Must Try Harder: Evaluating the Role of Effort in Educational Attainment (original) (raw)

Incentives, resources and the organization of the school system

2010

We study a model where student effort and talent interact with parental and teachers' investments, as well as with school system resources. The model is rich, yet sufficiently stylized to provide novel implications. We can show, for example, that an improvement in parental outside options will reduce parental and school effort, which are partially compensated through school resources. In this way we provide a rationale for the ambiguous existing empirical evidence on the effect of school resources. We also provide a novel microfoundation for peer effects, with empirical implications on welfare and on preferences for sorting across schools. JEL-Classification: I20, I21, I28, J24

Attainment in secondary school

Oxford Economic Papers, 1999

This paper studies attainment in secondary schools. We estimate an education production function in which attainment depends upon parental inputs, peer group inputs and schooling inputs. We find that the most powerful parental input is parental interest in children, as assessed by teachers. We find a strong peer group effect. The school pupil-teacher ratio does not enter significantly. The only strongly endogenous variable is initial attainment. We argue that this is due to measurement error. There is some evidence that parental interest is endogenous but we do not find peer group variables to be so.

Parental Effort, School Resources, and Student Achievement

Journal of Human Resources, 2008

This article investigates an important factor in student achievement-parental involvement. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS), we estimate a value-added education production function that includes parental effort as an input. Parental effort equations are also estimated as a function of child, parent, household, and school characteristics. Our results suggest that parental effort has a strong positive effect on achievement that is large relative to the effect of school resources and is not captured by family background variables. Parents appear to reduce their effort in response to increased school resources, suggesting potential ''crowding out'' of school resources.

Motivation, Resources and the Organization of the School System

2016

This paper studies a model where student effort and talent interact with parental and teachers' investments, as well as with school system resources. The model is rich, yet sufficiently stylized to provide novel implications. It can show, for example, that an improvement in parental outside options will reduce parental and school effort, which are partially compensated through school resources. In this way, by incorporating the behavioral responses of parents, teachers, and policymakers, the paper provides a rationale for the existing ambiguous empirical evidence on the effect of school resources. The paper also provides a novel microfoundation for peer effects, with empirical implications for welfare and different education policies. (JEL: I20, I21, I28, J24) 23-1360), Cabrales acknowledges the support the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology under grant ECO2012-34581. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Inter-American Development Bank, its Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. Albornoz is a Research Fellow at CONICET. Berlinski is a Reseach Fellow at IZA.

The impact of parental earnings and education on the schooling of children

This paper addresses the intergenerational transmission of education and investigates the extent to which early school leaving (at age 16) may be due to variations in parental background. An important contribution of the paper is to distinguish between the causal effects of parental income and parental education levels. Least squares estimation reveals conventional results-weak effects of income (when the child is 16), stronger effects of maternal education than paternal, and stronger effects on sons than daughters. We find that the education effects remain significant even when household income is included. However, when we use instrumental variable methods to simultaneously account for the endogeneity of parental education and paternal income, only maternal education remains significant (for daughters only) and becomes stronger. These estimates are consistent across various sets of instruments. The impact of paternal income varies between specifications but becomes insignificant in our favored specifications. Our results provide only limited support for policies that alleviate income constraints at age 16 in order to alter schooling decisions. In contrast, our results do suggest that policies which increase permanent income would lead to increased participation (especially for daughters).

The Impact of Parental Income and Education on the Schooling of Their Children

The Impact of Parental Income and Education on the Schooling of Their Children * This paper addresses the intergeneration transmission of education and investigates the extent to which early school leaving (at age 16) may be due to variations in permanent income, parental education levels, and shocks to income at this age. Least squares estimation reveals conventional results -stronger effects of maternal education than paternal, and stronger effects on sons than daughters. We find that the education effects remain significant even when household income is included. Moreover, decomposing the income when the child is 16 between a permanent component and shocks to income at age 16 only the latter is significant. It would appear that education is an important input even when we control for permanent income but that credit constraints at age 16 are also influential. However, when we use instrumental variable methods to simultaneously account for the endogeneity of parental education and paternal income, we find that the strong effects of parental education become insignificant and permanent income matters much more, while the effects of shocks to household income at 16 remain important. A similar pattern of results are reflected in the main measure of scholastic achievement at age 16. These findings have important implications for the design of policies aimed at encouraging pupils to remain in school longer.

Essays in the Economics of Education

Three essays consider implications of the strong association between student background characteristics and academic performance. Chapter One considers the incentives that school choice policies might create for the efficient management of schools. These incentives would be diluted if parents prefer schools with desirable peer groups to those with inferior peers but better policies and instruction. I model a "Tiebout choice" housing market in which schools differ in both peer group and effectiveness. If parental preferences depend primarily on school effectiveness, we should expect both that wealthy parents purchase houses near effective schools and that decentralization of educational governance facilitates this residential sorting. On the other hand, if the peer group dominates effectiveness in parental preferences, wealthy families will still cluster together in equilibrium but not necessarily at effective schools. I use a large sample of SAT-takers to examine the distribution of student outcomes across schools within metropolitan areas that differ in the structure of educational governance, and find little evidence that parents choose schools for characteristics other than peer groups. 2 This result suggests that competition may not induce improvements in educational productivity, and indeed I do not obtain Hoxby's (2000a) claimed relationship between school decentralization and student performance. I address this discrepancy in Chapter Two. Using Hoxby's own data and specification, as described in her published paper, I am unable to replicate her positive estimate, and I find several reasons for concern about the validity of her conclusions. Chapter Three considers the role of admissions tests in predictions of student collegiate performance. Traditional predictive validity studies suffer from two important shortcomings. First, they do not adequately account for issues of sample selection. Second, they ignore a wide class of student background variables that covary with both test scores and collegiate success. I propose an omitted variables estimator that is consistent under restrictive but sometimes plausible sample selection assumptions. Using this estimator and data from the University of California, I find that school-level demographic characteristics account for a large portion of the SAT's apparent predictive power. This result casts doubt on the meritocratic foundations of exam-based admissions rules.

Essays on the Economics of Student Achievement

Essays on the Economics of Student Achievement Amy F Godfrey Parents, lawmakers, and economists are all keenly interested in what affects student performance. This dissertation explores factors influencing student achievement in West Virginia with special attention devoted to public education resources and gender. Politicians and many parents of school age children believe increased levels of education funding or resources result in higher student achievement. Chapters 2 and 3 delve into this topic by exploring student achievement at different grade levels in West Virginia. The first public education funding or resource change to be analyzed occurred during a time period when the base for public education financing was expanding and funding levels were converging across school districts in the state. Data is a school-district level panel, including student achievement scores, from 1989 to 2002. The results suggest that rising expenditure levels may have had a positive effect on student achievement especially in areas with below average levels of spending prior to the policy change. The second public education funding change to be analyzed involves additional instructional or classroom resources from public education excess levies that are voted on by residents in each school district. Results indicate that additional instructional or classroom resources that are unexpected or not relied upon may have a positive impact on student achievement levels at all grade levels. However, the probability of adopting a public education excess levy can be negatively affected in school districts with increasing levels of population in retirement age, less population per square mile, or more households in poverty.

School choice : income and peer effect differentiation

2006

In this paper, we analyze the equilibrium on the market for schooling where both public and private schools coexist and where individuals are differentiated by income and ability. We introduce a non linear in means model of peer effect by shedding the light on the fact that school quality is not solely dependent on mean ability but also on the dispersion of abilities. We study the distribution of students across sectors while examining the conditions for the existence of a majority voting equilibrium in the context of non single peaked preferences. Finally, we examine the presence of a hierarchy of school qualities. In the paper we shed the light on equity problems related to the access to educational quality while analyzing the functioning of the educational system.