Expense Preference and Student Achievement in School Districts

There is little direct evidence on the widely held view that school districts spend too few of available resources on student instruction. I find evidence of such an expense preference by assessing the effect of competition from private schools on the allocation of resources by school districts. I also examine the effects of instructional and non-instructional spending on high school completion rates. The results suggest that school districts direct too few of available resources towards instruction. The results also demonstrate, however, that money spent on instruction is highly effective when conditioned on the decision to spend outside the classroom.Education

Will bank interest rate deregulation jeopardize economic growth? A case study of South Korea

The first purpose of this paper is to demonstrate, as a theoretical.proposition, that elimination of controls on bank interest rates would not necessarily lead to a decline in output in those sectors which were previously able to obtain cheap bank credit, The efficiency gains obtained by eliminating these controls need not, therefore, come at the expense of economic growth (or whatever other benefits were presumed to accrue by fostering particular sectors using credit controls). The key to this result lies in a proper understanding of the way in which credit price control and quantity rationing in the regulated sector affects resource allocation, given the existence of a dual, unregulated financial sector. The second purpose of this paper is to present quantitative estimates of the macroeconomic and sectoral effects of the removal of bank interest rate controls in South Korea. In many ways the Korean experience is tailor-made for a study of this kind.

Demands for real and financial assets in Botswana

Traditionally, asset demands are derived as a solution to the individual's or household's problem of allocating wealth among various real and financial alternatives. The demand for each asset depends on the own real rate of return, but also on the real rates of return to alternative assets. The sensitivity to own and cross rates captures the speculative element in portfolio allocation, the motive usually being to maximise end-of-period wealth. Typically, asset demands also depend on income, reflecting the transactions motive for asset holding. These determinants are generally the same, whether the asset choice is seen to take place under conditions of risk or certainty.

The effects of school reform under NCLB waivers: Evidence from focus schools in Kentucky.

Under waivers to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, the federal government required states to identify schools where targeted subgroups of students have the lowest achievement and to implement reforms in these “Focus Schools.” In this study, we examine the Focus School reforms in the state of Kentucky. The reforms in this state are uniquely interesting for several reasons. One is that the state developed unusually explicit guidance for Focus Schools centered on a comprehensive school-planning process. Second, the state identified Focus Schools using a “super subgroup” measure that combined traditionally low-performing subgroups into an umbrella group. This design feature may have catalyzed broader whole-school reforms and attenuated the incentives to target reform efforts narrowly. Using regression discontinuity designs, we find that these reforms led to substantial improvements in school performance, raising math achievement by 17 percent and reading achievement by 9 percent

Anchoring historical sequences using a new source of astro-chronological tie-points

The discovery of past spikes in atmospheric radiocarbon activity, caused by major solar energetic particle events, has opened up new possibilities for high-precision chronometry. The two spikes, or Miyake Events, have now been widely identified in tree-rings that grew in the years 775 and 994 CE. Furthermore, all other plant material that grew in these years would also have incorporated the anomalously high concentrations of radiocarbon. Crucially, some plant-based artefacts, such as papyrus documents, timber beams and linen garments, can also be allocated to specific positions within long, currently unfixed, historical sequences. Thus, Miyake Events represent a new source of tie-points that could provide the means for anchoring early chronologies to the absolute timescale. Here, we explore this possibility, outlining the most expeditious approaches, the current challenges and obstacles, and how they might best be overcome.Comment: 11 pages, accepted to Royal Society Proc

Do High School Exit Exams Influence Educational Attainment or Labor Market Performance?

State requirements that high school graduates pass exit exams were the leading edge of the movement towards standards-based reform and continue to be adopted and refined by states today. In this study, we present new empirical evidence on how exit exams influenced educational attainment and labor market experiences using data from the 2000 Census and the National Center for Education Statistics' Common Core of Data (CCD). Our results suggest that the effects of these reforms have been heterogeneous. For example, our analysis of the Census data suggests that exit exams significantly reduced the probability of completing high school, particularly for black students. Similarly, our analysis of grade-level dropout data from the CCD indicates that Minnesota's recent exit exam increased the dropout rate in urban and high-poverty school districts as well as in those with a relatively large concentration of minority students. This increased risk of dropping out was concentrated among 12th grade students. However, we also found that Minnesota's exit exam lowered the dropout rate in low-poverty and suburban school districts, particularly among students in the 10th and 11th grades. These results suggest that exit exams have the capacity to improve student and school performance but also appear to have exacerbated the inequality in educational attainment.

Will bank interest rate deregulation jeopardize economic growth?

노트 : This paper reports research undertaken in the "Sonderforschungsbereich 86" (Hamburg-Kiel) "Teilprojekt 3" with financial support provided by the "Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft". The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance of her colleagues, particularly Hermann Dick, Ulrich Hiemenz and Ulrich Lachler. She also wishes to thank the fellows at the Korea Development Institute, especially Kim In-chul and Lee Duk-hoon, for time and comments generously given