Kevin Denny | University College Dublin (original) (raw)

Papers by Kevin Denny

Research paper thumbnail of The impacts of education and training on the labour market experiences of young adults

Working paper series, Apr 6, 2000

This paper uses pooled cross-section data on recent school leavers in Ireland to model the determ... more This paper uses pooled cross-section data on recent school leavers in Ireland to model the determinants of labour market status and wages for young adults. Firstly we use a multinomial logit model to analyze whether individuals exit school to employment, unemployment or higher education. Family background is an important predictor for participation in higher education reflecting the degree of rationing in the system. The level of educational attainment influences the probability of entering higher education or employment. The estimates for earnings functions show large differences across gender with males being rewarded significantly higher. The returns to training are positive though biased upwards by sample selection particularly for females.

Research paper thumbnail of The effects of human capital on social capital: a cross-country analysis

Working paper series, Sep 1, 2003

This paper uses two sets of crosscountry micro datasets to analyse individuals' participation in ... more This paper uses two sets of crosscountry 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.

Research paper thumbnail of Can education compensate for low ability? Evidence from British data (version 3.0)

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Jun 1, 2004

This paper uses cross section data to investigate whether the returns to education vary with the ... more This paper uses cross section data to investigate whether the returns to education vary with the level of ability. Using a measure of cognitive ability based on tests taken at ages 7 and 11 we find, unlike most of the existing literature, clear evidence that the return to schooling is lower for those with higher ability indicating that education can act as a substitute for observed ability. We also estimate quantile regression functions to examine how the return to schooling varies across the conditional distribution of earnings. The results show that the return is lower for higher quantiles, suggesting that education is also a substitute for unobserved ability.

Research paper thumbnail of Upper Bounds on Risk Aversion under Mean-variance Utility

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2019

Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch ge... more Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence.

Research paper thumbnail of Has Subjective General Health Declined with the Economic Crisis? A Comparison across European Countries

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Mar 1, 2015

This note examines whether subjective general health in Europe has changed since the onset of the... more This note examines whether subjective general health in Europe has changed since the onset of the economic crisis. Subjective general health for Ireland, Spain and Portugal is compared before and after the onset of the recession. Two other European economies, Germany and United Kingdom, are also examined. The change in the proportion of respondents reporting good or very good health is also plotted against the change in the unemployment rate over the period 2007-2012. Subjective general health improves slightly in countries experiencing sharp recessions. Across European countries there is no link between changes in subjective general health and in unemployment: no evidence is found to suggest that the Great Recession has worsened morbidity in Europe.

Research paper thumbnail of Very simple marginal effects in some discrete choice models

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Jul 21, 2009

I show a simple back-of-the-envelope method for calculating marginal effects in binary choice and... more I show a simple back-of-the-envelope method for calculating marginal effects in binary choice and count data models. The approach suggested here focuses attention on marginal effects at different points in the distribution of the dependent variable rather than representative points in the joint distribution of the explanatory variables. For binary models, if the mean of the dependent variable is between 0.4 and 0.6 then dividing the logit coefficient by 4 or multiplying the probit coefficient by 0.4 should be moderately accurate.

Research paper thumbnail of Do teachers make better parents? The differential performance of teachers’ children at school

Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Mar 1, 2005

This paper investigates whether teenagers are educationally advantaged if their parents are educa... more This paper investigates whether teenagers are educationally advantaged if their parents are educators, using PISA data for Great Britain and Ireland. It examines whether teachers' children do better at tests of reading ability. The results show that children whose fathers teach at third level or whose mothers teach at second level do better and these effects are greater than effects of sex or family structure. The paper also analyses whether teenagers are more likely to be helped with their schoolwork if their parents are educators. In both countries only mothers who are educators are more likely to do so. The evidence tends to suggest that where teenagers benefit from a parent as a teacher it is through specific assistance from the mother and a more general effect on the home environment from the father.

Research paper thumbnail of Functional literacy, educational attainment and earnings : a multi-country comparison

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Aug 1, 2003

In this paper a rich and innovative dataset, the International Adult Literacy Survey, is used to ... more In this paper a rich and innovative dataset, the International Adult Literacy Survey, is used to examine the impact of functional literacy on earnings. We show that the estimated return to formal education is sensitive to the inclusion of literacy: excluding it biases the return to education in many countries by significant amounts. Literacy itself has a well-determined effect on earnings in all countries though with considerable variation in the size of the effect. The benefits of literacy do not only arise from increasing low levels of literacy: increases at already high levels generate substantial increases in earnings in some countries. In general we find little interaction between schooling and literacy though for a few countries they appear to complement each other.

Research paper thumbnail of Returns to basic skills in Central & Eastern Europe : a semi parametric approach

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Apr 6, 2005

This paper uses semi-parametric econometric techniques to investigate the relationship between ba... more This paper uses semi-parametric econometric techniques to investigate the relationship between basic skills and earning in three post-communist countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia using the IALS dataset. While the large increases in the returns to education in the new market economies has been well documented in the literature, no study to date has examined the impact of basic skills and schooling on income. Estimating a Mincer human capital model we find that including a measure of basic skills reduces the returns to education. In addition, using a partial linear model in which log earnings is linear in schooling, but is an arbitrary function of basic skills, we find that this relationship is not well described by the common assumption of linearity at the tails of the distribution.

Research paper thumbnail of Height and well-being amongst older Europeans

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Sep 20, 2010

This paper uses a crosscountry representative sample of Europeans over the age of 50 to analyse w... more This paper uses a crosscountry representative sample of Europeans over the age of 50 to analyse whether individuals' height is associated with higher or lower levels of well-being. Two outcomes are used: a measure of depression symptoms reported by individuals and a categorical measure of life satisfaction. It is shown that there is a concave relationship between height and symptoms of depression. These results are sensitive to the inclusion of several sets of controls reflecting demographics, human capital and health status. While parsimonious models suggest that height is protective against depression, the addition of controls, particularly related to health, suggests the reverse effect: tall people are predicted to have slightly more symptoms of depression. Height has no significant association with life satisfaction in models with controls for health and human capital.

Research paper thumbnail of Born to be wild? The effect of birth order, families and schools on truancy

Born to be wild? The effect of birth order, families and schools on truancy Centre for Economic R... more Born to be wild? The effect of birth order, families and schools on truancy Centre for Economic Research Working Paper Series, No. WP04/21

Research paper thumbnail of The causal effect of breastfeeding on children’s cognitive development :a quasi-experimental design

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Mar 3, 2010

To estimate the causal effect of breastfeeding on children's cognitive skills as measured at ages... more To estimate the causal effect of breastfeeding on children's cognitive skills as measured at ages 3, 5, 7 and 11. Design: An instrumental variable (IV) strategy which provides a correction method for dealing with selection bias. Standard linear regression models are compared to two-stage least squares models to test for the presence of endogeneity. The consistency of the results across multiple sources is also tested using data from two prospective longitudinal studies collected 40-years apart. Setting: The 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) and the 2000 UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). Participants: Data on 11,792 (age 3) and 9117 (age 5) children in MCS and 4923 (age 7 and 11) children in NCDS. Main outcome measures: Cognitive ability is measured by the Bracken School Readiness Assessment (age 3); Foundation Stage Profile (age 5); and tests of general ability including mathematics, comprehension, verbal and non-verbal skills (ages 7 and 11). Results: The duration of breastfeeding has a small, but significant, effect on children's cognitive skills in the linear regression models at ages 3, 5, 7 and 11, but no effect in the IV models. However, in all cases, the hypothesis that breastfeeding is endogenous is rejected, indicating that the results of the linear regressions are valid. Conclusion: The relationship between breastfeeding and cognitive ability is not driven by selection bias once a rich set of confounders are included. IV methods can therefore be used to test for the presence of selection bias and are a useful alternative for identifying causal relationships when randomised control trials are not feasible. Showing that the size of the effect is similar for two cohorts born over 40 years apart, and using different measures of ability, are further indications that the relationship between breastfeeding and cognitive ability is not a statistical artefact.

Research paper thumbnail of Money, mentoring and making friends: The impact of a multidimensional access program on student performance

Economics of Education Review, Jun 1, 2014

There is a well established socioeconomic gradient in educational attainment, despite much effort... more There is a well established socioeconomic gradient in educational attainment, despite much effort in recent decades to address this inequality. This study evaluates a university access program that provides financial, academic and social support to low socioeconomic status (SES) students using a natural experiment which exploits the time variation in the expansion of the program across schools. The program has parallels with US affirmative actions programs, although preferential treatment is based on SES rather than ethnicity. Evaluating the effectiveness of programs targeting disadvantaged students in Ireland is particularly salient given the high rate of return to education and the lack of intergenerational mobility in educational attainment. Overall, we identify positive treatment effects on first year exam performance, progression to second year and final year graduation rates, with the impact often stronger for higher ability students. We find similar patterns of results for students that entered through the regular system and the 'affirmative action' group i.e. the students that entered with lower high school grades. The program affects the performance of both male and female students, albeit in different ways. This study suggests that access programs can be an effective means of improving academic outcomes for socioeconomically disadvantaged students.

Research paper thumbnail of What did abolishing university fees in Ireland do

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, May 20, 2010

University tuition fees for undergraduates were abolished in Ireland in 1996. This paper examines... more University tuition fees for undergraduates were abolished in Ireland in 1996. This paper examines the effect of this reform on the socioeconomic gradient (SES) to determine whether the reform was successful in achieving its objective of promoting educational equality. It finds that the reform clearly did not have that effect. It is also shown that the university/SES gradient can be explained by differential performance at second level which also explains the gap between the sexes. Students from white collar backgrounds do significantly better in their final second level exams than the children of blue-collar workers. The results are very similar to recent findings for the UK. I also find that certain demographic characteristics have large negative effects on school performance i.e. having a disabled or deceased parent. The results show that the effect of SES on school performance is generally stronger for those at the lower end of the conditional distribution of academic attainment.

Research paper thumbnail of Can education compensate for low ability? Evidence from British data

Working paper series, Aug 9, 2004

This paper uses cross section data to investigate whether the returns to education vary with the ... more This paper uses cross section data to investigate whether the returns to education vary with the level of ability. Using a measure of cognitive ability based on tests taken at ages 7 and 11 we find, unlike most of the existing literature, clear evidence that the return to schooling is lower for those with higher ability indicating that education can act as a substitute for observed ability. We also estimate quantile regression functions to examine how the return to schooling varies across the conditional distribution of earnings. The results show that the return is lower for higher quantiles, suggesting that education is also a substitute for unobserved ability.

Research paper thumbnail of Title Civic Returns to Education: Its Effect on Homophobia

This paper addresses the question of whether higher levels of education contribute to greater tol... more This paper addresses the question of whether higher levels of education contribute to greater tolerance of homosexuals. Using survey data for Ireland and exploiting a major reform to education, the abolition of fees for secondary schools in 1968, it is shown that increases in education causes individuals to be significantly more tolerant of homosexuals. Ignoring the endogeneity of education leads to much lower estimates of the effect of education. Replicating the model with data for the United Kingdom generates very similar results.

Research paper thumbnail of The distribution of discrimination in immigrant earnings - evidence from Britain 1974-1993

Working paper series, Aug 21, 1997

This paper uses the General Household Survey data for the UK to study earnings discrimination bet... more This paper uses the General Household Survey data for the UK to study earnings discrimination between natives and migrants. The key result is that the main source of discrimination is ethnicity rather than migrant status per se. This paper differs from the conventional focus in studies of earnings discrimination, which focus on mean wage differences. In contrast we study the entire distribution of the wage gap, and incorporate distributionally sensitive measures of the wage gap reflecting different levels of aversion to discrimination. Our results are consistent with previous studies for the UK that find that non-white immigrants are the most widely discriminated in terms of their labour market returns. Moreover this discrimination on the basis of colour is also present in the sub-sample of natives.

Research paper thumbnail of The effect of payroll taxes in the monopoly union model: four lemmas and a corollary

This paper models the effect of a simple linear payroll tax in a monopoly union model. Previously... more This paper models the effect of a simple linear payroll tax in a monopoly union model. Previously derived ambiguous results are given a more intuitive interpretation and conditions under which the effect on wages is unambiguously positive are given. It is shown that after tax wages are invariant to changes in the tax rate.

Research paper thumbnail of Cognitive Skills, Educational Attainment and Earnings-Evidence from the International Adult Literacy Survey

Papers, 2000

In this paper a rich and innovative dataset, the International Adult Literacy Survey, is used to ... more In this paper a rich and innovative dataset, the International Adult Literacy Survey, is used to examine the impact of cognitive skill/functional literacy 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.

Research paper thumbnail of Wages and Human Capital: Evidence from the Irish Data

Returns to Human Capital in Europe: A Literature Review, 1999

The object of this study is to compare results on the determinants of earnings across a spectrum ... more The object of this study is to compare results on the determinants of earnings across a spectrum of studies. Previous research solely focused on the topic has been scarce up to the 1990s, but the recent emergence of a number of comprehensive data sets has allowed a relative rebirth of the topic.

Research paper thumbnail of The impacts of education and training on the labour market experiences of young adults

Working paper series, Apr 6, 2000

This paper uses pooled cross-section data on recent school leavers in Ireland to model the determ... more This paper uses pooled cross-section data on recent school leavers in Ireland to model the determinants of labour market status and wages for young adults. Firstly we use a multinomial logit model to analyze whether individuals exit school to employment, unemployment or higher education. Family background is an important predictor for participation in higher education reflecting the degree of rationing in the system. The level of educational attainment influences the probability of entering higher education or employment. The estimates for earnings functions show large differences across gender with males being rewarded significantly higher. The returns to training are positive though biased upwards by sample selection particularly for females.

Research paper thumbnail of The effects of human capital on social capital: a cross-country analysis

Working paper series, Sep 1, 2003

This paper uses two sets of crosscountry micro datasets to analyse individuals' participation in ... more This paper uses two sets of crosscountry 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.

Research paper thumbnail of Can education compensate for low ability? Evidence from British data (version 3.0)

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Jun 1, 2004

This paper uses cross section data to investigate whether the returns to education vary with the ... more This paper uses cross section data to investigate whether the returns to education vary with the level of ability. Using a measure of cognitive ability based on tests taken at ages 7 and 11 we find, unlike most of the existing literature, clear evidence that the return to schooling is lower for those with higher ability indicating that education can act as a substitute for observed ability. We also estimate quantile regression functions to examine how the return to schooling varies across the conditional distribution of earnings. The results show that the return is lower for higher quantiles, suggesting that education is also a substitute for unobserved ability.

Research paper thumbnail of Upper Bounds on Risk Aversion under Mean-variance Utility

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2019

Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch ge... more Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence.

Research paper thumbnail of Has Subjective General Health Declined with the Economic Crisis? A Comparison across European Countries

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Mar 1, 2015

This note examines whether subjective general health in Europe has changed since the onset of the... more This note examines whether subjective general health in Europe has changed since the onset of the economic crisis. Subjective general health for Ireland, Spain and Portugal is compared before and after the onset of the recession. Two other European economies, Germany and United Kingdom, are also examined. The change in the proportion of respondents reporting good or very good health is also plotted against the change in the unemployment rate over the period 2007-2012. Subjective general health improves slightly in countries experiencing sharp recessions. Across European countries there is no link between changes in subjective general health and in unemployment: no evidence is found to suggest that the Great Recession has worsened morbidity in Europe.

Research paper thumbnail of Very simple marginal effects in some discrete choice models

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Jul 21, 2009

I show a simple back-of-the-envelope method for calculating marginal effects in binary choice and... more I show a simple back-of-the-envelope method for calculating marginal effects in binary choice and count data models. The approach suggested here focuses attention on marginal effects at different points in the distribution of the dependent variable rather than representative points in the joint distribution of the explanatory variables. For binary models, if the mean of the dependent variable is between 0.4 and 0.6 then dividing the logit coefficient by 4 or multiplying the probit coefficient by 0.4 should be moderately accurate.

Research paper thumbnail of Do teachers make better parents? The differential performance of teachers’ children at school

Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Mar 1, 2005

This paper investigates whether teenagers are educationally advantaged if their parents are educa... more This paper investigates whether teenagers are educationally advantaged if their parents are educators, using PISA data for Great Britain and Ireland. It examines whether teachers' children do better at tests of reading ability. The results show that children whose fathers teach at third level or whose mothers teach at second level do better and these effects are greater than effects of sex or family structure. The paper also analyses whether teenagers are more likely to be helped with their schoolwork if their parents are educators. In both countries only mothers who are educators are more likely to do so. The evidence tends to suggest that where teenagers benefit from a parent as a teacher it is through specific assistance from the mother and a more general effect on the home environment from the father.

Research paper thumbnail of Functional literacy, educational attainment and earnings : a multi-country comparison

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Aug 1, 2003

In this paper a rich and innovative dataset, the International Adult Literacy Survey, is used to ... more In this paper a rich and innovative dataset, the International Adult Literacy Survey, is used to examine the impact of functional literacy on earnings. We show that the estimated return to formal education is sensitive to the inclusion of literacy: excluding it biases the return to education in many countries by significant amounts. Literacy itself has a well-determined effect on earnings in all countries though with considerable variation in the size of the effect. The benefits of literacy do not only arise from increasing low levels of literacy: increases at already high levels generate substantial increases in earnings in some countries. In general we find little interaction between schooling and literacy though for a few countries they appear to complement each other.

Research paper thumbnail of Returns to basic skills in Central & Eastern Europe : a semi parametric approach

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Apr 6, 2005

This paper uses semi-parametric econometric techniques to investigate the relationship between ba... more This paper uses semi-parametric econometric techniques to investigate the relationship between basic skills and earning in three post-communist countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia using the IALS dataset. While the large increases in the returns to education in the new market economies has been well documented in the literature, no study to date has examined the impact of basic skills and schooling on income. Estimating a Mincer human capital model we find that including a measure of basic skills reduces the returns to education. In addition, using a partial linear model in which log earnings is linear in schooling, but is an arbitrary function of basic skills, we find that this relationship is not well described by the common assumption of linearity at the tails of the distribution.

Research paper thumbnail of Height and well-being amongst older Europeans

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Sep 20, 2010

This paper uses a crosscountry representative sample of Europeans over the age of 50 to analyse w... more This paper uses a crosscountry representative sample of Europeans over the age of 50 to analyse whether individuals' height is associated with higher or lower levels of well-being. Two outcomes are used: a measure of depression symptoms reported by individuals and a categorical measure of life satisfaction. It is shown that there is a concave relationship between height and symptoms of depression. These results are sensitive to the inclusion of several sets of controls reflecting demographics, human capital and health status. While parsimonious models suggest that height is protective against depression, the addition of controls, particularly related to health, suggests the reverse effect: tall people are predicted to have slightly more symptoms of depression. Height has no significant association with life satisfaction in models with controls for health and human capital.

Research paper thumbnail of Born to be wild? The effect of birth order, families and schools on truancy

Born to be wild? The effect of birth order, families and schools on truancy Centre for Economic R... more Born to be wild? The effect of birth order, families and schools on truancy Centre for Economic Research Working Paper Series, No. WP04/21

Research paper thumbnail of The causal effect of breastfeeding on children’s cognitive development :a quasi-experimental design

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Mar 3, 2010

To estimate the causal effect of breastfeeding on children's cognitive skills as measured at ages... more To estimate the causal effect of breastfeeding on children's cognitive skills as measured at ages 3, 5, 7 and 11. Design: An instrumental variable (IV) strategy which provides a correction method for dealing with selection bias. Standard linear regression models are compared to two-stage least squares models to test for the presence of endogeneity. The consistency of the results across multiple sources is also tested using data from two prospective longitudinal studies collected 40-years apart. Setting: The 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) and the 2000 UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). Participants: Data on 11,792 (age 3) and 9117 (age 5) children in MCS and 4923 (age 7 and 11) children in NCDS. Main outcome measures: Cognitive ability is measured by the Bracken School Readiness Assessment (age 3); Foundation Stage Profile (age 5); and tests of general ability including mathematics, comprehension, verbal and non-verbal skills (ages 7 and 11). Results: The duration of breastfeeding has a small, but significant, effect on children's cognitive skills in the linear regression models at ages 3, 5, 7 and 11, but no effect in the IV models. However, in all cases, the hypothesis that breastfeeding is endogenous is rejected, indicating that the results of the linear regressions are valid. Conclusion: The relationship between breastfeeding and cognitive ability is not driven by selection bias once a rich set of confounders are included. IV methods can therefore be used to test for the presence of selection bias and are a useful alternative for identifying causal relationships when randomised control trials are not feasible. Showing that the size of the effect is similar for two cohorts born over 40 years apart, and using different measures of ability, are further indications that the relationship between breastfeeding and cognitive ability is not a statistical artefact.

Research paper thumbnail of Money, mentoring and making friends: The impact of a multidimensional access program on student performance

Economics of Education Review, Jun 1, 2014

There is a well established socioeconomic gradient in educational attainment, despite much effort... more There is a well established socioeconomic gradient in educational attainment, despite much effort in recent decades to address this inequality. This study evaluates a university access program that provides financial, academic and social support to low socioeconomic status (SES) students using a natural experiment which exploits the time variation in the expansion of the program across schools. The program has parallels with US affirmative actions programs, although preferential treatment is based on SES rather than ethnicity. Evaluating the effectiveness of programs targeting disadvantaged students in Ireland is particularly salient given the high rate of return to education and the lack of intergenerational mobility in educational attainment. Overall, we identify positive treatment effects on first year exam performance, progression to second year and final year graduation rates, with the impact often stronger for higher ability students. We find similar patterns of results for students that entered through the regular system and the 'affirmative action' group i.e. the students that entered with lower high school grades. The program affects the performance of both male and female students, albeit in different ways. This study suggests that access programs can be an effective means of improving academic outcomes for socioeconomically disadvantaged students.

Research paper thumbnail of What did abolishing university fees in Ireland do

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, May 20, 2010

University tuition fees for undergraduates were abolished in Ireland in 1996. This paper examines... more University tuition fees for undergraduates were abolished in Ireland in 1996. This paper examines the effect of this reform on the socioeconomic gradient (SES) to determine whether the reform was successful in achieving its objective of promoting educational equality. It finds that the reform clearly did not have that effect. It is also shown that the university/SES gradient can be explained by differential performance at second level which also explains the gap between the sexes. Students from white collar backgrounds do significantly better in their final second level exams than the children of blue-collar workers. The results are very similar to recent findings for the UK. I also find that certain demographic characteristics have large negative effects on school performance i.e. having a disabled or deceased parent. The results show that the effect of SES on school performance is generally stronger for those at the lower end of the conditional distribution of academic attainment.

Research paper thumbnail of Can education compensate for low ability? Evidence from British data

Working paper series, Aug 9, 2004

This paper uses cross section data to investigate whether the returns to education vary with the ... more This paper uses cross section data to investigate whether the returns to education vary with the level of ability. Using a measure of cognitive ability based on tests taken at ages 7 and 11 we find, unlike most of the existing literature, clear evidence that the return to schooling is lower for those with higher ability indicating that education can act as a substitute for observed ability. We also estimate quantile regression functions to examine how the return to schooling varies across the conditional distribution of earnings. The results show that the return is lower for higher quantiles, suggesting that education is also a substitute for unobserved ability.

Research paper thumbnail of Title Civic Returns to Education: Its Effect on Homophobia

This paper addresses the question of whether higher levels of education contribute to greater tol... more This paper addresses the question of whether higher levels of education contribute to greater tolerance of homosexuals. Using survey data for Ireland and exploiting a major reform to education, the abolition of fees for secondary schools in 1968, it is shown that increases in education causes individuals to be significantly more tolerant of homosexuals. Ignoring the endogeneity of education leads to much lower estimates of the effect of education. Replicating the model with data for the United Kingdom generates very similar results.

Research paper thumbnail of The distribution of discrimination in immigrant earnings - evidence from Britain 1974-1993

Working paper series, Aug 21, 1997

This paper uses the General Household Survey data for the UK to study earnings discrimination bet... more This paper uses the General Household Survey data for the UK to study earnings discrimination between natives and migrants. The key result is that the main source of discrimination is ethnicity rather than migrant status per se. This paper differs from the conventional focus in studies of earnings discrimination, which focus on mean wage differences. In contrast we study the entire distribution of the wage gap, and incorporate distributionally sensitive measures of the wage gap reflecting different levels of aversion to discrimination. Our results are consistent with previous studies for the UK that find that non-white immigrants are the most widely discriminated in terms of their labour market returns. Moreover this discrimination on the basis of colour is also present in the sub-sample of natives.

Research paper thumbnail of The effect of payroll taxes in the monopoly union model: four lemmas and a corollary

This paper models the effect of a simple linear payroll tax in a monopoly union model. Previously... more This paper models the effect of a simple linear payroll tax in a monopoly union model. Previously derived ambiguous results are given a more intuitive interpretation and conditions under which the effect on wages is unambiguously positive are given. It is shown that after tax wages are invariant to changes in the tax rate.

Research paper thumbnail of Cognitive Skills, Educational Attainment and Earnings-Evidence from the International Adult Literacy Survey

Papers, 2000

In this paper a rich and innovative dataset, the International Adult Literacy Survey, is used to ... more In this paper a rich and innovative dataset, the International Adult Literacy Survey, is used to examine the impact of cognitive skill/functional literacy 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.

Research paper thumbnail of Wages and Human Capital: Evidence from the Irish Data

Returns to Human Capital in Europe: A Literature Review, 1999

The object of this study is to compare results on the determinants of earnings across a spectrum ... more The object of this study is to compare results on the determinants of earnings across a spectrum of studies. Previous research solely focused on the topic has been scarce up to the 1990s, but the recent emergence of a number of comprehensive data sets has allowed a relative rebirth of the topic.

Research paper thumbnail of Shifting Attitudes, False Perceptions: Recent Irish Immigration in Comparative Perspective

The paper employs recent data from the European Social Survey and Eurobarometer to place evolving... more The paper employs recent data from the European Social Survey and Eurobarometer to place evolving Irish attitudes to immigration in comparative context. Particular attention is given to determinants of differences in attitudes by gender, xenophobia, and exaggerated impressions of the immigrant presence.