An investigation of cognitive skills and topics development within finance programmes: a UK perspective

Finance is an important subject in many accountancy and other undergraduate programmes. The technical competencies in this area are covered under the QAA benchmark in finance (2007). However, the benchmark does not rigidly lay down the curriculum and competencies it expects students to acquire; universities are free to teach the subject from a variety of perspectives. In this paper the subject specific knowledge and skills emphasised in finance subjects in accounting undergraduate programmes in the UK are examined. Learning outcomes from module handbooks/unit specifications from ten universities in the UK are used to gauge and analyse what cognitive skills and topics are emphasised. This research finds that universites should include higher level cognitive skills in order to meet the demands of the changing environment. It is also evident that funding and sources of capital is the most important topic in the curriculum

Consultations of health service providers amongst patients of pulmonary tuberculosis from an urban area

Aims: To describe the number, types and reasons of consultations amongst patients of pulmonary tuberculosis from an urban area. Settings and Design Cross sectional study was conducted amongst new patients of pulmonary tuberculosis initiated on DOTS at District Tuberculosis Centre (DTC), Yavatmal from January to June 2006. Material and Methods: The data regarding consultations were collected along a time line. The reasons for consultations were studied by in-depth interviews. Statistical analysis: Logistic regression analysis and transcripts of interviews. Results and Conclusions A total of 55 patients were studied in whom median duration between first consultation to treatment initiation was 15 days. A majority of cases (87.27%) had first consulted a private practitioner. A total of 32 patients reported more than two consultations and 19 had consulted more than two private health service providers. Amongst the movements between consultations, a majority were from private to government. Only four patients had come to DTC without any prior consultation. Many patients came to government health service provider on their own when the symptomatic treatment prescribed by the private practitioners did not relieve their symptom

Where has all the bias gone? Detecting gender-bias in the household allocation of educational expenditure

The reliability of the household consumption based (Engel curve) methodology in detecting gender bias has been called into question because it has generally failed to confirm bias even where it exists. This paper seeks to find explanations for this failure by exploiting a dataset that has educational expenditure information at the individual level and also, by aggregation, at the household level. We find that in the basic education age groups, the discriminatory mechanism in education is via differential enrolment rates for boys and girls. Education expenditure conditional on enrolment is equal for boys and girls. The Engel curve method fails for two reasons. Firstly, it models a single equation for the two stage process. Second, even when we make individual and household level expenditure equations as similar as possible, the household level equation still fails to ‘pick up’ gender bias in about one third of the cases where the individual-level equation shows significant bias. The paper concludes that only individual based data can accurately capture the full extent of gender bias.

Health, Nutrition and Academic Achievement: New Evidence from India

Using new and unique panel data, we investigate the role of long-term health and childhood malnutrition in schooling outcomes for children in rural India, many of whom lack basic numeracy and literacy skills. Using data on students’ performance on mathematics and Hindi tests, we examine the role of the endogeneity of health caused by omitted variables bias and measurement error and correct for these problems using a household fixed effects estimator on a sub-sample of siblings observed in the data. We also present several extensions and robustness checks using instrumental variables and alternative estimators. We find evidence of a positive causal effect of long-term health measured as height-for-age z-score (HAZ) on test scores, and the results are consistent across several different specifications. The results imply that improving childhood nutrition will have benefits that extend beyond health into education.Health, Nutrition, Schooling, India

Sovereign debt and the cost of migration: India 1990–1992

In this paper we look at the Indian financial crisis of 1990–1992 that included three credit rating downgrades of two notches each in the short space of 9 months. We measure to what extent India’s financial difficulties were the result of conditions prevailing on the international capital markets at the time, reflected in changes in the risk-free international term structure of interest rates, and to what extent they were linked to credit risk specific to the country’s political environment and its economic and financial management as reflected in the three ranking migrations. (In the credit risk literature, migrations refer to changes in credit rating in the sense that a country “migrates” from a rating of A2, for example, to a rating of Baa3.) We find that most of the changes in Indian Eurobond prices over the period were due to conditions on the international capital markets. Migration effects were surprisingly small. Interestingly, our results show that there are no maturity, currency or bond specific effects of migration on percentage changes in the bond prices. However, when we measure the cost of migration in terms of basis points on the yield to maturity, we find that migration is relatively more costly for shorter maturities. Averaging over all bonds, the first migration added about 106 basis points to the bonds’ yields to maturity while the third migration added about 42. The second migration was very small and not statistically significant, indicating that it was anticipated by the markets and priced in the first downgrade

Tackling low educational achievement

This report examines the factors underlying low achievement in British education. It is important to find out why tens of thousands of young people leave school with no or very few qualifications. Low achievement at age 16 is associated with disadvantage and also a variety of outcomes by gender and ethnic group. Existing policies and practices within the educational system do not always help. Boys outnumber girls as low achievers by 20 per cent and white British boys comprise nearly half of all low achievers, while there are also achievement problems among some minority ethnic groups. The report addresses the ongoing debate about education policies in relation to reducing low achievement. The study uses the National Pupil Database and related data to examine four different measures of low achievement, and a profile of low achievement is offered. The report will be of interest to all those concerned with educational outcomes, including policymakers, education professionals, unions and the media

Where has all the bias gone? Detecting gender-bias in the household allocation of educational expenditure

The reliability of the household consumption based (Engel curve) methodology in detecting gender bias has been called into question because it has generally failed to confirm bias even where it exists. This paper seeks to find explanations for this failure by exploiting a dataset that has educational expenditure information at the individual level and also, by aggregation, at the household level. We find that in the basic education age groups, the discriminatory mechanism in education is via differential enrolment rates for boys and girls. Education expenditure conditional on enrolment is equal for boys and girls. The Engel curve method fails for two reasons. Firstly, it models a single equation for the two stage process. Second, even when we make individual and household level expenditure equations as similar as possible, the household level equation still fails to ‘pick up’ gender bias in about one third of the cases where the individual-level equation shows significant bias. The paper concludes that only individual based data can accurately capture the full extent of gender bias.

Are girls the fairer sex in India? Revisiting intra-household allocation of education expenditure

This paper revisits the issue of the intra-household allocation of education expenditure with the recently available India Human Development Survey which refers to 2005 and covers both urban and rural areas. In addition to the traditional Engel method, the paper utilizes a Hurdle model to disentangle the decision to enroll (incur any educational expenditure) and the decision of how much to spend on education, conditional on enrolling. Finally the paper also uses household fixed effects to examine whether any gender bias is a within-household phenomenon. The paper finds that the traditional Engel method often fails to pick up gender bias where it exists not only because of the aggregation of data at the household-level but also because of aggregation of the two decisions in which gender can have opposite signs. It is found that pro-male gender bias exists in the primary school age group for several states but that the incidence of gender bias increases with age – it is greater in the middle school age group (10-14 years) and greater still in the secondary school age group (15-19 years). However, gender discrimination in the secondary school age group 15-19 takes place mainly through the decision to enroll boys and not girls, and not through differential expenditure on girls and boys. The results also suggest that the extent of pro-male gender bias in educational expenditure is substantially greater in rural than in urban areas. Finally, our results suggest that an important mechanism through which households spend less on girls than boys is by sending sons to fee-charging private schools and daughters to the fee-free government-funded schools.Gender bias, educational expenditure, Engel curve, Hurdle model, India.

Akin to my teacher: Does caste, religious or gender distance between student and teacher matter? Some evidence from India

This paper uses a unique data set from 5028 primary school children in rural India to examine whether the demographic interactions between students and teachers influence student outcomes and whether social distance between student and teacher exacerbates gender, caste and religious gaps in children's achievement. One would expect this to be the case if discrimination and/or role model effects persist in the classroom. School and individual fixed effects methodology are used. In the pupil fixed effects model, across subject variation is used to test whether having a teacher whose gender, caste and religion are the same as that of the student improves student test scores. We find statistically significant positive effects of matching student and teacher characteristics. We find that a student's achievement in a subject in which the teacher shares the same gender, caste and religion as the child is, on average, nearly a quarter of a SD higher than the same child's achievement in a subject taught by a teacher who does not share the child's gender, caste or religion. Policy implications are considered.education, religion, gender