1,721,182 research outputs found
Department of Economics Discussion Paper
Full text linkInternationalisation is a major trend in higher education worldwide. Yet, little evidence is given on the net impact of international students on national economies. This study addresses this gap by estimating the benefits against the costs driven by international students in Belgium and its Flemish region in particular. Using a unique combination of various sources of micro-data, the results show net positive benefits that exceed costs by a factor ranging between 2.4 (lower bound) to 3.1 (upper bound) times. The results vary highly with the level of education, as the ratio is the lowest for doctoral students (1.2-1.6) and highest for master students (5.1-6.3). The effect is mainly driven by a high stay rate of international students, who are likely to work in the country after graduation. When considering indirect effects, our results show that there are no significant peer effects due to the presence of international students in the classroom.status: Publishe
On distinguishing the direct causal effect of an intervention from its efficiency-enhancing effects
Full text linkThis paper proposes an innovative methodology for handling endogeneity issues in the evaluation of policy performance. By estimating a regression discontinuity design with a four-component stochastic frontier panel data model, we estimate the causal impact of a policy intervention on the outcome variable, whenever the treatment status depends on an exogenous threshold. We distinguish between (i) the direct effect of the intervention, (ii) the efficiency-enhancing effect, or (iii) their combination. Moreover, we distinguish between persistent (time-invariant) and transient (time-varying) inefficiency components while accounting for unobserved heterogeneity, which is important for policy implications. We showcase the practical usefulness of the proposed approach by estimating the effect of providing additional resources on schools that exceed an exogenously set share of disadvantaged students in secondary schools in Flanders, Belgium. We also demonstrate the trade-off between balance of the covariates in the treated and control group and statistical power. Thus, despite insignificant effects in a balanced but smaller sample close to the discontinuity, the results become significant in the unbalanced sample with more statistical power. In both samples, we observe that the policy had an effect on the outcome mostly through the efficiency-enhancing channel. To this extent, we show that the model specification including both direct and indirect effects outperforms the other two specifications and it offers a more exhaustive perspective from a policy view point
The effect of additional resources for schools with disadvantaged students: Evidence from a conditional efficiency model
No full textThis paper proposes an innovative approach to evaluate the causal impact of a policy change on efficiency. It combines insights from the econometric impact evaluation techniques and from the standard efficiency analysis. Specifically, we account for endogeneity issues by introducing a quasi-experimental setting within a conditional multi-input multi-output efficiency framework and decompose the overall efficiency between ‘group-specific’ efficiency (i.e., reflecting internal managerial inefficiency) and ‘program’ efficiency (i.e., explaining the impact of the policy intervention on
performance). This allows us to interpret the efficiency differences in a causal way. We demonstrate the practical usefulness of our methodology through an application to secondary and primary schools in Flanders, Belgium. In particular, exploiting exogenous thresholds, we examine whether additional resources for disadvantaged students impact the efficiency of schools. Our empirical results indicate that additional resources do not causally influence efficiency around the threshold
Sustainable budgeting and financial balance: Which lever will you pull?
No full textDuring the past few decades, countries have experienced a remarkable increase in local expenditure levels to address rising local needs. However, the limited availability of financial resources, exacerbated first by the 2008 financial crisis and then by Covid19 crisis, has called for budget restrictions usually imposed by higher levels of government. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of a balance budget rule enforcement, exploring its effect on the local government cost efficiency and, in particular, considering the complex trade-off between efficiency and equity. Specifically, our identification strategy considers the exogenous introduction of a new budget balance rule that requires local governments to respect both an annual and a longer-term equilibrium criterion. The difference-in-differences analysis builds on a rich panel dataset covering all the public functions. We find that, on average, the budget rule enforcement exerted a positive effect on local government efficiency
Service Level Provision in Municipalities: A Flexible Directional Distance Composite Indicator
Full text linkWith increasing decentralization of public activities to the municipalities, it has become imperative to deploy an enhanced service provision analysis at the local level. This paper suggests the innovative use of a composite indicator to measure the multidimensional aspects of the local public provision comprising of several commonly administered municipal tasks. We propose a robust conditional version of a directional distance composite indicator with weight restrictions based on the municipal expenditure composition. Specifically, we deal with the presence of “undesirable” municipal service indicators and with the heterogeneity among the municipalities in their political preferences, priority public activities and operating environment characteristics. To illustrate the applicability of the suggested method, we show the construction of the municipal service provision composite indicator for 307 Flemish municipalities over the year 2006–2011.sponsorship: We are grateful to Wim Moesen, Peter Bogetoft, Tom Van Puyenbroeck, Benny Geys, Ana Camanho, Massimo Riccaboni, Laura Carosi, Riccardo Cambini, three anonymous referees and the participants at the 6th Workshop on Efficiency and Productivity Analysis (Porto, Portugal) and at the 15th European Workshop on Ef-ficiency and Productivity Analysis (London, UK) for their valuable comments and suggestions on a previous version of the paper. Giovanna D'Inverno gratefully acknowledges financial support from Research Foundation - Flanders, FWO (Postdoctoral Fellowship 12U0219N). Kristof De Witte acknowledges financial support from Research Foundation - Flanders, FWO (Grant G068518N). (Research Foundation - Flanders, FWO|12U0219N, Research Foundation - Flanders, FWO|G068518N)status: Publishe
Can grants affect student performance? Evidence from five Italian universities
No full textThis paper assesses the effect of need-based grants on the performance of university students in Italy. We performed a series of between-universities and within-universities propensity score matching analyses to evaluate the effect of grants on several student performance indicators, such as dropout rate, first year credits and efficiency of study. Our findings suggest that financial aid has a positive, substantial and statistically robust effect on university students’ performance and on if and when they complete their undergraduate degree courses. The positive impact is heterogeneous across universities, while few differences were detected for subgroups of students. Reinforcing financial aid policies can simultaneously help disadvantaged students and improve overall academic performance in Italian universities
Can grants affect student performance? Evidence from five Italian universities
No full textThis paper assesses the effect of need-based grants on the performance of university students in Italy. We performed a series of between-universities and within-universities propensity score matching analyses to evaluate the effect of grants on several student performance indicators, such as dropout rate, first year credits and efficiency of study. Our findings suggest that financial aid has a positive, substantial and statistically robust effect on university students' performance and on if and when they complete their undergraduate degree courses. The positive impact is heterogeneous across universities, while few differences were detected for subgroups of students. Reinforcing financial aid policies can simultaneously help disadvantaged students and improve overall academic performance in Italian universities
Department of Economics Discussion Paper
Full text linkThis paper proposes an innovative approach to evaluate the causal impact of a policy change in a multi-input multi-output setting. It combines insights from econometric impact evaluation techniques and efficiency analysis. In particular, the current paper accounts for endogeneity issues by introducing a quasi-experimental setting within a conditional multi-input multi-output efficiency framework and by decomposing the overall efficiency between ‘group-specific’ efficiency (i.e., reflecting internal managerial inefficiency) and ‘program’ efficiency (i.e., explaining the impact of the policy intervention on performance). This framework allows the researcher to interpret the efficiency scores in terms of causality. The practical usefulness of the methodology is demonstrated through an application to secondary schools in Flanders, Belgium. By exploiting an exogenous threshold, the paper examines whether additional resources for disadvantaged students impact the efficiency of schools. The empirical results indicate that additional resources do not
causally influence efficiency around the threshold.status: Publishe
Do pathways lead to better organized care processes?
No full textAIM:
Clinical pathways are used worldwide to (re)organize care processes. They are used by multidisciplinary teams in their search towards excellence. The goal of this study is (1) to assess differences in the perception of health professionals in their evaluation of care processes; (2) to assess whether care processes supported by clinical pathways perform better than those not supported by clinical pathways; and (3) to assess the sensitivity and specificity of clinical pathways in predicting well-organized care processes.
METHODS:
A cross-sectional, multi-centre study was performed comprising 309 healthcare workers, 103 care processes and 49 hospitals. The Care Process Self Evaluation Tool (CPSET) was used to score care processes according to their organization. Processes were also scored according to the level of pathway implementation.
RESULTS:
(1) Significant differences between healthcare professionals were found on two of five CPSET subscales. No significant differences were found among the overall CPSET scores. (2) Care processes supported by pathways had the highest CPSET scores. Nonetheless, continuous follow-up is necessary. (3) Clinical pathways have significant impact on the coordination of care (odds ratio: 8.92), follow-up (odds ratio: 6.65) and overall CPSET score (odds ratio: 4.26). Clinical pathways have a positive impact on the organization of care processes. Not all pathways have high CPSET scores, and care processes without pathways can also be well organized. Continuous evaluation is essential. This is the first study to analyse how healthcare teams perceive the organization of care processes with respect to clinical pathways. Our findings are important for other quality improvement methods
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