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Unintended consequences of school accountability reforms: Public versus private schools Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2024-03-09 Michael Coelli, Gigi Foster
In this paper, we show that the public provision of information on Australian schools’ average national test score outcomes via the website, launched in 2010, resulted in poorly performing schools testing fewer students in subsequent years. This increased non-participation in testing was driven primarily by formal parental withdrawal, and poorly performing students were much more likely to be withdrawn
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Gender and choices in higher education Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2024-03-01 Anne Boring, Jennifer Brown
We examine the choices of undergraduate students at a French university who are competing for seats at foreign universities to fulfill a mandatory exchange program requirement. We find that average- and high-ability female students request universities that are worse-ranked than their male peers. A survey eliciting students’ preferences suggests that male students prioritize the academic characteristics
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The effects of charter school entry on the supply of teachers from university-based education programs Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2024-02-23 Feng Chen, Douglas N. Harris, Mary Penn
Research on charter schools tends to focus on direct and immediate effects on student outcomes. However, there may be unintended indirect effects on, for example, the teacher labor market. Charter schools tend to hire teachers with fewer traditional teaching credentials, which may reduce the equilibrium quantity of teachers who have traditional credentials and seek to make teaching a career. We test
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Subtraction by addition: Do private scholarship awards lead to financial aid displacement? Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2024-02-09 Danielle Lowry, Lindsay C. Page, Aizat Nurshatayeva, Jennifer Iriti
Award displacement occurs when one type of financial aid award directly contributes to the change in the quantity of another award. We explore whether postsecondary institutions displaced awards in response to the Pittsburgh Promise scholarship by capitalizing on the doubling of the maximum Promise amount in 2012. We use de-identified student-level data on each Promise recipient's actual cost of attendance
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How do public schools respond to competition? Evidence from a charter school expansion Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2024-02-06 Zachary Tobin
Despite the rapid increase in alternative schooling options across the United States in recent years, spillover effects of competition on public school students are not well understood. Standard arguments in support of school choice claim that competition creates incentives for incumbent schools to improve academic quality, but I argue that these schools may respond through increased provision of services
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Closing the gap: Effect of a gender quota on women’s access to education in Afghanistan Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Rafiuddin Najam
Affirmative action is a promising solution to the crucial challenge of bridging the gap in women’s access to higher education in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). I use public universities’ matriculation data from 2013–2018 and difference-in-differences estimators to examine the causal impact of a gender quota on women’s educational opportunities in Afghanistan. The quota increased the proportion
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The impact of combining performance-management tools and training with diagnostic feedback in public schools: Experimental evidence from Argentina Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Rafael de Hoyos, Sharnic Djaker, Alejandro J. Ganimian, Peter A. Holland
Providing principals with low-stakes information on their students’ test scores has been shown to improve school management, instruction, and achievement in upper-middle income countries. We evaluate this approach by itself (“diagnostic feedback” or T1) and combined with tools and training (“performance management” or T2) through an experiment in 396 public primary schools in Salta, Argentina. After
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Predicting postsecondary attendance by family income in the United States using multilevel regression with poststratification Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2024-01-25 Benjamin T. Skinner, William R. Doyle
Despite billions of dollars spent yearly to fund higher education for low-income youth, no government agency tracks how many low-income young people attend college by state. Whereas proxy measures like Pell grant receipt address the number of already enrolled low-income students, direct estimates from U.S. Census surveys likely overestimate low-income youth enrollment due to their design. Using Bayesian
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Study abroad programmes and student outcomes: Evidence from Erasmus Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2024-01-25 Silvia Granato, Enkelejda Havari, Gianluca Mazzarella, Sylke V. Schnepf
Exploiting admission thresholds for participating in Erasmus, the most popular higher education study abroad programme in Europe, we implement a regression discontinuity design and show that student mobility does not delay graduation and, in addition, has a positive and significant impact on the final graduation marks of undergraduate students. We find that Erasmus mobility improves graduation results
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Social identity and learning: Adult literacy program in India Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2024-01-22 Sakshi Bhardwaj, Abu S. Shonchoy
The paper examines the effect of social identity on adult learning within a hierarchical social setting— an important yet often understudied issue for effective adult education. We leverage the random matching of students and teachers from a randomized controlled experiment in India, where illiterate adult female learners aged 18–45 were randomly assigned to a literacy program. We find a positive and
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Do public scholarships crowd out parental transfers? Evidence at the intensive margin from France Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2024-01-05 Sébastien Grobon, François-Charles Wolff
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Are children spending too much time on enrichment activities? Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2024-01-04 Carolina Caetano, Gregorio Caetano, Eric Nielsen
We study the effects of enrichment activities such as reading, homework, and extracurricular lessons on children’s cognitive and non-cognitive skills. We take into consideration the opportunity cost of spending time on enrichment, as it may replace activities such as sleep and socializing. Our study controls for selection on unobservables using a control function approach that leverages the fact that
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The effects of a free universal after-school program on child academic outcomes Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-12-27 Nina Drange, Astrid Marie Jorde Sandsør
After-school programs provide structured care throughout the academic year. In Norway, after-school programs are an integrated part of school, used to extend the school day to a full working day. Participation is voluntary and is subject to fees paid by parents. In 2016/17, the municipality of Oslo gradually introduced and expanded an offer of free part-time participation in its after-school program
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The effects of online vs in-class testing in moderate-stakes college environments Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-12-26 Andrew J. Hill, Melissa LoPalo
The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in a dramatic move to online education. Although schools and colleges have returned to in-person classes, student and professor interest in online testing in university contexts remains high, given concerns about testing anxiety as well as the considerably lower administrative costs associated with online testing. The modality of testing may have significant consequences
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Bridging the gap: Mismatch effects and catch-up dynamics under a Brazilian college affirmative action program Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-12-12 Rodrigo Oliveira, Alei Santos, Edson Severnini
Affirmative action in higher education can lead to mismatch, where students admitted through preferential treatment struggle academically due to inadequate preparation before college. Although some students may face initial challenges, by providing access to quality education for talented individuals who might have otherwise been overlooked due to systemic disadvantages, these programs may enable students
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The impact of incentivizing training on students’ outcomes Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-11-27 Tatiana Paredes, Almudena Sevilla
This paper studies the effect on students’ scores of incentivizing in-service teacher training in a system that conditions teacher promotions to in-service training take-up. In Ecuador, teachers need to pass a compulsory knowledge test with a minimum score and undergo substantial training to qualify for a promotion. We use a regression discontinuity design to identify the causal effect of incentivizing
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Higher education responses to accountability Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-11-30 Anaely Machado, Rafael Terra, Maria Tannuri-Pianto
This paper estimates the impact of accountability scores on Brazilian higher education. We implement a regression discontinuity design to explore a natural experiment resulting from the federal rules for assigning quality levels to undergraduate programs. We test whether program quality is sensitive to negative reinforcement, such as punishments imposed when a minimum threshold is not attained. The
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Learning losses during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Mexico Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-11-22 Enrique Alasino, María José Ramírez, Mauricio Romero, Norbert Schady, David Uribe
This paper presents evidence of large learning losses and partial recovery in Guanajuato, Mexico, during and after the school closures related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Learning losses were estimated using administrative data from enrollment records and by comparing the results of a census-based standardized test administered to approximately 20,000 5th and 6th graders in: (a) March 2020 (a few weeks
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Measurements of performance gaps are sensitive to the level of test stakes: Evidence from PISA and a Field Experiment Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-11-17 Yuval Ofek-Shanny
Educational performance gaps are a long-lasting issue of concern in many countries. Many times, these gaps are measured using low-stakes tests that are especially sensitive to motivation and test engagement. I conduct a field experiment in 7 Israeli Jewish and Arab middle schools and use data from PISA 2015 to investigate whether part of the performance gaps between ethnic minority and majority groups
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The rising influence of family background on early school performance Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-11-14 Simen Markussen, Knut Røed
We use administrative data from Norway to examine recent trends in the association between parents’ prime age earnings rank and offspring's educational performance rank by age 15/16. We show that the intergenerational correlation between these two ranks has increased over the past decades, and that offspring from economically disadvantaged families have fallen behind. This has happened despite public
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Peers’ race in adolescence and voting behavior Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-11-10 Maria Polipciuc, Frank Cörvers, Raymond Montizaan
Using a representative longitudinal survey of U.S. teenagers, we investigate how peer racial composition in high school affects individual turnout of young adults. We exploit across-cohort, within-school differences in peer racial composition. One within-school standard deviation increase in the racial diversity index leads to a 2.3 percent increase in the probability to be registered to vote seven
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Test-based accountability and educational equity: Breaking through local district politics? Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-10-31 John J. Gregg, Stéphane Lavertu
A central premise of the U.S. No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was that test-based accountability systems would break through local politics and lead districts to prioritize the needs of disadvantaged students. Yet, no research examines the equity-related effects of NCLB’s district accountability system. Focusing on a state with rich data, we find that negative ratings (which put districts at higher
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Longer schooling with grade retention: The effects of increasing the school leaving age on dropping out and labour market success Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-10-31 Anna Adamecz
This paper examines the effects of increasing the compulsory school leaving age from 16 to 18 in Hungary using a difference-in-regression-discontinuities design empirical strategy. While the reform increased the length of schooling, it did not decrease the probability of dropping out of secondary school, either on average or among the most at-risk group of Roma ethnic minority students. Due to grade
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School turnaround in a pandemic: An examination of the outsized implications of COVID-19 on low-performing turnaround schools, districts, and their communities Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-10-27 Erica Harbatkin, Katharine O. Strunk, Aliyah McIlwain
Turnaround schools and districts that were charged with making rapid and dramatic improvements before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic faced considerable challenges carrying out improvement efforts during pandemic schooling. Using survey and administrative data collected during the pandemic, we document some of the ways in which students and educators in Michigan's turnaround schools and districts
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Pathways to progress: The complementarity of bicycles and road infrastructure for girls’ education Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-10-24 Moritz Seebacher
In which settings can bicycles help to improve girls’ education in low-income countries? This paper analyzes the complementarity between all-weather roads and a bicycle program in India aimed at increasing girls’ secondary school enrollment. Using a triple-difference strategy, I find that the program benefits girls living 3–10 km away from schools with all-weather road connections, increasing their
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Discrimination against community college transfer students — Evidence from a labor market audit study Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-10-22 Zhengren Zhu
Anecdotal evidence suggests widespread discrimination against community college transfer students, despite their prevalence among bachelor’s degree holders in the US. I send out fictitious job applications and conduct a labor market audit study to examine such discrimination. All applicants have bachelor’s degrees, and a random subset are transfer students who attended community colleges for their
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Improving school management in low and middle income countries: A systematic review Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-10-17 Gautam Anand, Aishwarya Atluri, Lee Crawfurd, Todd Pugatch, Ketki Sheth
Improving school quality in low and middle income countries (LMICs) is a global priority. One way to improve quality may be to improve the management skills of school leaders. In this systematic review, we analyze the impact of interventions targeting school leaders’ management practices on student learning. We begin by describing the characteristics and responsibilities of school leaders using data
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College major choice and beliefs about relative performance: An experimental intervention to understand gender gaps in STEM Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-10-12 Stephanie Owen
Beliefs about relative academic performance may shape college major choice and explain gender gaps in STEM, but little causal evidence exists. To test whether these beliefs are malleable and salient enough to change behavior, I run a randomized experiment with 5,700 undergraduates across seven introductory STEM courses. Providing relative performance information shrinks gender gaps in biased beliefs
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Beyond the threshold: The implications for pupil achievement of reforming school performance metrics Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-10-01 Simon Burgess, Dave Thomson
We study the effects of a major change to the school accountability system in England. In 2015, the leading published school performance metric was switched from a threshold measure (essentially the fraction of students above a test score level) to an average score measure. Using 7 years of data on all secondary schools in England, we show that this intervention relatively reduced the test scores of
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Tuition fees and the intra-household allocation of schooling: Evidence from Uganda’s Free Primary Education reform Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-09-27 Alfredo Burlando
Many education policies in low income countries impose eligibility limits, and these can generate household responses that distribute educational investments across children. In this paper, I study the effects of eligibility limits in the context of the Universal Primary Education (UPE) reform in Uganda. The program abolished elementary school fees for up to four children per household, with families
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The educational experiences of Indian children during COVID-19 Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-09-28 Alison Andrew, Adam Salisbury
We explore the educational experiences of Indian children during the COVID-19 pandemic, using time-use and household expenditure data from a panel of over 110,000 households with school-aged children. We find that both 12–18-year old's average learning time and their average households’ expenditure on education more than halved following the March 2020 school closures. Both had barely recovered by
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Post-secondary funding and the educational attainment of indigenous students Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-09-28 Maggie E.C. Jones
This paper uses cutbacks to a post-secondary funding program for Indigenous peoples in Canada to understand how changes in the costs of higher education affect the educational attainment and labour market outcomes of Indigenous groups. I exploit exogenous variation in exposure to student aid across cohorts and ethnicities to show that increasing the costs of post-secondary education not only affects
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Liquidity for teachers: Evidence from Teach For America and LinkedIn Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-09-26 Lucas C. Coffman, John J. Conlon, Clayton R. Featherstone, Judd B. Kessler, Jessica Mixon
There are teacher shortages in the U.S. and around the world. In a three-year field experiment with a large teacher placement program, Teach For America (TFA), Coffman et al. (2019) finds that providing upfront liquidity to prospective teachers in financial need dramatically increases the rate at which they start teaching through TFA. In this paper, we combine TFA administrative data, survey data,
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Improving public school productivity: Evidence from model schools in India Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-09-20 G. Naveen Kumar
This paper studies the impact of India’s “model” school program which aimed to provide high quality education to economically disadvantaged students. Model schools combine better infrastructure with more accountability, contract teachers, and lower per-pupil spending than regular public schools. Using a fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design based on entrance exam cutoffs, I find attending a model school
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The impact of federal administrative burdens on college enrollment Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-09-13 Oded Gurantz, Yung-Yu Tsai
Government programs impose eligibility requirements to balance the goals of improving welfare while minimizing waste. We study the impact of eligibility monitoring in the context of Federal Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) submissions, where students may be subject to “verification” requirements that require them to confirm the accuracy of the data. Using a matching on observables design
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Acing the test: Educational effects of the SaberEs test preparation program in Colombia Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-09-09 Christian Posso, Estefanía Saravia, Pablo Uribe
Education in Colombia and Latin America is characterized by significant gaps in the quality of education as measured by standardized test scores. This paper assesses the impact of a Colombian program called SaberEs, which strengthens preparation for standardized cognitive tests such as the high school exit exam in Colombia (Saber 11) for low socioeconomic status students. The program provides competency-based
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Do slum upgrading programs impact school attendance? Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-09-01 Wladimir Zanoni, Paloma Acevedo, Diego A. Guerrero
This study investigates the impact of slum upgrading programs on elementary school attendance, a strong predictor of dropout and adult outcomes. Slum upgrading programs are interventions in impoverished areas that involve building housing, roads, sewerage systems, and installing public lighting. Using administrative data on Uruguayan students, we examine the effects of slum upgrading programs on school
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University peers and career prospects: The impact of university ties on early labor market outcomes Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-08-23 Virág Ilyés, Anna Sebők
By using extensive Hungarian administrative data, this study aims to provide empirical evidence that former university ties strongly influence the labour market outcomes of individuals, even early in their careers. The estimates focus on the early career paths of graduates who obtained a master's degree between 2010 and 2017. As direct information on social contacts is not available in the dataset
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The effects of financial aid on graduation and labor market outcomes: New evidence from matched education-labor data Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-08-20 Veronica Rattini
Financial aid decreases the cost of acquiring additional education. By using Italian administrative and survey data on financial aid recipients and exploiting sharp discontinuities in the amount of aid received, this paper identifies the causal effect of aid generosity on college performance and labor market outcomes. The results show that students facing a higher cost of college earn more credits
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Religion and women: How Waldensians reduced the gender gap Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-08-18 Andrea Berlanda, Paolo Buonanno, Marcello Puca
Does religion affect the gender gap? Using data on inquisition trials to locate medieval Waldensian communities in the Italian municipalities of Piedmont and early 19th-century female literacy rates, we find that municipalities with a history of Waldensian presence display lower levels of the education gender gap, a pattern that persists to the present day. Moreover, women in these municipalities have
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Learning losses from school closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic for Thai kindergartners Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-08-18 Weerachart T. Kilenthong, Khanista Boonsanong, Sartja Duangchaiyoosook, Wasinee Jantorn, Varunee Khruapradit
Using a large-scale school readiness survey in Thailand, this paper presents empirical evidence of learning losses from school closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic for kindergartners. Overall results indicate that school closure during the outbreak of COVID-19 causes significant learning losses in cognitive skills, especially in mathematics and working memory. The negative impact is heterogeneous across
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Student loans, spending, and parental transfers: Insights from a nudge in student loan policy in the Netherlands Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-08-12 Jim Been, Marike Knoef
This paper investigates the effect of student loans on students’ (financial) behavior. For causal identification, we exploit quasi-experimental evidence using a nudge in the take-up of student loans in higher education in the Netherlands. We estimate an instrumental variable (IV) model with a first-stage Difference-in-Differences design. We find that a decline in the default student loan reduced monthly
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Good or bad? Understanding the effects over time of multigrading on child achievement Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-08-12 Gian Paolo Barbetta, Patrick Chuard-Keller, Giuseppe Sorrenti, Gilberto Turati
Multigrading represents the practice of mixing children of different ages in the same classroom. This paper examines the effect of attending a multigrade class in Grade 2 on students’ academic achievement in Grades 2, 5, and 8, respectively, considering Italy as a case study. To address the issue of endogeneity of multigrading (and class size), we adopt an IV identification strategy based on a law
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Women's education, marriage, and fertility outcomes: Evidence from Thailand's compulsory schooling law Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-08-07 Pasita Chaijaroen, Pallavi Panda
Increased education affects market and non-market outcomes. This paper investigates the causal impact of the extension of compulsory education from 6 to 9 years on females’ education, marriage, and fertility outcomes in Thailand. Using data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) and a donut-hole Regression Discontinuity (RD) design, we show that the new law increases lower secondary school
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Full-time schools and educational trajectories: Evidence from high-stakes exams Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-08-07 Francisco Cabrera-Hernández, María Padilla-Romo, Cecilia Peluffo
This paper estimates the effects of extending the school day during elementary school on students’ educational outcomes later in life. The analysis takes place in the context of a large-scale program introduced in 2007 that extended the school day from 4.5 to 8 h in Mexico City’s metropolitan area. The identification strategy leverages cohort-by-cohort variation in full-time enrollment in elementary
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Rockefellers and Goldwaters: The effect of compulsory schooling on voting preferences Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-08-04 Philip DeCicca, Harry Krashinsky, Erik Nesson
Research into the causal impact of formal education on political beliefs and ultimate voting behavior arrives at contradictory results. While some early work, e.g. Dee (2004) finds education induces more socially-liberal views, more recent works suggests that education makes individuals more fiscally conservative. We use quasi-experimental variation in schooling created by compulsory schooling laws
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How to measure student absenteeism in low- and middle-income countries Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-08-04 David K. Evans, Amina Mendez Acosta
Student attendance at school is a necessary condition for learning and for other schooling benefits, yet absenteeism is a significant issue for students in many countries. Policies, programs, and research seeking to reduce absenteeism need to measure it accurately. This article describes seven different methods to measure student absenteeism, all used in at least one of 27 recently published studies
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School resources, peer inputs, and student outcomes in adult education Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-08-04 J. Lucas Tilley
This paper studies a large-scale educational expansion to assess whether shocks to educational inputs affect the academic achievement of adult education students. I analyze the effects of a Swedish program that rapidly doubled enrollment in adult education, thus straining school resources. The program targeted low-educated, unemployed adults aged 25 and older. Therefore, my analysis focuses on students
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Teacher quality and cross-country differences in learning in francophone Sub-Saharan Africa Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-08-01 Jan Bietenbeck, Natalie Irmert, Mohammad H. Sepahvand
We study the effects of two dimensions of teacher quality, subject knowledge and didactic skills, on student learning in francophone Sub-Saharan Africa. We use data from an international large-scale assessment in 14 countries that include individual-level information on student achievement and country-level averages of teacher subject knowledge and teacher didactic skills in reading and math. Exploiting
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The impact of area level mental health interventions on outcomes for secondary school pupils: Evidence from the HeadStart programme in England Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-07-27 Sarah Cattan, Suzet Tanya Lereya, Yeosun Yoon, Ruth Gilbert, Jessica Deighton
In light of the dramatic rise in mental health disorders amongst adolescents seen in the past decade across the world, there is an urgent need for robust evidence on what works to combat this trend. This paper provides the first robust evaluation of the impacts on school outcomes of 6-year funding programme (HeadStart) for area-level mental health interventions for adolescents. Exploiting educational
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The effect of automation technology on workers’ training participation Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-07-24 Pascal Heß, Simon Janssen, Ute Leber
We use detailed survey data to study the influence of automation technology on workers’ training participation. We find that workers who are exposed to substitution by automation are 15 percentage points less likely to participate in training than those who are not exposed to it. However, workers who leave occupations that are highly exposed to automation increase their training participation, while
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In good times and bad: Low-cost mobile teaching during a pandemic Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-07-22 Manini Ojha, Kartik Yadav
In view of school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper examines how a Home-Based Learning program affects learning outcomes of children in under-resourced communities. To overcome limited internet connectivity, the program provides remote instructions via phone calls and simple text messages along with automated voice calls to engage children enrolled in grades one to five in activity-based
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Liquidity constraints in free post-secondary education: Evidence from Colombia Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-07-13
This paper provides evidence of the importance of liquidity constraints in a tuition-free post-secondary education setting in Colombia. We exploit exogenous variation in the relative cost of tuition-free vocational education from a nationwide cash transfer program. We show that eligibility for a USD 136 grant every other month increases enrollment by up to 12 percentage points. We also show that men
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The heterogeneity of Covid-19 learning loss across Italian primary and middle schools Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-07-03 Alice Bertoletti, Marta Cannistrà, Mara Soncin, Tommaso Agasisti
This paper investigates the heterogeneous impact of school closures during Covid-19 pandemic in Italy on academic performance across different schools, grades, subjects and groups of students. Our analysis utilises an innovative dataset that combines administrative data on standardised tests in grades 5 and 8 with a specifically-designed survey that collects information about teachers’ practices between
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How informal mentoring by teachers, counselors, and coaches supports students' long-run academic success Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-07-04 Matthew A. Kraft, Alexander J. Bolves, Noelle M. Hurd
We document a largely unrecognized pathway through which schools promote human capital development – by fostering informal mentoring relationships between students and their teachers, counselors, and coaches. Using longitudinal data from a nationally representative sample of adolescents, we explore the nature and consequences of natural mentoring relationships by leveraging within-student variation
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When does gender occupational segregation start? An experimental evaluation of the effects of gender and parental occupation in the apprenticeship labor market Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-07-05 Ana Fernandes, Martin Huber, Camila Plaza
The apprenticeship market is the earliest possible entry point into the workforce in developed economies. Since early labor market shocks are likely magnified throughout professional life, avoiding mismatches between talent and occupations – for example due to gender- or status-based discrimination – appears crucial. This experimental study investigates the effects of applicant gender and its interaction
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Attendance manipulation and efficiency in Chile’s school voucher system Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-07-03 Eduardo Fajnzylber, Bernardo Lara
To improve the quality of education, one can either directly reward performance or introduce school choice, private provision, and demand subsidies. The Chilean voucher scheme combines both approaches: an attendance-related subsidy favors school choice and creates incentives for schools to promote attendance throughout the year. With imperfect monitoring, however, institutions may respond by manipulating
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Boosting Parent-Child Math Engagement and Preschool Children's Math Skills: Evidence from an RCT with Low-Income Families Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-07-01 Susan E. Mayer, Ariel Kalil, William Delgado, Haoxuan Liu, Derek Rury, Rohen Shah
Math skill in early childhood is a key predictor of future academic achievement. Parental engagement in math learning contributes to the growth of children's math skills during this period. To help boost parent-child engagement in math activities and children's math skills, we conducted an RCT lasting 12 weeks with 758 low-income preschoolers (3-5 years old) and their primary caregivers. Parents were
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How to recruit teachers for hard-to-staff schools: A systematic review of evidence from low- and middle-income countries Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 2.083) Pub Date : 2023-06-28 David K. Evans, Amina Mendez Acosta
Education systems struggle to staff schools in rural areas or in areas with high concentrations of poverty. Potential policy solutions include financial incentives, mandatory rotations, and local recruitment drives, among others. First, this systematic review provides evidence on challenges with teacher staffing in certain types of schools. We observe lower teacher skill and higher teacher absence