Schooling and Political Participation Revisited

We investigate how the link between individual schooling and political participation is affected by country characteristics. We introduce a focus on a set of variables-namely factor endowments-which in uence the relative productivity of human capital in political versus production activities. Using micro data on individual behavior, we find that political participation is more responsive to schooling in land-abundant countries, and less responsive in human capital-abundant countries, even while controlling for country political institutions and cultural attitudes. We develop these ideas in a model where individuals face an allocation decision over the use of their human capital. A elative abundance of land (used primarily in the least skill-intensive sector) or a scarcity of aggregate human capital will increase both the level of political participation and its responsiveness to schooling, by lowering the opportunity cost of production income foregone. In an extension, we further consider the problem of how much schooling a utility-maximizing ruler would choose to provide. An abundance of land tends to increase political participation ex post, and hence will lead the ruler to discourage human capital accumulation, a prediction for which we find broad support in the cross-country data. Our model thus owners a framework which jointly explains patterns of political participation at the individual level and differences in public investment in education at the country level.Education; Human capital; Political participation; Voting; Factor endowments; Culture; State provision of schooling

Estimating returns to education: three natural experiment techniques compared

Andrew Leigh and Chris Ryan compare three quasi-experimental approaches to estimating the returns to schooling in Australia: instrumenting schooling using month of birth, instrumenting schooling using changes in compulsory schooling laws, and comparing outcomes for twins. Abstract With annual pre-tax income as our measure of income, we find that the naïve (OLS) returns to an additional year of schooling is 13%. The month of birth IV approach gives an 8% rate of return to schooling, while using changes in compulsory schooling laws as an IV produces a 12% rate of return. Finally, we review estimates from twins studies. While we estimate a higher return to education than previous studies, we believe that this is primarily due to the better measurement of income and schooling in our dataset. Australian twins studies are consistent with our findings insofar as they find little evidence of ability bias in the OLS rate of return to schooling. Our estimates of the ability bias in OLS estimates of the rate of return to schooling range from 9% to 39%. Overall, our findings suggest the Australian rate of return to education, corrected for ability bias, is around 10%, which is similar to the rate in Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway and the United States

Risk factors for the metabolic syndrome in contemporary China

An epidemic of metabolic disease is currently emerging in China. This review considers determinants of the metabolic syndrome in contemporary China within the context of the recent and compressed epidemiological transition. As well as considering proximal causes, such as energy imbalance resulting from increases in food availability and decreases in occupational, commuting and domestic physical activity, this review also considers life course and epigenetic influences on population health and individual risk in a transitioning population. Identifying the relative importance and mutability of epigenetic processes, influences over the life course and current environment is key to developing effective public health interventions during the current 'demographic window' before the costs of metabolic disease become overwhelming. © 2008 World Heart Federation.postprin

THE CRISIS IN SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS TEACHING

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72875/1/j.1949-8594.1947.tb06125.x.pd

The fading productivity of schooling in East Asia.

We estimate changes in the productivity of schooling for six East Asian countries. Our productivity measure is based on changes in the relative price of schooling. A rising price of schooling relative to other labor-intensive service sectors should indicate declining relative schooling productivity. We find that the price of schooling increased by more than the price of other labor-intensive services in 1980-1994. We also find that the cognitive achievement of pupils did not change substantially, which suggests a constant quality of schooling output. Hence we conclude that schooling productivity has declined. The main reason for the fading productivity of schooling in East Asian countries appears to be a strong decline in the pupil-teacher ratio.Bildungsinvestition; Schule; Bildungsniveau; Produktivität; Schätzung; Theorie; Ostasien; Hongkong; Japan; Philippinen; Singapur; Südkorea; Thailand;Asian countries , schooling , productivity growth; Asian Countries; Schooling; Productivity Growth;

Physical activity in older men: longitudinal associations with inflammatory and hemostatic biomarkers, N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide, and onset of coronary heart disease and mortality.

OBJECTIVES: To examine associations between habitual physical activity (PA) and changes in PA and onset of coronary heart disease (CHD) and the pathways linking PA to CHD. DESIGN: British Regional Heart Study population-based cohort; men completed questionnaires in 1996 and 1998 to 2000, attended rescreen in 1998 to 2000, and were followed up to June 2010. SETTING: Community. PARTICIPANTS: Of 4,252 men recruited from primary care centers (77% of those invited and eligible) who were rescreened in 1998 to 2000, 3,320 were ambulatory and free from CHD, stroke, and heart failure and participated in the current study. MEASUREMENTS: Usual PA (regular walking and cycling, recreational activity and sport). Outcome was first fatal or nonfatal myocardial infarction. RESULTS: In 3,320 ambulatory men, 303 first and 184 fatal CHD events occurred during a median of 11 years of follow-up; 9% reported no usual PA, 23% occasional PA, and 68% light or more-intense PA. PA was inversely associated with novel risk markers C-reactive protein, D-dimer, von Willebrand Factor and N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP). Compared with no usual PA, hazard ratios (HRs) for CHD events, adjusted for age and region, were 0.52 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.34-0.79) for occasional PA, 0.47 (95% CI = 0.30-0.74) for light PA, 0.51 (95% CI = 0.32-0.82) for moderate PA, and 0.44 (95% CI = 0.29-0.65) for moderately vigorous or vigorous PA (P for linear trend =.004). Adjustment for established and novel risk markers somewhat attenuated HRs and abolished linear trends. Compared with men who remained inactive, men who maintained at least light PA had an HR for CHD events of 0.73 (95% CI = 0.53-1.02) and men whose PA level increased had an HR of 0.86 (95% CI = 0.55-1.35). CONCLUSION: Even light PA was associated with significantly lower risk of CHD events in healthy older men, partly through inflammatory and hemostatic mechanisms and cardiac function (NT-proBNP)

Mothers Do Matter: New Evidence on the Effect of Parents' Schooling on Children's Schooling Using Swedish Twin Data

Behrman and Rosenzweig (2002) used data on a small sample of MZ (monozygotic, identical) twin parents and their children to show that father's schooling is more important than mother's schooling for children's schooling in the U.S. Recent studies based on much larger samples of twins from registry data in Scandinavian countries reach similar conclusions. Most of these studies, however, are unable to distinguish between MZ and DZ (dizygotic, fraternal) twins. Using data from the Swedish Twin Registry, we replicate the finding that father's schooling matters more than mother's schooling in a combined sample of MZ and DZ twin parents. In contrast, results based on MZ twin parents show that mother's schooling matters at least as much as father's schooling for children's schooling. We also estimate the effect of parents' schooling separately by child gender and find this effect to be entirely driven by the impact of mother's schooling on daughter's schooling. Our results show that (1) it is vital to have zygosity information to estimate causal intergenerational effects and (2) the conclusions reached by Behrman and Rosenzweig (2002) for the U.S. do not apply in Sweden.twins, twin-fixed effects, schooling, intergenerational mobility

Returns to Schooling in China Under Planning and Reform

We estimate returns to schooling using a retrospective work history survey covering more than 4,000 workers over the period 1950 to 1994, with particular emphasis to the returns to schooling for workers who attended institutes of higher education and who graduated from college. We find evidence that schooling returns declined throughout the period leading up to the Cultural Revolution (CR), with returns for workers who did not attend college becoming negligible. Returns to those with some college education remained positive, but low compared to other countries. Consistent with other studies, we find that returns to schooling did not recover from their CR low until the 1990s. Increases in the return to schooling during the transition following the CR were not associated directly with workers changing jobs or with taking “new-economy” jobs but appear to have occurred for most workers across all ownership categories. Workers most likely to leave jobs in the traditional ownership sector for jobs in the private or jointventure categories were those who entered the labor force prior to 1967. We do not find evidence supporting other studies’ finding that schooling returns for college graduates increased more than for workers with lower levels of schooling attainment.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40090/3/wp704.pd