Accounting, Information and the Development of Evidence-Based Resourcing Strategies in Education

In this paper we will argue that there has developed a significant gap between the high policy priority given to improving educational performance in the UK and the attention that has effectively been given to generating the information base upon which more effective educational resourcing strategies might be developed. This is despite the fact that evidence-based policies are intended to be at the heart of the current Modernising Government initiative. The high priority given to education by the incoming new Labour Government and by the Prime Minister in 1997 has since been accompanied by substantial additional resources under the Comprehensive Spending Reviews of 1998 and 2000. The principle of devolving educational budgets and resource management decisions down to individual schools through formula funding, that was at the centre of the previous government’s Local Management of School initiative, has also been reinforced. However, there remain important questions of the nature of the links which exist between school resourcing, characteristics of the pupil, and the educational achievements which can be expected from these different pupil and resource inputs. These questions are important for both the design of improved resource allocation formulae to allocate educational resources to individual schools and for resource management decisions within schools, as well as for target setting and performance monitoring. Answering these questions requires the development of a comprehensive national comparative school database, of which improvements in financial reporting would form a key component.educational resourcing; educational performance; resource management.

Structural Determinants of Cumulative Endogeneity Bias

The BLU properties of OLS estimators under known assumptions have encouraged the widespread use of OLS multivariate regression analysis in many empirical studies that are based upon a conceptual model of a single explanatory equation. However, such a model may well be an imperfect empirical approximation to the valid underlying conceptual model, that may well contain several important additional interrelationships between the relevant variables. In this paper, we examine the conditions under which we can predict the direction of the resultant endogeneity bias that will prevail in the OLS asymptotic parameter estimates for any given endogenous or predetermined variable, and the extent to which we can rely upon simple heuristics in this process. We also identify the underlying structural parameters to which the magnitude of the endogeneity bias is sensitive. The importance of such sensitivity analysis has been underlined by an increasing awareness of the inability of standard diagnostic tests to shed light upon the extent of the endogeneity bias, rather than upon merely its existence. The paper examines the implications of the analysis for statistical inferences about the true value of the regression coefficients and the validity of associated t-statistics.Multivariate regression analysis; Cumulative endogeneity bias; Evidence-based policy

Analysing the Research and Teaching Quality Achievement Frontier

The paper analyses the nature of the achievement possibility frontier between research and teaching quality in higher education under a system of quality evaluation by reference to discrete quality grades. It finds several important reasons why the associated feasible set is likely to be non-convex, and hence where the assumptions of the widely used nonparametric frontier performance analysis technique of Data Envelopment Analysis are no longer valid. The paper therefore investigates the use of the alternative Free Disposal Hull technique, and compares the results of deploying these techniques to the performance evaluation of UK Departments of Economics.Research and teaching quality, Higher education, Departments of Economics, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Free Disposal Hull

Performance Management and Performance Measurement in the Education Sector

The paper examines several outstanding issues on the interface between the measurement of performance in primary and secondary education and the management of improved performance in this nationally important sector. These issues relate to the clarification of the objectives of the education system, the impact of performance reward systems, such as Performance Related Pay, t he role of resources in influencing educational outcomes, the reliability of existing methods of assessing educational performance, such as Data Envelopment Analysis and multivariate regression, and the need for an improved national comparative database if progress is to be made in several of these directions.Performance management; performance measurement; education; data envelopment analysis; quality control; knowledge management.

A Pecking Order Analysis of Graduate Overeducation and Educational Investment in China

Against the background of the recent rate of expansion of China's higher education system that has outstripped even China's own high rate of economic growth, the paper examines evidence of the emerging problem of graduate overeducation within China. Based upon a pecking-order model of employment offers and associated ordered probit model, it analyses the empirical factors which determine the incidence of graduate overeducation across China. The extent to which individual students have an incentive to become overeducated compared to a socially optimal level of their education is also examined in the context of a supporting economic model that compares individual and socially optimal levels of investment in education, in the face of labour market demands. The extent of the divergence between individual and socially optimal levels of investment in education, and of the associated levels of graduate overeducation, is found to depend upon how recent major increases in the supply of graduates within China will interact with the future growth rates in job specifications, in demand variables and in resultant graduate wages within China.Graduate overeducation. higher education policy. Optimal education investment. Economic growth in China

The Optimal Duration of Equity Joint Ventures

Whilst joint ventures offer a potentially attractive form of corporate and industrial organisation, they also experience high rate of break-up within ten years from their initial formation. In this paper, we model this process not as an uncertain random event, but rather as the predictable outcome of underlying economic variables, with break-up within a finite time resulting even under conditions of complete certainty. Given the prevalence of joint venture break-ups, it is in the interests of both partners in an equity joint venture to be fully aware of their own optimal durations of the joint venture in their initial negotiations for the formation of the equity joint venture. Where the underlying economic parameters imply differences in their individual optimal durations of the joint venture, there is therefore scope for mutually beneficial agreements on a binding date for the break-up of the joint venture, and for side payments to enable this binding agreement to be reached, either as cash payments or in terms of their relative shareholdings in the jointly-owned separate company that will manage the equity joint venture. In addition, there is scope for a differential corporate tax rate on the joint venture, compared to that on the go-it-alone businesses of the two partners, in order bring the two partners’ privately optimal durations into line with the socially optimal duration of the joint venture.Joint ventures, equity shareholdings, optimal duration, corporate tax rates.

Evaluating the Benefits of careers Guidance

Education and training for post-16 year olds represent a major item of public expenditure. The budget of the new Learning and Skills Council (LSC), that is responsible for all post-16 education and training, excluding higher education, itself totals £ 7.315 billion for 2002-2003, including £1.355 billion for Sixth Form funding. Careers guidance to assist individuals in making improved career choices can play a significant role in helping to ensure that good use is made of the expenditure on education and training, and of the nation’s skills base

Liquidity Risk in Limit Order Book Markets

This thesis examines liquidity risk in electronic limit order book markets. The liquidity of a financial security characterizes the speed and ease with which any amount of the instrument can be purchased or sold. Liquidity risk constitutes the danger that the liquidation of an asset can be very costly because trades incur high market impacts in illiquid markets - in the extreme the asset cannot be traded at all. In this thesis I focus on three specific dimensions of liquidity risk. Firstly, I examine how quickly new liquidity flows back into the market once the limit order book has been cleared (resiliency). Secondly, I investigate the spill-over process of liquidity from one asset to another asset (commonality). Thirdly, I examine the pricing implications that liquidity characteristics have on the price of the asset. In all, I find that liquidity follows a strong replenishment process which ensures the inflow of new liquidity. Liquidity movements tend to be market-wide with a particularly strong correlation further from the spread. In addition, I find evidence that liquidity characteristics have an impact on returns. Liquidity risk is particularly important for investors who face uncertain cash demands, who time trades or who split large trade volumes. The findings in this thesis show that there is considerable variation in liquidity and that a thorough understanding of these dynamics can contribute significantly to investment performance

Assessing the Benefits of Career Guidance

Assessing, and optimising, the benefits of career guidance has become increasingly important for a number of reasons. One is that the top-level process of Comprehensive Spending Reviews, and Public Service Agreements, through which HM Treasury funds public services increasingly requires that the benefits which specific public services provide can be quantified, in order to justify their funding. Another is that ensuring best value in the management of public funds, and in the development of evidence-based practice, requires evidence to exist on the extent to which different forms of service provision do provide benefits to their recipients. A third is that the setting of optimal quality standards for the provision of career guidance by individual providers requires judgements to be made on the levels of service quality which maximise its benefits net of costs. A fourth is that the process of performance review, and monitoring the extent to which individual service providers do achieve best value, requires suitable quantitative performance indicators to be available that can reflect the benefits which recipients derive from the service provided. This paper examines the development of an analytical framework for assessing the benefits of career guidance, including quality of life improvements and wider social benefits, and associated information requirements