Enhancing the public provision of education

Educational systems in developing countries show widespread problems that hinder delivering the service in adequate quantity and quality, as well as equity issues are still unresolved in many cases. The paper provides a flexible framework to deal with educational provision and public policies in developing countries, linking the impact of quality-quantity-equity of educational policies on labour markets. It adds to the education production function and human capital accumulation theoretical literature in which it includes the presence of inefficiencies, modelling the role of educational policies on tacking at them. Educational policies designing is discussed, which leads to suggest that more sophisticated educational policies (“multiple targets”) may increase the efficiency of the expenditure in education in terms of the quantity-quality of the output (skills).

Social Capital

This paper surveys research on social capital. We explore the concepts that motivate the social capital literature, efforts to formally model social capital using economic theory, the econometrics of social capital, and empirical studies of the role of social capital in various socioeconomic outcomes. While our focus is primarily on the place of social capital in economics, we do consider its broader social science context. We argue that while the social capital literature has produced many insights, a number of conceptual and statistical problems exist with the current use of social capital by social scientists. We propose some ways to strengthen the social capital literature.development, growth, identification, inequality, networks, social capital, trust,

Public sector efficiency: evidence for new EU member states and emerging markets

In this paper we analyse public sector efficiency in the new member states of the European Union compared to that in emerging markets. After a conceptual discussion of expenditure efficiency measurement issues, we compute efficiency scores and rankings by applying a range of measurement techniques. The study finds that expenditure efficiency across new EU member states is rather diverse especially as compared to the group of top performing emerging markets in Asia. Econometric analysis shows that higher income, civil service competence and education levels as well as the security of property rights seem to facilitate the prevention of inefficiencies in the public sector. JEL Classification: C14, H40, H50DEA, Efficiency, emerging markets, Government expenditure, new EU member states

Social Capital

This paper surveys research on social capital. We explore the concepts that motivate the social capital literature, efforts to formally model social capital using economic theory, the econometrics of social capital, and empirical studies of the role of social capital in various socioeconomic outcomes. While our focus is primarily on the place of social capital in economics, we do consider its broader social science context. We argue that while the social capital literature has produced many insights, a number of conceptual and statistical problems exist with the current use of social capital by social scientists. We propose some ways to strengthen the social capital literature.

Social Capital

This paper surveys research on social capital. We explore the concepts that motivate the social capital literature, efforts to formally model social capital using economic theory, the econometrics of social capital, and empirical studies of the role of social capital in various socioeconomic outcomes. While our focus is primarily on the place of social capital in economics, we do consider its broader social science context. We argue that while the social capital literature has produced many insights, a number of conceptual and statistical problems exist with the current use of social capital by social scientists.We propose some ways to strengthen the social capital literature.development, growth, identification, inequality, networks, social capital, trust

Efficiency Measurement in the Local Public Sector: Econometric and Mathematical Programming Frontier Techniques

Local government in advanced economies is undergoing a period of rapid reform aimed at enhancing its efficiency and effectiveness. Accordingly, the definition, measurement and improvement of organisational performance is crucial. Despite the importance of efficiency measurement in local government it is only relatively recently that econometric and mathematical frontier techniques have been applied to local public services. This paper attempts to provide a synoptic survey of the comparatively few empirical analyses of efficiency measurement in local government. We examine both the measurement of inefficiency in local public services and the determinants of local public sector efficiency. The implications of efficiency measurement for practitioners in local government are examined by way of conclusion.

Measuring local government technical (in)efficiency: An application and comparison of FDH, DEA and econometric approaches

Economic efficiency – understood in terms of jurisdictions providing a maximum amount of output for a given level of inputs – is one potential means to evaluate public policies. Various approaches, however, co-exist to measure the (technical) efficiency of organizations. Given that these rely on different underlying assumptions, it is important to assess whether, and to what extent, the approach taken affects the outcome of efficiency studies. The present paper employs a dataset of local governments in Flanders in 2000 to compare the three common approaches to measure (in)efficiency (i.c. FDH, DEA and econometric techniques). Our results indicate that the methodological choices of instrumentation have a substantial effect on analytic performance measurement. Hence, assessing the robustness of the results across various approaches to efficiency measurement is crucial to avoid incorrect inferences. -- Ökonomische Effizienz – verstanden im Sinne der Maximierung der Ausbringungsmenge für ein gegebenes Inputlevel – ist ein gängiges Mittel um staatliche Politiken zu evaluieren. Allerdings existieren mehrere Herangehensweisen, um die (technische) Effizienz von Organisationen zu messen. Unter der Voraussetzung, dass diese auf unterschiedlichen Annahmen basieren, ist es von Interesse, ob und inwiefern die gewählte Methode die Ergebnisse einer Untersuchung beeinflusst. Mit dem Datenmaterial aus flämischen Gemeindeverwaltungen im Jahr 2000 vergleichen wir die drei bedeutendsten Methoden der (In-)Effizienzmessung (FDH, DEH und ökonometrische Verfahren). Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Wahl der Methode einen substantiellen Einfluss auf die Performancemessung hat. Aus diesem Grunde erscheint es mitunter unerlässlich, die Robustheit von Ergebnissen anhand verschiedener Effizienzmethoden zu überprüfen, um nicht Gefahr zu laufen, unzulässige Folgerungen zu ziehen.free disposal hull,data envelopment analysis,stochastic frontiers,government (in)efficiency,Flemish municipalities

Faculty Research in Progress, 2018-2019

The production of scholarly research continues to be one of the primary missions of the ILR School. During a typical academic year, ILR faculty members published or had accepted for publication over 25 books, edited volumes, and monographs, 170 articles and chapters in edited volumes, numerous book reviews. In addition, a large number of manuscripts were submitted for publication, presented at professional association meetings, or circulated in working paper form. Our faculty\u27s research continues to find its way into the very best industrial relations, social science and statistics journal

The Human Development Index Adjusted for Efficient Resource Utilization

human development index, data envelopment analysis, efficiency, congestion and scale economics

Operational Research in Education

Operational Research (OR) techniques have been applied, from the early stages of the discipline, to a wide variety of issues in education. At the government level, these include questions of what resources should be allocated to education as a whole and how these should be divided amongst the individual sectors of education and the institutions within the sectors. Another pertinent issue concerns the efficient operation of institutions, how to measure it, and whether resource allocation can be used to incentivise efficiency savings. Local governments, as well as being concerned with issues of resource allocation, may also need to make decisions regarding, for example, the creation and location of new institutions or closure of existing ones, as well as the day-to-day logistics of getting pupils to schools. Issues of concern for managers within schools and colleges include allocating the budgets, scheduling lessons and the assignment of students to courses. This survey provides an overview of the diverse problems faced by government, managers and consumers of education, and the OR techniques which have typically been applied in an effort to improve operations and provide solutions