When one door closes: the impact of the hagwon curfew on the consumption of private tutoring in the Republic of Korea [WP IEB]

The Korean government has struggled against the proliferation of private tutoring for more than four decades. In 2006, state education authorities imposed a restriction on operating hours of hagwon (private tutoring academies or cram schools) in an attempt at reducing the economic and time resources spent on private tutoring. Since then, some provincial authorities have modified the curfew on hagwon. We take advantage of these policy shifts to identify average treatment effects taking a difference in-differences approach. Our findings suggest that enforcing the curfew did not generate a significant reduction in the hours and resources spent on private tutoring, our results being heterogeneous by school level and socioeconomic status. Demand for private tutoring seems to be especially inelastic for high school students, who increased their consumption of alternative forms of private tutoring. As the consumption of private tutoring is positively correlated with academic performance and socioeconomic status, the curfew may have a negative effect on the equality of educational opportunities

Regulating private tutoring consumption in Korea: lessons from another failure

The proliferation of private tutoring is a widespread phenomenon, Korea being one the most notable examples. Indeed, successive Korean governments have attempted to limit private tutoring consumption for more than four decades. In 2006, state education authorities imposed a restriction on operating hours of hagwon (private tutoring academies) in an attempt at reducing the economic and time resources spent on private tutoring. Since then, some provincial authorities have modified the curfew on hagwon. We take advantage of these policy shifts to identify average treatment effects taking a difference-in-differences approach. Our findings suggest that enforcing the curfew did not generate a significant reduction in the hours and resources spent on private tutoring, our results being heterogeneous by school level and socioeconomic status. Demand for private tutoring seems to be especially inelastic for high school students, who increased their consumption of alternative forms of private tutoring. As the consumption of private tutoring is positively correlated with academic performance and socioeconomic status, strengthening the curfew may have a negative effect on the equality of educational opportunities

Growth and inequality in the Republic of Korea during the 1990’s decade

La República de Corea suele ser citada como ejemplo de crecimiento con equidad. El proceso de desarrollo fue acompañado por un rápido proceso de industrialización, así como por un fuerte y continuo incremento en la dotación educativa de su población desde la década de 1950, tendencia que se mantuvo durante la década de 1990. Ahora bien, durante ésta se alteraron algunos de los fundamentos estructurales de su modelo de industrialización, reduciéndose el ritmo de crecimiento e incrementándose la desigualdad en la distribución de la renta. El objetivo de este artículo es doble: por un lado, conocer la evolución de la desigualdad en la distribución de las rentas del trabajo en Corea desde la década de 1990 hasta el año 2005 y, por otro, investigar algunas de las causas de dicha evolución.__________________________________The Republic of Korea is usually cited as an example of growth with equity. The development process was accompanied by a rapid industrialization process and an intense and continuous increase in the educative stock of its population since the decade of 1950, tendency that continued during the 1990’s. However, during this decade some of the structural foundations of its model of industrialization were altered, being reduced the rate of growth and increased the inequality in income distribution. The objective of this article is double: on the one hand, to describe the evolution of labour income inequality in Korea from the decade of 1990 to year 2005 and, on the other hand, to investigate some of the causes of this evolution

The Use (and Misuse) of PISA in Guding Policy Reform: The Case of Spain

In 2013 Spain introduced a series of educational reforms explicitly inspired by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 results. These reforms were mainly implemented in secondary education - based upon the assumption that this is where Spain's educational problems lie. This paper questions this assumption by attempting to identify the point where Spanish children fall behind young people in other developed countries. Specifically, by drawing data from multiple international assessments, we are able to explore how cross-national differences in reading skills change as children age. Consideration is given to both the average level of achievement and the evolution of educational inequalities. Our conclusion is that policy-makers have focused their efforts on the wrong part of the education system; educational achievement is low in Spain (and educational inequalities large) long before children enter secondary school. This study therefore serves as a note of caution against simplistic interpretation of the PISA rankings

Medida de la eficiencia de la atención primaria en Barcelona incorporando indicadores de calidad

Demostrar el impacto que tiene la consideración de indicadores cualitativos en la evaluación de la eficiencia técnica de los equipos de atención primaria (EAP). La crisis económica que se inició en 2008 ha llevado a procesos de reasignación de recursos basados en indicadores cuantitativos, dejando los cualitativos en un segundo plano. El estudio aplica técnicas de análisis envolvente de datos (AED) a 58 EAP pertenecientes a tres servicios de atención primaria (SAP) de la provincia de Barcelona. Los datos combinan información pública de la Generalitat de Catalunya con los proporcionados (previa solicitud) por el Observatorio del Sistema de Salud de Cataluña. El análisis compara los resultados de tres modelos, permitiendo esta aproximación identificar cambios en la eficiencia de los EAP en función de la (no) consideración de indicadores de calidad asistencial

Impacte del sistema de beques de menjador de Catalunya sobre la igualtat d'oportunitats educatives

L'objectiu principal de les beques escolars és incrementar la igualtat d'oportunitats educatives. Els ajuts de menjador per motius socioeconòmics de Catalunya, gestionats pels consells comarcals des de l'any 1996, constitueixen un bon exemple. Els canvis demogràfics i socioeconòmics experimentats han provocat que part de les necessitats que pretenien ser cobertes mitjançant aquests ajuts hagin quedat desateses. Aquest article detecta punts febles dins l'actual sistema d'ajuts de menjador per motius socioeconòmics i planteja reflexions per a la seva hipotètica adaptació a la nova realitat a la qual s'enfronta

School Composition Effects in Spain: Accounting for Interceptand Slope Effects

Drawing on PISA 2012 data, in this paper we study the impact of school's socio-economic composi-tion on the science test scores for Spanish lower-secondary education students. We adopt a semi-para-metric methodology that enables spillovers to affect all the parameters in the educational productionfunction. We also deal with the issue of endogenous students' sorting into schools with better socio-economic composition. The positive effect of school's socio-economic composition is stronger whencomputed using the semi-parametric approach, suggesting the relevance of slope effects of school com-position. However, the spillovers are substantially reduced when the endogenous sorting of students iscontrolled for

The distribution of skills among the European adult population and unemployment: a comparative approach [WP]

The most painful effect of the Great Recession in European countries has been the surge in unemployment rates during a period that has been characterised most notably by an increase in income inequality and the heterogeneous pattern of this inequality by educational level. Thus, workers with low levels of educational attainment were among the first to lose their jobs. This paper addresses two main research questions: first, it estimates the importance of the level of skills and education on the probability of being unemployed; and, second, it provides evidence of the impact of inequalities in the previous socioeconomic and cultural background of individuals on the probability of being unemployed. These two objectives are assessed using data for 24 jurisdictions participating in the first round of the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). Skill levels play a central role in explaining unemployment in Europe and act as an indirect channel via which a family’s sociocultural background has an impact on its labour market status