LA NECESIDAD DE GASTO EN EDUCACIÓN NO UNIVERSITARIA EN LAS COMUNIDADES AUTÓNOMAS: ¿EXISTE IGUALDAD DE OPORTUNIDADES EDUCATIVAS?

The aim of the present paper is to analyse if differences in non-university expenditure per student in Spanish regions are due to a higher necessity of resources for some of them. We have used principal component analysis, cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling to construct an indicator that allow us to compare the necessity of financial resources per groups of regions. Contrary to expectations, regions with higher necessity of resources show lower expenditure per pupil. This implies that if this trend continues, educational achievement and future income of a Spanish student could be closely bound with the geographic point of residence, all else equal. Classification-JEL : H52, I21, I22.non-university expenditure per pupil; equality of opportunity; Spanish regions.

A note on measuring group performance over time with pseudo-panels

Aparicio et al. (2017) recently extended the Camanho and Dyson (2006) Malmquist-type index (CDMI) for determining group performance in cross-sectional studies to panel or pseudo-panel databases. In that paper, it was shown that the pseudo-panel Malmquist index (PPMI) can be easily interpreted as the ratio of aggregated productivity changes in two groups of decision making units over time if and only if a new -difficult to interpret- term, the so called ‘divergence component’ (DC), is equal to one. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, based upon considering a baseline group technology we define a new base-group base-period PPMI where the DC always vanished. Second, when more than two groups are analyzed we show that under this framework the new base-group base-period PPMI, the new base-group CDMI and the components of both indexes satisfy the circular relation. As a consequence, the complicated ‘adjusted index’ defined in Camanho and Dyson (2006) for measuring the technology gap to satisfy the circular relation also vanishes. Both results will make it easier for practitioners applying the two indexes in different economic sectors regardless of how many groups are being compared

Comparing neural networks and efficiency techniques in non-linear production functions

Non-linear production functions are common in economic theory and in real life, especially in cases with increasing and diminishing returns to scale but there are also contexts where an increase in one input implies a decrease in one output. The aim of this paper is to test how non-linearity affect estimations of technical efficiency obtained by ordinary and corrected least squares (OLS, COLS), data envelopment analysis with constant and variables returns to scale (DEAcrs, DEAvrs), stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and by multilayer perceptron neural networks with backpropagation (MLP). To do this we will construct a very simple non-linear one input-one output production function and we will obtain different synthetic data with 50, 100, 200 and 300 decision-making units (DMUs). Afterwards we will add up different quantities of noise to the data and finally we will compare real efficiency with estimated values for all techniques named before among the different scenarios. Our results suggest that MLP is a flexible tool to fit production functions and a possible alternative to traditional techniques under non-linear contexts

School choice and the influence of immigration on spanish educational achievements in the 2006 Pisa

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar los efectos que la inmigración tiene en los resultados académicos de los estudiantes en España; así, se pretende indagar si la concentración de inmigrantes en determinados centros supone una caída en el rendimiento académico tanto de los alumnos españoles como de los propios inmigrantes. También se estudiará si los inmigrantes disponen de las mismas oportunidades que los alumnos nativos tanto en la selección escolar (centro público o centro concertado), como en los resultados académicos que alcanzan en comparación con los nativos. Para analizar estos aspectos se utiliza el modelo de Heckman (1979). El objetivo de esta metodología es controlar si la elección entre escuela pública o concertada es una decisión endógena que depende de determinadas variables socioeconómicas, lo cual evita los sesgos derivados de las diferentes características de los alumnos de unos y otros centros debida a dicha selección en la estimación de la función de producción educativa. Para realizar este estudio se utilizarán los datos de España del Informe pisa 2006. Los resultados muestran que la probabilidad de asistir a una escuela concertada disminuye significativamente con el nivel de ingresos familiar y con el hecho de ser inmigrante. Además, los inmigrantes escolarizados en centros públicos presentan resultados que son significativamente más bajos en las tres pruebas objetivas. Bajas concentraciones de inmigrantes en la escuela concertada conllevan efectos positivos en los resultados de los alumnos inmigrantes; sin embargo, estos desaparecen y se vuelven negativos cuando su concentración aumenta. La concentración de inmigrantes tiene un efecto significativamente negativo en los alumnos nativos, efecto que es mayor en la escuela pública que en la concertada. Es necesario hacer más investigaciones para lograr una asignación óptima de alumnos por escuela que no dañe ni la libertad de elección escolar ni la igualdad de oportunidades educativasThe aim of this paper is to examine the effects of school choice and the influence of immigration on Spanish educational achievement. Therefore, the authors seek to ascertain whether the concentration of immigrants in certain schools implies a decrease in educational achievement for Spanish students as well as for immigrant students. There is also some question about whether immigrants and native students are treated with equality of educational opportunities in both school choice (i.e., choosing between public schools and publicly financed private schools) and educational scores. The Heckman (1979) model is employed. The object of this methodology is to control whether or not the choice between public and publicly funded private schools is an endogenous decision depending on a number of socioeconomic variables. Heckman’s model makes it possible to avoid a biased estimation of the educational production function stemming from the different characteristics of students of both school types, primarily originated by school choice. Spanish data from the 2006 pisa report are used. The results show that the probability of attending a publicly financed private school decreases with family income and immigrant status. Moreover, immigrant students attending public schools display significantly lower scores on all three tests administered in the 2006 pisa. Low immigrant concentration in publicly financed private schools is found to make for positive effects on immigrant students’ scores; these effects disappear when the immigrant student percentage increases. The concentration of immigrants has a significantly negative effect on native students, and the negative effect is greater in public schools than in publicly funded private schools. More research is needed in order to find an optimal allocation of students in schools, so as to uphold both a freedom to choose one’s school and equality of educational opportunitiesLos autores agradecen los valiosos comentarios de dos evaluadores anónimos y la financiación recibida de la Fundación Alternativas y del Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Proyecto eco 2009-13864-C03-02

El control del gasto público por incapacidad temporal mediante redes neuronales

La incapacidad temporal (IT) en España generó en el año 2001 unos costes directos de cuatro mil millones de euros y unos costes indirectos aproximados de doce mil millones de euros. Los métodos actuales de control de la IT se realizan a posteriori, una vez recibida la baja laboral y principalmente sobre la base de duraciones normativas para cada enfermedad. El objetivo de este trabajo es proponer un modelo para la gestión de la IT con el fin de disminuir de forma racional el coste de la prestación por IT no justificado, por medio del control de su duración de manera individualizada. Para este fin se propone el uso de una herramienta flexible, las redes neuronales artificiales (RNAs), que permita predecir la duración de la baja laboral esperada para cada afiliado activo en función de determinadas variables individuales, además de la enfermedad, que también influyen en el tiempo de baja pero que no tienen en cuenta los métodos actuales. Los resultados empíricos de este trabajo, obtenidos para la provincia de Guadalajara durante el período 1995-2001, muestran cómo el modelo de RNAs permite realizar mejores predicciones individualizadas que un modelo tradicional de regresión lineal múltiple. Además, estas predicciones a priori van a permitir racionalizar el proceso de gestión y control de la prestación económica por IT con el consiguiente ahorro de gasto público. Classification-JEL : H51, I18. Incapacidad temporal, redes neuronales artificiales, control del gasto público.

Las Prestaciones por Incapacidad Temporal: Una Evaluación mediante Modelos ARIMA

El objetivo de este trabajo es modelar la evolución de los indicadores de incapacidad temporal. Disponer de modelos capaces de aproximar cuál será la evolución temporal de los indicadores económicos de baja laboral resulta clave por múltiples aspectos. Por un lado, permite tomar medidas de prevención y planificación sanitaria en el caso de que se detecte un aumento en la incidencia de una enfermedad. Por otro lado, la elaboración de un modelo de series temporales nos va a permitir evaluar el impacto de medidas de política de gestión sanitaria. En este trabajo se han utilizado datos suministrados por la Dirección Provincial del INSALUD de la provincia de Guadalajara entre 1989 y 2001. Con estos datos hemos estimando modelos ARIMA para predecir la evolución de los indicadores por de gasto por incapacidad temporal. Además, en Guadalajara se diseñó un plan especial de inspección de las bajas laborales, entre 1994 y 1996. Mediante este modelo se ha contrastado que esta política fue eficaz y supuso una reducción del coste durante ese periodo de un 34%. El análisis efectuado nos permite además afirmar que a pesar de eliminar el componente estacional de la gripe existen otras variables sociolaborales relacionas con el fraude que explican que los procesos de baja no se comporten de forma uniforme en el tiempo.public expenditure, sickness absence at work, ARIMA models

Determinants of grade retention in France and Spain: Does birth month matter?

In France and Spain, children born in the same calendar year start school together, regardless of maturity differences due to their birth month. This paper analyses the educational impact of birth month on the probability of grade retention controlling by other covariates. Using the PISA 2009 database for both countries, wedo identify a great impact on grade retention since students born in the last months of the year are between 70% and 80% more likely to repeat a grade than children born in the first months of the same year. We conclude that policy interventions are required in those countries to ensure that individuals are not unfairly penalized by their birth month

Dealing with endogeneity in data envelopment analysis applications

Although the presence of the endogeneity is frequently observed in economic production processes, it tends to be overlooked when practitioners apply data envelopment analysis (DEA). In this paper we deal with this issue in two ways. First, we provide a simple statistical heuristic procedure that enables practitioners to identify the presence of endogeneity in an empirical application. Second, we propose the use of an instrumental input DEA (II-DEA) as a potential tool to address this problem and thus improve DEA estimations. A Monte Carlo experiment confirms that the proposed II-DEA approach outperforms standard DEA in finite samples under the presence of high positive endogeneity. To illustrate our theoretical findings, we perform an empirical application on the education sector

Proyecto Mars Direct, objetivo : colonización de Marte

Peer Reviewe

One Laptop per Child? Using Production Frontiers for Evaluating the Escuela2.0 Program in Spain

Over the last few decades, public programs have driven the gradual adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education. The most ambitious project in Spain so far was Escuela 2.0, which provided students from the regions that opted into the program with laptops. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact of this program on school performance and productivity. To do this, we developed a new methodological approach based on combining causal inference techniques and the analysis of production frontiers. We calculated the differences in productivity and performance between treated and control schools using the base-group Camanho–Dyson Malmquist index and the base-group performance gap index. We estimate the impact of the program as the variation of these differences, following the essence of the difference-in-differences analysis. The main results are that Escuela 2.0 had a negative impact on performance and productivity