections pay experienced teachers over 3% more than districts that hold on-cycle elections.
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No Child Left Behind: Subsidized Child Care and Children's Long-Run Outcomes
Tarjei Havnes & Magne Mogstad
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, May 2011, Pages 97-129
Abstract:
Many developed countries are currently considering a move toward subsidized, widely accessible child care or preschool. However, studies on how large-scale provision of child care affects child development are scarce, and focused on short-run outcomes. We analyze a large-scale expansion of subsidized child care in Norway, addressing the impact on children's long-run outcomes. Our precise and robust difference-in-differences estimates show that subsidized child care had strong positive effects on children's educational attainment and labor market participation, and also reduced welfare dependency. Subsample analyses indicate that girls and children with low-educated mothers benefit the most from child care.
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Michael Hilmer & Christiana Hilmer
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research finds that both Ph.D. program quality and relative dissertation advisor prominence are positively related to early-career publishing success. We provide insight into the relative importance of those factors by estimating early-career research productivity functions that: (1) allow relative dissertation advisor prominence to vary while holding Ph.D. program quality constant and (2) allow Ph.D. program quality to vary while holding relative dissertation advisor prominence constant. Results for a sample of 2,983 economics Ph.D. recipients suggest that: (1) the estimated marginal effects of relative dissertation advisor prominence do not vary systematically within top Ph.D. programs and (2) students graduating from a program-switching advisor's higher-ranked program publish significantly more than those graduating from his or her lower-ranked program. Combined, these results might suggest that the observed correlation between dissertation advisor prominence and early-career publishing results more from students working with prominent advisors possessing the higher innate potential required to gain admission to top programs rather than strictly because they work with the more prominent advisor.
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Accountability Policies and Readiness for College for Diverse Students
Glenda Droogsma Musoba
Educational Policy, May 2011, Pages 451-487
Abstract:
Following a national trend, state policy has focused on accountability measures such as high-stakes high school exit exams, standards-based reforms, and graduation curriculum requirements. Yet the effect of these accountability policies on students' readiness for college is relatively untested. In a multilevel model (students within states), the study asked, "Are accountability school reform policies positively or negatively associated with readiness for college for students from different ethnic and income groups?" Exit exam policies and degree of implementation of state standards were not significantly related to academic readiness as measured by composite SAT scores. Math graduation numeric curriculum requirements were negatively related to SAT score for Whites.
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Peter Muennig, Gretchen Johnson & Elizabeth Ty Wilde
American Journal of Epidemiology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Limiting the number of students per classroom in the early years has been shown to improve educational outcomes. Improved education is, in turn, hypothesized to improve health. The authors examined whether smaller class sizes affect mortality through age 29 years and whether cognitive factors play a role. They used data from the Project Student Teacher Achievement Ratio, a 4-year multicenter randomized controlled trial of reduced class sizes in Tennessee involving 11,601 students between 1985 and 1989. Children randomized to small classes (13-17 students) experienced improved measures of cognition and academic performance relative to those assigned to regular classes (22-25 students). As expected, these cognitive measures were significantly inversely associated with mortality rates (P < 0.05). However, through age 29 years, students randomized to small class size nevertheless experienced higher mortality rates than those randomized to regular size classes (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.58, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.07, 2.32). The groups at risk included males (HR = 1.73, 95% CI: 1.05, 2.85), whites/Asians (HR = 1.68, 95% CI: 1.04, 2.72), and higher income students (HR = 2.20, 95% CI: 1.06, 4.57). The authors speculate that small classes might produce behavior changes that increase mortality through young adulthood that are stronger than the protective effects of enhanced cognition.
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Donald Green et al.
Journal of Politics, April 2011, Pages 463-476
Abstract:
For decades, scholars have argued that education causes greater support for civil liberties by increasing students' exposure to political knowledge and constitutional norms, such as due process and freedom of expression. Support for this claim comes exclusively from observational evidence, principally from cross-sectional surveys. This paper presents the first large-scale experimental test of this proposition. More than 1000 students in 59 high school classrooms were randomly assigned to an enhanced civics curriculum designed to promote awareness and understanding of constitutional rights and civil liberties. The results show that students in the enhanced curriculum classes displayed significantly more knowledge in this domain than students in conventional civics classes. However, we find no corresponding change in the treatment group's support for civil liberties, a finding that calls into question the hypothesis that knowledge and attitudes are causally connected.
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Children's human rights education as a counter to social disadvantage: A case study from England
Katherine Covell, Brian Howe & Jillian Polegato
Educational Research, Spring 2011, Pages 193-206
Background: Children's rights education in schools has many social and educational benefits. Among them are a deeper understanding of rights and social responsibility, an improved school climate, and greater school engagement and achievement.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess whether children's rights education has the power to improve educational outcomes for socially disadvantaged children in particular.
Sample: A sample of three primary schools was included in the study. These were drawn from a wider sample of English schools participating in the Hampshire Education Local Authority's Rights, Respect and Responsibility initiative (RRR).
Design and methods: Building on a longitudinal study, we compared Year 6 children in three schools that varied in the degree to which they had implemented RRR: one in a disadvantaged area that has fully implemented RRR (School 1); one in a disadvantaged area that is now beginning to implement RRR (School 2); and another in a relatively advantaged area that has partially implemented RRR (School 3). We assessed levels of school engagement, optimism, self-concept, parental involvement, school problems, education and career aspirations, and participation in school and community.
Results: Compared with their peers in the other two schools, students attending School 1 reported significantly higher levels of school engagement, fewer social problems, greater optimism and higher self-concepts.
Conclusions: The findings reported here, together with previous data, suggest that fully implemented children's human rights education, among its other benefits, may be one means of narrowing the gap between socially disadvantaged children and their more advantaged peers.
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Effects of class size on alternative educational outcomes across disciplines
Dorothy Cheng
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
This is the first study to use self-reported ratings of student learning, instructor recommendations, and course recommendations as the outcome measure to estimate class size effects, doing so across 24 disciplines. Fixed-effects models controlling for heterogeneous courses and instructors reveal that increasing enrollment has negative and significant effects on student satisfaction in Sociology, Political Science, Computer Science and Engineering, and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Educational outcomes in Linguistics, Psychology, Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Math, Physics Cognitive Sciences, Visual Arts, History, and Philosophy are unaffected by class size. Other disciplines, including Economics, have inconclusive findings. No discipline benefits from increasing enrollment.
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Why Does Height Matter for Educational Attainment? Evidence from German Children
Francesco Cinnirella, Marc Piopiunik & Joachim Winter
Economics & Human Biology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Height is positively associated with educational attainment. We investigate the mechanisms behind this relationship using data on German pre-teen students. We show that taller children are more likely to enroll in Gymnasium, the most academic secondary school track, and that primary school teachers provide more favorable school track decisions to taller students. We find that a 1 cm increase in height is associated with a 1.6 percentage points increase in the probability of attending Gymnasium. This holds even when controlling for academic achievement and parental background. In addition, we present evidence that height and social skills are positively associated already at age 2-3. We propose the association between height and noncognitive skills as a possible explanation of the height-school premium, even if discrimination cannot be ruled out entirely.
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Incentives and the Effects of Publication Lags on Life Cycle Research Productivity in Economics
John Conley et al.
NBER Working Paper, May 2011
Abstract:
We investigate how increases in publication delays have affected the life-cycle of publications of recent Ph.D. graduates in economics. We construct a panel dataset of 14,271 individuals who were awarded Ph.D.s between 1986 and 2000 in US and Canadian economics departments. For this population of scholars, we amass complete records of publications in peer reviewed journals listed in the JEL (a total of 368,672 observations). We find evidence of significantly diminished productivity in recent relative to earlier cohorts when productivity of an individual is measured by the number of AER equivalent publications. Diminished productivity is less evident when number of AER equivalent pages is used instead. Our findings are consistent with earlier empirical findings of increasing editorial delays, decreasing acceptance rates at journals, and a trend toward longer manuscripts. This decline in productivity is evident in both graduates of top thirty and non-top thirty ranked economics departments and may have important implications for what should constitute a tenurable record. We also find that the research rankings of the faculty do not line up with the research quality of their students in many cases.
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Price premiums for journal quality and journal governance: Evidence from economics journals
Yuqing Zheng & Harry Kaiser
Economics Letters, July 2011, Pages 125-127
Abstract:
We quantify the impacts of journal governance (for-profit status, society affiliation, and publisher), quality (impact factor and citations), and costs on the institutional subscription prices of the core economics journals. Empirical results show that quality has a much smaller influence.
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Daniel Krymkowski & Beth Mintz
Race and Social Problems, March 2011, Pages 1-12
Abstract:
In this paper, we examine whether investments in higher education have contributed to changes in occupational inequality by focusing on the impact of college completion rates on movement into desirable occupations between 1983 and 2002. Since forces generating inequality vary by gender, race, and ethnicity, we examine trends for white, black, and Hispanic men and women in our study. Utilizing Ordinary Least Squares Regression on data from 20 Current Population Surveys, we find a modest decrease in both gender and racial inequality in access to desirable occupations and an increase in inequality between Hispanics and members of the other groups. College completion accounts for the progress made by white women and for the declines among Hispanic men. It does not explain changes for African Americans, either between men and women or when compared to whites.