Sibling spillover effects in school achievement

This paper provides empirical evidence on direct sibling spillover effects in school achievement using administrative data on 220 thousand siblings in England. We extend previous strategies to identify peer effects by exploiting the variation in school test scores across three subjects observed at ages 11 and 16 as well as variation in peer quality between siblings. We find a statistically significant positive spillover effect from the older to the younger sibling but not vice versa. Spillover effects from high achieving older siblings are larger than from low achieving ones, but this relationship is weaker for students from disadvantaged backgrounds

COVID-19 and educational losses: the case for sending the youngest back to school

Jo Blanden and Birgitta Rabe discuss the decision to send the youngest students back to school this summer. They explain why doing so may be important for children’s education and wellbeing, as long as health risks can be mitigated

Mehr Markt in der öffentlichen Beschäftigungsförderung : zur wettbewerblichen Vergabe von § 249h-Maßnahmen bei der Treuhandanstalt (More market in public job creation : on the allocation undercompetitive conditions of §249h- measures at the Treuhandanstalt)

"Since 1994 the Treuhandanstalt has publicly put out for tender employment projects in accordance with §249h of the Employment Promotion Act and has allocated them on a competitive basis. As the allocation of these projects to private companies has always been called for but only rarely put into practice, the Treuhandanstalt therefore acts as a forerunner. The effects of this allocation process are the main focus of this article. With reference to the current discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of active labour market policy, the requirements which have to be fulfilled for publicly supported employment and which provide the basis for the evaluation of the Treuhandanstalt's process of invitation to tender are named. The effects on the following requirements are discussed individually: efficiency and refunding, interlinking of labour market policy and regional structural policy and creation of transitions into the primary labour market, both on an individual and a project level. This analysis includes previously unpublished details from the Treuhandanstalt on their tendering process as well as results of interviews with experts. The results can be summarised as follows: - The inclusion of competition has a clearly positive effect on efficiency and the refunding rate of the projects. Decisive for this are economies and the reduction of displacement and substitution effects. - The process reinforces the interlinking of labour market policy and regional structural policy in the first place through procedural integration of central parties. - On the individual level, transitions into regular employment could be promoted amongst other things through the effects of acquaintance and reputation. From the data available, however, this effect does not seem to differ greatly from projects which were not put out to tender. - On the project level, possibilities of transition into the primary labour market, for example through setting up small businesses, are judged with scepticism. Although the tendering process does in principle create favourable conditions, the possibilities of setting up small businesses appear to be limited, as the market potential in restoration, demolition and dismantling work is largely exhausted. The concluding chapter is devoted to the question of the applicability of the Treuhand model for a larger sphere of labour promotion projects. §249 designates an employment subsidy for work in the fields of environment, social services and youth assistance." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))Arbeitsförderungsgesetz § 249h, Auftragsvergabe, Arbeitsmarktpolitik - Erfolgskontrolle, Strukturpolitik, Treuhandanstalt, zweiter Arbeitsmarkt - Effizienz, Ostdeutschland, Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Flexible Anwartschaften als Element der Rentenreform

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Wirkungen aktiver Arbeitsmarktpolitik: Evaluierungsergebnisse für Deutschland, Schweden, Dänemark und die Niederlande ; Gutachten im Auftrag des Bundeskanzleramtes für die Benchmarking-Gruppe des Bündnisses für Arbeit, Ausbildung und Wettbewerbsfähigkeit

"Hohe Teilnehmerzahlen sowie ein beträchtlicher Mitteleinsatz für arbeitsmarktpolitische Maßnahmen haben in den letzten Jahren zu einem gesteigerten Interesse an den Wirkungen aktiver Arbeitsmarktpolitik geführt. In dieser Literaturstudie wird daher danach gefragt, was sich nach dem aktuellen Stand der Evaluierungsforschung über die bisherige Wirksamkeit aktiver Arbeitsmarktpolitik in Deutschland sagen lässt. Welche Instrumente funktionieren für welche Personengruppen und welche Maßnahmengestaltung ist zu bevorzugen? Welche makroökonomischen Effekte hat die aktive Arbeitsmarktpolitik? Welche Erkenntnisse sind gesichert und welche Fragen lassen sich noch nicht beantworten? Auch die Erfahrungen in Schweden, Dänemark und den Niederlanden werden hinzugezogen, um gegebenenfalls nachahmenswerte Modelle beim Einsatz aktiver Arbeitsmarktpolitik zu identifizieren. Bei ebenfalls hohen Ausgaben für aktive Arbeitsmarktpolitik waren zumindest Dänemark und die Niederlande in den vergangenen Jahren beschäftigungspolitisch weit erfolgreicher als Deutschland. Allerdings war dafür neben der aktiven Arbeitsmarktpolitik eine jeweils spezifische Kombination u.a. aus arbeitsrechtlicher Regulierung, Tarifpolitik sowie ökonomischer Rahmenbedingungen verantwortlich, so dass sich ein Erfolgsmodell nicht ohne weiteres kopieren lässt." (Autorenreferat)"High participation rates and considerable spendings for active labour market measures have led to an increased interest in the effects of active labour market policy in Germany. This literature review therefore investigates the results of recent evaluation studies. Which instruments work for which target group and which program-design is preferable? What are the macro-economic effects of active labour market policy? Which results are confirmed and which questions cannot be answered up to date? The study also looks at experiences in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands in order to identify successful models in the use of active labour market policy. Denmark and the Netherlands, both spending relatively high shares of the GDP on labour market policies, have been much more successful than Germany in reducing unemployment over the last years. However, this success cannot be solely attributed to active labour market policy. It is the result of a specific combination of labour regulation, wage policy and economic development which cannot be copied easily." (author's abstract

Wirkungen aktiver Arbeitsmarktpolitik: Evaluierungsergebnisse für Deutschland, Schweden, Dänemark und die Niederlande

Hohe Teilnehmerzahlen sowie ein beträchtlicher Mitteleinsatz für arbeitsmarktpolitische Maßnahmen haben in den letzten Jahren zu einem gesteigerten Interesse an den Wirkungen aktiver Arbeitsmarktpolitik geführt. In dieser Literaturstudie wird daher danach gefragt, was sich nach dem aktuellen Stand der Evaluierungsforschung über die bisherige Wirksamkeit aktiver Arbeitsmarktpolitik in Deutschland sagen lässt. Welche Instrumente funktionieren für welche Personengruppen und welche Maßnahmengestaltung ist zu bevorzugen? Welche makroökonomischen Effekte hat die aktive Arbeitsmarktpolitik? Welche Erkenntnisse sind gesichert und welche Fragen lassen sich noch nicht beantworten? Auch die Erfahrungen in Schweden, Dänemark und den Niederlanden werden hinzugezogen, um gegebenenfalls nachahmenswerte Modelle beim Einsatz aktiver Arbeitsmarktpolitik zu identifizieren. Bei ebenfalls hohen Ausgaben für aktive Arbeitsmarktpolitik waren zumindest Dänemark und die Niederlande in den vergangenen Jahren beschäftigungspolitisch weit erfolgreicher als Deutschland. Allerdings war dafür neben der aktiven Arbeitsmarktpolitik eine jeweils spezifische Kombination u.a. aus arbeitsrechtlicher Regulierung, Tarifpolitik sowie ökonomischer Rahmenbedingungen verantwortlich, so dass sich ein Erfolgsmodell nicht ohne weiteres kopieren lässt. -- High participation rates and considerable spendings for active labour market measures have led to an increased interest in the effects of active labour market policy in Germany. This literature review therefore investigates the results of recent evaluation studies. Which instruments work for which target group and which program-design is preferrable? What are the macro-economic effects of active labour market policy? Which results are confirmed and which questions cannot be answered up to date? The study also looks at experiences in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands in order to identify successful models in the use of active labour market policy. Denmark and the Netherlands, both spending relatively high shares of the GDP on labour market policies, have been much more successful than Germany in reducing unemployment over the last years. However, this success cannot be solely attributed to active labour market policy. It is the result of a specific combination of labour regulation, wage policy and economic development which cannot be copied easily.

School closures and children’s emotional and behavioural difficulties

School closures have been one of the most dramatic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on society. Concerns about the impact of school closures on children’s learning were raised early on in the pandemic and work continues to mitigate lost learning. There is also widespread concern about the detrimental impact of the pandemic on children’s mental wellbeing, but there are likely to be a number of mechanisms at work here, including parents’ employment situation, anxiety about relatives’ health and social isolation. In this briefing note we specifically examine the role of school closures in England on the emotional and behavioural wellbeing of children aged 5-11, as measured by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in the UK Household Longitudinal Study. We make use of the fact that in England certain primary school year groups (Reception, Year 1 and Year 6) were prioritised to return to school after the first lockdown from 1 June 2020, while in other year groups rates of return were much lower and often only vulnerable children and children of key workers were able to attend school. This allows us to assess how emotional and behavioural difficulties changed from pre-pandemic levels for children who were prioritised to return to school, compared to those who were not, after accounting for ways in which the two groups may differ, including age. Data collected in late July enables us to assess the short term effect of missing out on up to an additional six weeks of schooling – on top of the schooling all children missed between March and May – on children’s emotional and behavioural difficulties. Data collected in late September allows us to assess whether the effect of these different school experiences during the second half of the summer term persists once all year groups had returned to face-to-face teaching in the new academic year

Sibling spillover effects in school achievement

This paper provides empirical evidence on sibling spillover effects in school achievement using administrative data on 230,000 siblings in England. We extend previous strategies to identify peer effects by exploiting the variation in school test scores across subjects observed at ages 11 and 16 as well as variation in peer quality between siblings. We find a statistically significant positive spillover effect from the older to the younger sibling. Sibling spillovers account for a non-negligible proportion of the attainment gap between low- and higher income pupils in England

Going universal. The impact of free school lunches on child body weight outcomes

We study the impact on young children’s bodyweight of switching from means-tested to universal provision of nutritious free school meals in England, exploiting identifying variation in the timing of weight measurements. We show that exposure to high quality universal free lunches increases healthy weight prevalence and reduces obesity prevalence and BMI by the end of the first year of school. The effect seems driven by substitution of home-produced lunches with school meals among children not eligible under means-testing, with little evidence of income or parental labour supply effects. This suggests universal provision can improve the diets of relatively well-off pupils

Universal pre-school education: the case of public funding with private provision

This article studies the effect of free pre-school education on child outcomes in primary school. We exploit the staggered implementation of free part-time pre-school for three year olds across Local Education Authorities in England in the early 2000s. The policy led to small improvements in attainment at age 5, with no apparent benefits by age 11. We argue that this is because the expansion of free places largely crowded out privately paid care, with small changes in total participation, and was achieved through an increase in private provision, where quality is lower on average than in the public sector