1,721,045 research outputs found
Functional literacy, educational attainment and earnings - evidence from the international adult literacy survey
Full text linkIn this paper a rich and innovative dataset, the International Adult Literacy Survey, is used to examine the impact of functional literacy on earnings. The IALS surveys 12 OECD countries and sub-regions via a consistent questionnaire and includes a number of tests of numeracy and literacy, as well as basic labour market information. This paper examines the effect of these skills on labour market earnings for the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and for Great Britain. The estimates suggest that while ability has a role in determining earnings the dominant factor remains formal education. It is shown that, particularly for Great Britain, there is a positive interaction between the test score and education in determining earnings.
Education policy reform and the return to schooling from instrumental variables
Full text linkThis paper analyses levels of low literacy across twelve countries using the International Adult Literacy Survey. We go beyond existing work that only looks at the proportions below certain critical levels of literacy. Using methods developed for the measurement of poverty we calculate measures of literacy that are sensitive to the distribution of literacy within those defined as illiterate. This reveals a different pattern of the extent of literacy problems across countries and within some populations. These measures should be useful to policy makers who need to allocate resources to alleviate low literacy and numeracy.
Economic returns to education
No full textThree leading economists discussed the evidence for how education quality drives economic growth. They also reviewed the evidence that the most important policy interventions are to improve teacher quality rather than school building improvements or class size reductions.
The panel consisted of Colm Harmon, Director of the Geary Institute; Saul Eslake, Program Director Productivity Growth, Grattan Institute and Ben Jensen, Program Director School Education, Grattan Institute provided in in depth look at the above issues
The Effects of Human Capital on Social Capital - A Cross-Country Analysis
Full text linkThis paper uses two sets of cross-country micro datasets to analyse individuals’ participation in voluntary and community activities and organisations. Analysing countries in the International Adult Literacy Survey and focusing on the impact of human capital I find a consistently positive effect of years of education on participation with the marginal effect of an additional year being around 2 or 3% for most countries. The effects are somewhat higher in English speaking countries. However controlling for functional literacy reduces this significantly with literacy accounting for around half the marginal effect of education. Labour market effects are generally very weak Using instrumental variables for a subset of countries we test and are unable to reject the hypothesis that education is exogenous. Using Eurobarometer data yields higher estimated impacts of schooling for most countries. It is also shown how attitudes towards the “third sector” predict higher participation in some forms of volunteering while a measure of religiosity often predicts more altruistic volunteering.
New Methods for comparing Literacy across Populations - Insights from the Measurement of Poverty
Full text linkThis paper analyses levels of low literacy across twelve countries using the International Adult Literacy Survey. We go beyond existing work that only looks at the proportions below certain critical levels of literacy. Using methods developed for the measurement of poverty we calculate measures of literacy that are sensitive to the distribution of literacy within those defined as illiterate. This reveals a different pattern of the extent of literacy problems across countries and within some populations. These measures should be useful to policy makers who need to allocate resources to alleviate low literacy and numeracy.literacy, numeracy, poverty, education policy
Nonlinearity in the return to education
Full text linkThis study estimates marginal rates of return to investment in schooling in 12 countries. Significant systematic nonlinearity in the marginal rate of return is found. In particular, the marginal rate of return is increasing significantly at low levels of education, and decreasing significantly at high levels of education. This may help explain why estimates of the return to schooling are often considerably higher when instrumenting for education.return to education, nonlinearity, instrumental variables
Dispersion in the Economic Return to Schooling
Full text linkIn this paper we extend the standard human capital earnings function to include dispersion in the rate of return to schooling by treating the return as a random coefficient. One motivation is that if the increase in supply of skilled workers has been brought about by dipping further into the ability distribution. Alternatively if the expansion in post-compulsory education comes about through relaxed credit constraints then we might expect this to increase average ability in the pool of educated workers. Either event might lead to a rise in the variance in returns. Based on a sample of data from the United Kingdom our estimates suggest that neither the mean nor the dispersion in returns to schooling has altered significantly over time. This is consistent with educational expansion not leading to a disproportionate inflow of low ability individuals into the system.
After, Before and During: Returns to Education in the Hungarian Transition
Full text linkHow valuable are the education and skills acquired under socialism in a market economy? This paper uses data for about 3 million Hungarian wage earners, from 1986 to 1998, to throw light on this question. We find that returns to schooling reach 10 percent early on and remain at this high level. These estimates are larger than for other transition economies, but similar to those for middle-income developing countries. With the gap in average years of schooling unremitting, we argue that the Hungarian stock of human capital is considerably less than the existing figures have led us to believe.Human Capital, Labor Markets, Transition Economies, Hungary
A Meta-Analysis of the International Gender Wage Gap
Full text linkSince the early seventies, hundreds of authors have calculated gender wage differentials between women and men of equal productivity. This meta-study provides a quantitative review of this vast amount of empirical literature on gender wage discrimination as it concerns differences in methodology, data, countries and time periods. We place particular emphasis on a proper consideration of the quality of the underlying study which is done by a weighting with quality indicators. The results show that data restrictions have the biggest impact on the resulting gender wage gap. Moreover, we are able to show what effect a misspecification of the underlying wage equation – like the frequent use of potential experience – has on the calculated gender wage gap. Over time, raw wage differentials world-wide have fallen substantially; however, most of this decrease is due to an increased labor market productivity of females.Gender wage differential, Meta-analysis
European "Education Production Functions": What Makes A Difference For Student Achievement In Europe?
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