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Class size effects in higher education: Differences across STEM and non-STEM fields Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-04-13 Elif Kara, Mirco Tonin, Michael Vlassopoulos
In recent years, many countries have experienced a significant expansion of higher education enrolment. There is a particular interest among policy makers for further growth in STEM subjects, which could lead to larger classes in these fields. This study estimates the effect of class size on academic performance of university students, distinguishing between STEM and non-STEM fields. Using administrative
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The evolution of gender gaps in numeracy and literacy between childhood and young adulthood Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-04-10 Francesca Borgonovi, Alvaro Choi, Marco Paccagnella
Numeracy and literacy are important foundation skills which command significant wage premia in modern labour markets. The existence of gender differences in these skills is therefore of potential concern, and has spurred a large amount of research, especially with respect to numeracy skills. Still, little is known about the moment in which such gaps emerge, how they evolve, and if this evolution differs
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Unequal pay for equal work? Unpacking the gender gap in principal compensation Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-04-02 Jason A. Grissom, Jennifer D. Timmer, Jennifer L. Nelson, Richard S.L. Blissett
We investigate the male–female gap in principal compensation in state and national data: detailed longitudinal personnel records from Missouri and repeated cross-sections from the nationally representative Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). In both data sets, we estimate substantively important compensation gaps for school leaders. In Missouri, female principals make approximately $1,450 less annually
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(Em)Powered by Science? Estimating the Relative Labor Market Returns to Majoring in Science in High School in India Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-04-02 Punarjit Roychowdhury
Despite widespread belief that majoring in science in high school has a greater payoff in the Indian labor market than majoring in business/humanities, there is no hard evidence to substantiate this thought. Here I provide the first evidence of the causal effect of majoring in science on individuals’ labor market outcomes relative to majoring in business/humanities using microdata from India. Estimating
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The effect of import competition on educational attainment at the postsecondary level: Evidence from NAFTA Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-03-26 Maxine J. Lee
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) substantially lowered the trade barrier between Mexico and the United States. I study the effect of American industries’ increased competition against Mexican imports on educational attainment at the postsecondary level. Using the commuting-zone-by-state level variations in the protection against import competition, I find evidence for a substantial increase
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Education reforms and adult skills: Evidence from Estonia Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-03-23 Kieran Byrne, Alexander Plekhanov
This paper studies the impact of education reforms in Estonia in the 1990s on adult skills using the OECD PIAAC surveys. Estonia implemented extensive education reforms in the early 1990s throughout Estonian-speaking schools while Russian-speaking schools were exposed to less comprehensive reforms, which were implemented later. A large minority of Estonia’s population at the time was enrolled in Russian-speaking
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Who teaches the teachers? A RCT of peer-to-peer observation and feedback in 181 schools Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-03-17 Richard Murphy, Felix Weinhardt, Gill Wyness
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Labor market returns to a prison GED Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-03-13 Rajeev Darolia, Peter Mueser, Jacob Cronin
Educational and skill-building programs are commonplace in prisons and have been the focus of recent prominent policy initiatives. These educational programs are expected to increase prisoners’ post-release employability, with the hope that these lead to both private and public benefits. One of the most popular programs prepares prisoners to pass the GED exam, which is an academic certification for
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Childhood Medicaid Eligibility and Human Capital Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-03-11 Javaeria A. Qureshi, Anuj Gangopadhyaya
Although a sizeable literature studies the effect of Medicaid on health, less is known about its effects on education. We use a discontinuity in Medicaid eligibility based on date of birth and administrative school records to study the effects of expanded Medicaid eligibility during middle childhood, between the ages of 8 and 11. We evaluate effects of this Medicaid expansion on outcomes measured a
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Heroes, villains, or something in between? How “Right to Work” policies affect teachers, students, and education policymaking Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-03-11 Melissa Arnold Lyon
Although the Janus v. AFCSME (2018) decision fundamentally changed the institutional context for U.S. teachers’ unions by placing all public school teachers in a “Right to Work” (RTW) framework, little research exists to conceptualize the effects of such policies that hinder unionization. To fill this gap, I exploit the different timing across states in the passage of RTW policies in a differences-in-differences
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Sorting it Out: The Effects of Charter Expansion on Teacher and Student Composition at Traditional Public Schools Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-03-02 Lucy C. Sorensen, Stephen B. Holt
Since their introduction in the 1990s, charter schools have grown from a small-scale experiment to a ubiquitous feature of the public education landscape. The current study uses the legislative removal of a cap on the maximum number of charters in North Carolina as a natural experiment to assess the impacts of charter school growth on teacher quality and student composition in traditional public schools
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The impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. child care market: Evidence from stay-at-home orders Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-02-19 Umair Ali, Chris M. Herbst, Christos A. Makridis
Stay-at-home orders (SAHOs) were implemented in most U.S. states to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. This paper quantifies the impact of these containment policies on a measure of the supply of child care. The supply of such services may be particularly vulnerable to a SAHO-type policy shock, given that many providers are liquidity-constrained. Using plausibly exogenous variation from the staggered
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Is intervention fadeout a scaling artefact? Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-02-21 Sirui Wan, Timothy N. Bond, Kevin Lang, Douglas H. Clements, Julie Sarama, Drew H. Bailey
To determine whether scaling decisions might account for fadeout of impacts in early education interventions, we reanalyze data from a well-known early mathematics RCT intervention that showed substantial fadeout in the two years after the intervention ended. We examine how various order-preserving transformations of the scale affect the relative mathematics achievement of the control and experimental
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Choice of majors: are women really different from men? Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-02-04 Adriana D. Kugler, Catherine H. Tinsley, Olga Ukhaneva
The gender wage gap persists in the workplace in part because women major in fields that lead them into lower-paid occupations than fields associated with majors men choose. An open question is why women are more likely than men to switch towards majors that lead to lower-paying careers. Drawing on research suggesting that women are affected more by negative feedback than men, we use unique administrative
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Heterogeneous effects of missing out on a place at a preferred secondary school in England Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-02-04 Emma Gorman, Ian Walker
Schools vary in quality, and high-performing schools tend to be oversubscribed: there are more applicants than places available. In this paper, we use nationally representative cohort data linked to administrative education records to study the consequences of failing to gain admission to one’s first-choice secondary school in England. Our empirical strategy leverages features of the institutional
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The impact of upper secondary school flexibility on sorting and educational outcomes Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-02-02 Andrea Berggren, Louise Jeppsson
This paper estimates the causal impact of an upper secondary curriculum reform in Sweden that increased students’ course-taking flexibility in year 2000. In the most popular upper secondary program, it led to a significant decrease in mandatory mathematics requirements. Using administrative Swedish data, we estimate the causal impact of the reform on tertiary education outcomes and expected earnings
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Does student-teacher race match affect course grades? Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-01-29 Erica Harbatkin
A growing body of research has found that student-teacher race match is associated with higher test scores, teacher expectations, and teacher perceptions of students. This paper contributes to the student-teacher race match literature by investigating the effect of race match on course grades. To the extent that race match is associated with higher course grades for minority students, a more diverse
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No experience, no employment: The effect of vocational education and training work experience on labour market outcomes after higher education Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-01-17 Maria Esther Oswald-Egg, Ursula Renold
Higher education graduates with work experience enter the labour market more smoothly. This study analyses how work experience from vocational education and training (VET) affects labour market outcomes after higher education. To account for selection into VET, we use the regional enrolment rate as an instrument for upper-secondary VET. Results suggest that work experience gained during VET leads to
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Gender differences in college applications: Aspiration and risk management Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2021-01-12 Judith M. Delaney, Paul J. Devereux
We study gender differences in decision-making strategy when applying for college using applications data for all college applicants in Ireland over the 2015–17 period. Detailed information on high school subjects and grades enable us to examine how the college choices of equally achieving students differ by gender. We find that female students better balance the opportunity to aim for highly selective
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Pathways of Disadvantage: Unpacking the Intergenerational Correlation in Welfare Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-11-23 Melisa Bubonya, Deborah A. Cobb-Clark
Our goal is to investigate the pathways that link welfare receipt across generations. We undertake a mediation analysis in which we not only calculate the intergenerational correlation in welfare, but also quantify the portion of that correlation that operates through key mechanisms. Our data come from administrative welfare records for young people (aged 23–26) and their parents over nearly two decades
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Walking in your footsteps: Sibling spillovers in higher education choices Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-12-13 Josefa Aguirre, Juan Matta
This paper studies spillovers from older to younger siblings in higher education choices. Exploiting discontinuous admission rules generated by Chile’s centralized admission system to higher education, we identify strong sibling spillovers in the choice of college. Having an older sibling enroll in a given college increases by 42% the probability of enrolling in that institution. In contrast, we find
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It’s time to learn: School institutions and returns to instruction time Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-12-23 Andrés Barrios-Fernández, Giulia Bovini
This paper investigates whether the effects of a reform that substantially increased daily instruction time in Chilean primary schools vary depending on school institutions. Focusing on incumbent students and exploiting an IV strategy, we find that longer daily schedules increase reading scores at the end of fourth grade and that the benefits are greater for pupils who began primary education in no-fee
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Who's minding the kids? Experimental evidence on the demand for child care quality Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-12-23 James A. Gordon, Chris M. Herbst, Erdal Tekin
Despite the well-documented benefits of high-quality child care, many preschool-age children in the U.S. attend low-quality programs. Accordingly, improving the quality of child care is increasingly an explicit goal of government policy. However, accomplishing this goal requires a thorough understanding of the factors that influence parents’ child care decisions. This paper provides the first evidence
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Weekend feeding (“BackPack”) programs and student outcomes Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-10-05 Michael D. Kurtz, Karen Smith Conway, Robert D. Mohr
Weekend feeding (“BackPack”) programs that provide food to children have grown dramatically in recent years, yet their effects on educational outcomes have been little investigated. Our study combines administrative student data on test scores and absences in Northwest North Carolina elementary schools with primary data on program participation. School and student program eligibility criteria is used
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School bullying is positively associated with support for redistribution in adulthood Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-09-21 Atsushi Yamagishi
I document that being bullied at school has a strong positive association with support for redistribution in adulthood. Using unique Japanese survey data, I estimate that the bullied are 5–7 percentage points more likely to support redistribution. I carefully examine whether omitted factors drive this positive association by considering a rich set of socioeconomic and psychological mediators. The estimate
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Child bodyweight and human capital: Test scores, teacher assessments and noncognitive skills Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-09-17 Kathryn Rouse, Brooke Hunziker
This papers adds to the literature on child bodyweight and human capital using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey Kindergarten Class of 2010–2011. We examine how bodyweight is related to both children's test scores and teacher assessment of ability. We find bodyweight has little effect on math or reading for girls, but is negatively related to test scores and teacher assessments in science
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School supply constraints in track choices: A French study using high school openings Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-09-09 Manon Garrouste, Meryam Zaiem
We study the effect of opening a new high school on individual schooling decisions at the end of lower secondary education. The working sample covers all ninth graders between 2007–2008 and 2012–2013 in France. The two-way fixed-effect estimation strategy uses variation in time and space to estimate the causal effect of an increase in school supply. Opening a new high school significantly increases
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The skill development of children of immigrants Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-08-25 Marie Hull, Jonathan Norris
In this paper, we study the evolution of cognitive and noncognitive skills gaps for children of immigrants between kindergarten and 5th grade using two cohorts of elementary school students. We find some evidence that children of immigrants begin school with lower math scores than children of natives, but this gap disappears in later elementary school. For noncognitive skills, children of immigrants
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Relative age and investment in human capital Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-08-25 Pablo A. Peña
This article provides evidence from four studies in Mexico on how the age of children relative to their school class—their “relative age”—produces an illusory gap in academic skills and affects the experiences of students, their choices, self-concept, and expectations. The first study shows that relative age confers an advantage in achievement tests at ages 12–15 that makes older students look academically
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Beauty Premiums Among Academics Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-08-25 J. Jobu Babin, Andrew Hussey, Alex Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy, David A. Taylor
This paper examines the effects of instructors’ attractiveness on student evaluations of their teaching. We build on previous studies by holding both observed and unobserved characteristics of the instructor and classes constant. Our identification strategy exploits the fact that many instructors, in addition to traditional teaching in the classroom, also teach in the online environment, where attractiveness
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Gritting it out: The importance of non-cognitive skills in academic mismatch Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-08-17 Fernando Saltiel
I examine the importance of non-cognitive skills in the matching process in higher education in the United States. Across two longitudinal data sources, I show that students with lower non-cognitive skills are more likely to undermatch (enrolling in less selective colleges given their academic credentials) and less likely to overmatch. The application process drives the relationship between non-cognitive
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Conceptualizing grade inflation Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-08-17 Adam Tyner, Seth Gershenson
Evidence of grade inflation in U.S. high schools is often misinterpreted due to confusion about how grade inflation is, or should be, defined. This note reduces the confusion by introducing a typology of grade inflation and discussing the implications of each type. We then provide empirical examples of each type of grade inflation using transcript and test-score data from Algebra I classes in North
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Is ‘first in family’ a good indicator for widening university participation? Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-08-14 Anna Adamecz-Völgyi, Morag Henderson, Nikki Shure
Universities use ‘first in family’ or ‘first generation’ as an indicator to increase the diversity of their student intake, but little is known about whether it is a good indicator of disadvantage. We use nationally representative, longitudinal survey data linked to administrative data from England to provide the first comprehensive analysis of this measure. We employ parametric probability (logit)
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Decomposing financial inequality across U.S. higher education institutions. Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-08-14 John J Cheslock,Yahya Shamekhi
The level of financial inequality among U.S. higher education institutions has important implications for students and society, yet few scholars have examined this topic using established methods for measuring inequality. This paper updates and extends previous work while introducing decompositions that shed light into key trends that we observed for the 2004–2017 period: increasing inequality in total
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Are students in receiving schools hurt by the closing of low-Performing schools? Effects of school closures on receiving schools in Sweden 2000–2016 Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-08-12 Jonas Larsson Taghizadeh
This article aims to investigate how students in receiving schools are affected by school closures. The effects are analyzed in a quasi-experimental study of all Swedish middle schools that received displaced students from 2000 to 2016, utilizing family fixed effects. The results show that the inflow of displaced students had a negative effect on student outcomes in the receiving schools in terms of
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The impact of dual apprenticeship programmes on early labour market outcomes: A dynamic approach Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-08-07 Brecht Neyt, Dieter Verhaest, Stijn Baert
This study examines the impact of enrolling into dual apprenticeship programmes during secondary education on six early employment outcomes. Our contribution to the literature is threefold. First, we apply a method that has rarely been used in this literature to control for potential selection biases. Second, this method allows us to distinguish between the programmes’ direct effect (conditional on
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On the labor market for full-time non-tenure-track lecturers in economics Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-07-29 Christiana E. Hilmer, Michael J. Hilmer
We examine AY2013 annual salaries, annual teaching assignments, and career publishing histories for more than 700 full-time lecturers and tenure-track faculty at 37 public Ph.D.-granting departments of economics. The roughly 15% of teaching faculty who were full-time lecturers were younger, more likely to be female and to teach at the program from which they received their Ph.D., and were assigned
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The Effect of Subway Access on School Choice Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-07-28 Luis Herskovic
One of the goals of school choice is to allow parents to send their children to higher-performing schools. Several studies have shown that distance to school is one of the main determinants of school choice, but challenges to address endogeneity issues remain. To address these concerns, in this paper I take advantage of the construction of a new subway line in Santiago, Chile, that crosses a large
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Free Lunch for All! The Effect of the Community Eligibility Provision on Academic Outcomes Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-07-16 John Gordanier, Orgul Ozturk, Breyon Williams, Crystal Zhan
We analyze the effect of the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), a universal free-lunch program, on elementary and middle school students' academic performance and attendance in the state of South Carolina. As part of the program, eligible schools can provide free lunches to all students, regardless of whether an individual student qualifies for free or reduced lunch. Using a difference-in-differences
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Choosing differently? College application behavior and the persistence of educational advantage Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-07-15 Judith M. Delaney, Paul J. Devereux
We use administrative data from Ireland to study differences in college application behavior between students from disadvantaged versus advantaged high schools. Ireland provides an interesting laboratory for this analysis as applicants provide a preference-ordering of college programs (majors) and marginal applications are costless. Also, college admission depends almost completely on grades in the
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The effects of the great recession on college majors Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-07-11 Fulya Y. Ersoy
How did the Great Recession affect the college degree fields? Utilizing the geographic variation in the severity of the recession in the US, I answer this question using the differences-in-differences and synthetic controls approaches. To explore these effects systematically, I categorize fields based on their sensitivity to the recession. The results show that there was a shift from recession-sensitive
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Does sibling gender affect personality traits? Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-07-07 Bart H.H. Golsteyn, Cécile A.J. Magnée
This paper studies whether sibling gender affects personality traits. We use the idea that if parents decide to have a second child, it is random whether they will have a boy or a girl. Therefore, the relationship between the second-born sibling's gender and the first sibling's personality traits is causal. We employ longitudinal data from a large British cohort which is followed from birth onwards
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The gender gap in college major choice in Chile Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-06-30 Paola Bordón, Catalina Canals, Alejandra Mizala
This paper studies gender differences in college applications in Chile. We use the revealed preferences of students for college major choice by taking advantage of Chile’s Centralized Admission System, and estimate a nested logit model to predict the first preference of applicants. We find that males apply to selective programs even when they are marginal candidates, while equally qualified female
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The impact of banning mobile phones in Swedish secondary schools Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-06-23 Dany Kessel, Hulda Lif Hardardottir, Björn Tyrefors
Recently, policy makers worldwide have suggested and passed legislation to ban mobile phone use in schools. The influential (and only quantitative) evaluation by Beland and Murphy (2016), suggests that this is a very low-cost but effective policy to improve student performance. In particular, it suggests that the lowest-achieving students have the most to gain. Using a similar empirical setup but with
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Experiential financial education: A field study of my classroom economy in elementary schools Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-06-23 Michael Batty, J. Michael Collins, Collin O’Rourke, Elizabeth Odders-White
My Classroom Economy is a simulated economy where students have the opportunity to engage in financial decisions on a daily basis. It provides financial literacy instruction without requiring significant classroom time, and is relatively simple for teachers to implement. Compared to schools where My Classroom Economy was delayed or never implemented, students showed strong improvements in financial
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The impact of standardized test feedback in math: Exploiting a natural experiment in 3rd grade Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-06-20 Louise Beuchert, Tine Louise Mundbjerg Eriksen, Morten Visby Krægpøth
This paper studies how information (grades) from standardized tests in mathaffects human capital formation in early schooling. We use a regression discontinuity design to estimate how later outcomes of children scoring just below or above the threshold separating two grades are affected. Our results demonstrate that providing information to parents about their child's educational performance in math
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Culture and adult financial literacy: Evidence from the United States Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-06-19 Maddalena Davoli, Núria Rodríguez-Planas
Using a US nationally representative sample of over 6000 adults from 26 countries of ancestry, we find a strong association between their financial literacy in the US and the financial literacy level in their self-reported country of ancestry. More specifically, if an individual from a country of ancestry with ‘average’ financial literacy had instead come from a country with financial literacy one-standard
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Boys lag behind: How teachers’ gender biases affect student achievement Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-06-18 Camille Terrier
I use a combination of blind and non-blind test scores to show that middle school teachers favor girls in their evaluations. This favoritism, estimated as individual teacher effects, has long-term consequences: as measured by their national evaluations three years later, male students make less progress than their female counterparts. On the other hand, girls who benefit from gender bias in math are
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Minimum Spending in Education and the Flypaper Effect Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-06-16 Tassia Cruz, Talita Silva
Education funds in Brazil comprise local revenue and intergovernmental transfers. This study analyzes the importance of budget structure on government spending in education by estimating the effects of two characteristics of the fiscal arrangement: (i) a minimum spending rule, and (ii) a set of intergovernmental transfers. The minimum spending rule has increased educational spending only for municipalities
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Paralysis by analysis? Effects of information on student loan take-up Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-06-11 Benjamin M. Marx, Lesley J. Turner
Can relevant information influence student borrowing? In a field experiment with a large community college, we send emails about federal student loans to students who have received financial aid offers but have not made a borrowing decision. A treatment reminding students that they need not borrow the maximum amount of available loan aid has no effect. Treatments referencing amounts borrowed by recent
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Employer learning, statistical discrimination and university prestige Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-05-29 Paola Bordón, Breno Braga
This paper investigates whether employers use university prestige as a signal of workers’ unobservable productivity. Our test is based on employer learning-statistical discrimination models, which suggest that if employers use university reputation to predict a worker’s unobservable quality, then college prestige should become less important for earnings as a worker gains labor market experience. In
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Industry Fluctuations and College Major Choices: Evidence from an Energy Boom and Bust Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-05-20 Luyi Han, John V. Winters
This paper examines how college students in the United States altered their college majors during the energy boom and bust of the 1970s and 1980s. We focus on petroleum engineering and geology, two majors closely related to the energy industry. We find strong evidence that the energy boom increased the prevalence of these two energy-related majors and the energy bust lowered the prevalence of these
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High school start times and student achievement: Looking beyond test scores Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-04-24 Matthew Lenard, Melinda Sandler Morrill, John Westall
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that U.S. secondary schools begin after 8:30 a.m. to better align with the circadian rhythms of adolescents. Yet due to economic and logistic considerations, the vast majority of high schools begin the school day considerably earlier. We leverage a quasi-natural experiment in which five comprehensive high schools in one of the nation’s largest school systems
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Does closing schools close doors? The effect of high school closings on achievement and attainment Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-04-22 Matthew F. Larsen
This paper examines the effect of high school closures on student achievement and educational attainment. Previous studies primarily focus on effects of elementary school closings on test scores. This study furthers the literature by focusing on high school closures and examines several measures of achievement and attainment. I utilize student data from the Milwaukee Public School district and follow
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State partisanship and higher education Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-04-20 Alberto Ortega
This paper uses a regression discontinuity approach to estimate the causal effect of a governor’s party affiliation on higher education in the U.S. The findings indicate that when a Democrat wins a close race for governor, there is an increase in state revenues appropriated to associate’s-degree-granting colleges. There is also some evidence that minority-serving institutions receive additional state
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Selecting or rewarding teachers? International evidence from primary schools Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-04-15 Michela Braga, Daniele Checchi, Francesco Scervini, Christelle Garrouste
Using data from the existing four waves of PIRLS, this paper examines the effect of teacher quality on fourth-grade students’ literacy test scores by exploiting variations induced by reforms in teachers’ selection and/or reward schemes. We construct an original data set of reforms by the government taking place at the national level after World War II and affecting the working conditions of primary
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Explaining the gender gaps in mathematics achievement and attitudes: The role of societal gender equality Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-04-15 Z. Eylem Gevrek, Deniz Gevrek, Christian Neumeier
The gender stratification hypothesis maintains that higher levels of societal gender equity predict smaller gender gaps in mathematics achievement and attitudes. Using data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) across 56 countries, this study aims to provide a thorough empirical test of the gender stratification hypothesis. We employ a novel two-stage empirical strategy to investigate
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Technology and educational choices: Evidence from a one-laptop-per-child program Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-04-09 Maria Lucia Yanguas
This paper provides the first causal estimates of the effect of children’s access to computers and the internet on educational outcomes in early adulthood, such as schooling and choice of major. I exploit cross-cohort variation in access to technology among primary and middle school students in Uruguay, the first country to implement a nationwide one-laptop-per-child program. Despite a notable increase
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Education and health over the life cycle Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-03-31 Robert Kaestner, Cuiping Schiman, Jason Ward
There is little theoretical and empirical research on the effects of education on health over the life cycle. In this article, we extend the Grossman (1972) model of the demand for health and use the extended model to analyze the effect of education on health at different ages. The main conclusion from our model is that it is unlikely that the relationship between education and health will be constant
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Social returns to private choice? Effects of charter schools on behavioral outcomes, arrests, and civic participation Econ. Educ. Rev. (IF 1.354) Pub Date : 2020-03-27 Andrew McEachin, Douglas Lee Lauen, Sarah Crittenden Fuller, Rachel M. Perera
The vast majority of literature on school choice, and charter schools in particular, focus on attending an elementary or middle school grades and often focus on test scores or other proximal outcomes. Much less is known about the long-term effects of attending a charter school in 9th grade. It is important to fill this information void for a few reasons. First, schools in general affect more than just
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