1,784 research outputs found

    The impact of private provision of public education : empirical evidence from Bogota's concession schools

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    In 1999 the city of Bogota, Colombia launched the concession school program designed to broaden the coverage and quality of basic education. It consists of a contract between a group of private schools and the public educational system such that private agents provide education for low-income students. This paper tests three main hypotheses concerning the impact of concessions on the quality of education: first, dropout rates are lower in concession schools than in similar public schools; second, other public schools nearby the concession schools have lower dropout rates in comparison with other public schools outside the area of influence; and third, test scores from concession schools are higher than scores in similar public schools. The paper presents evidence in favor of the three hypotheses using propensity score and matching estimators.Tertiary Education,Education For All,Secondary Education,Primary Education,Teaching and Learning,Economics of Education

    La sociedad gana o pierde como resultado de la privatizacion? El caso de Colombia

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    Este trabajo estudia los efectos de la privatización del sector de agua en el bienestar de los consumidores en 46 municipalidades de Colombia. En primer lugar se describe el proceso de privatización. En segundo lugar, el estudio evalúa el impacto de la privatización en el acceso, precio y calidad del agua al igual que los resultados de salud usando metodología de diferencia en diferencias con variación de tiempo (antes y después de la privatización) entre tratamientos y grupos de control (municipalidades privatizadas y no privatizadas)y el control de las características de la familia y de la municipalidad. Los resultados muestran efectos positivos de la privatización, en particular en las áreas urbanas. Hay cuatro resultados importantes: (i) La privatización en las áreas urbanas aumenta el acceso, tiene efectos positivos en la medición de calidad como en la necesidad de tratamiento y el aspecto del agua (i. e. presencia de partículas), y mejora los resultados de salud, como también mejorar la frecuencia del servicio para los bajos quintiles. (ii) La privatización aumenta el precio del agua en los bajos quintiles, aunque estos efectos pueden ser el resultado de la implementación conjunta de privatización y eliminación de subsidios cruzados (iii) En las municipalidades privatizadas con mejores capacidades técnicas gubernamentales hay efectos positivos en el acceso, precios y calidad. (iv) los efectos positivos de la privatización en áreas rurales en la frecuencia del servicio y en los resultados de salud están dominados por el impacto negativo en el acceso y precios. Estos resultados sugieren que los beneficios que se encuentran en las áreas urbanas deben expandirse a las áreas rurales, y que el servicio se debe enfocar más hacia los más pobres.

    DOES VIOLENCE REDUCE INVESTMENT IN EDUCATION?: A THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL APPROACH

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    The paper develops a dynamic theoretical model and presents empirical evidence about the relationship between violence and education investments. Although some papers have estimated regressions to link educational outcomes and violence, no formal models have been developed yet. A theoretical model is crucial to understand the different channels through which violence affects education. Three channels are identified. First, violence can affect directly the utility of households and, therefore, it may modify the consumption of education. Second, extreme violence can destroy physical capital and create uncertainty, which will lower investment and production. In the long run, destruction of physical assets and drop in investment impact the income of households who in turn must reduce consumption and cutback investments in education. Third, violence can modify the rates of return of education, and therefore, can change the investment on education. We find violence indeed exerts a toll on education. School enrollment is less in Colombian municipalities with homicide rates above the national median. Moreover, the likelihood of school enrollment decreases as homicide rates rise for all group ages. The impact of homicide rates is larger than transferences from the national government to the local government earmarked for investment in education and health.Theory of Education

    Short-run learning dynamics under a test-based accountability system : evidence from Pakistan

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    Low student learning is a common finding in much of the developing world. This paper uses a relatively unique dataset of five semiannual rounds of standardized test data to characterize and explain the short-term changes in student learning. The data are collected as part of the quality assurance system for a public-private partnership program that offers public subsidies conditional on minimum learning levels to low-cost private schools in Pakistan. Apart from a large positive distributional shift in learning between the first two test rounds, the learning distributions over test rounds show little progress. Schools are ejected from the program if they fail to achieve a minimum pass rate in the test in two consecutive attempts, making the test high stakes. Sharp regression discontinuity estimates show that the threat of program exit on schools that barely failed the test for the first time induces large learning gains. The large change in learning between the first two test rounds is likely attributable to this accountability pressure given that a large share of new program entrants failed in the first test round. Schools also qualify for substantial annual teacher bonuses if they achieve a minimum score in a composite measure of student test participation and mean test score. Sharp regression discontinuity estimates do not show that the prospect of future teacher bonus rewards induces learning gains for schools that barely did not qualify for the bonus.Tertiary Education,Education For All,Secondary Education,Teaching and Learning,Primary Education

    The use and misuse of computers in education : evidence from a randomized experiment in Colombia

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    This paper presents the evaluation of the program Computers for Education. The program aims to integrate computers, donated by the private sector, into the teaching of language in public schools. The authors conduct a two-year randomized evaluation of the program using a sample of 97 schools and 5,201 children. Overall, the program seems to have had little effect on students'test scores and other outcomes. These results are consistent across grade levels, subjects, and gender. The main reason for these results seems to be the failure to incorporate the computers into the educational process. Although the program increased the number of computers in the treatment schools and provided training to the teachers on how to use the computers in their classrooms, surveys of both teachers and students suggest that teachers did not incorporate the computers into their curriculum.Tertiary Education,Primary Education,Secondary Education,Teaching and Learning,Education For All

    Efficiency of colombian schools

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    The main goal of this paper is to study the efficiency of Colombian schools with an eye on understanding what drives school productivity and how much is to be gained by increasing efficiency. The paper uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to study efficiency and a Tobit model to study the determinants of efficiency. Introduction. The main goal of this paper is to study the efficiency of Colombian schools with an eye on understanding what drives school productivity and how much is to be gained by increasing efficiency. The paper uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to study efficiency and a Tobit model to study the determinants of efficiency. This is not the first paper to look at the efficiency of secondary schools in Colombia. Gaviria and Barrientos (2001) look at the determinants of test scores in the city of Bogotá. They find that public schools produce lower scores than private schools after controlling for socioeconomic characteristics. More importantly, they find that teacher´s education and infrastructure positively affect scores in private schools but not in public schools, which suggests the existence of inefficiencies in publicly provided education. Nunez et al. (2002) look at the differences between private and public secondary schools in both urban and rural areas for the year 1999. They find that public schools produce, on average, lower scores. However, at the bottom of the distribution, public schools appear to be better than private schools. Finally, Barrera (2003) finds that test scores in both public and private schools increased in the last decade, but that private school scores increased more than public school ones. Initially for the investigation, we analyzed the case of Bogotá. However, given the disparity between this city and the rest of the country and a desire to include municipal level variation, we decided to expand the study to the national level. The results, as we will show, change dramatically in the two samples. We will, therefore, present the results using the national sample and analyze the specific case of Bogotá separately. The paper has the following structure. In the second part, we describe the main methodology used in the analysis. The third part presents the results for the whole country. The next section includes a discussion of the potential role of costs of public versus private education. Finally we close the paper with some general conclusions. In the Appendix we present the analysis of Bogotá as a particular case.Educación, Enseñanza Secundaria, Calidad de la Educación, Rendimiento de la Educación, Colombia

    Solvencia y Liquidez de las entidades del sistema financiero

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    Las entidades del sistema financiero presentan una posición financiera sólida, como lo muestra el análisis del período noviembre 2007-noviembre 2008.

    La tensión jurídica entre el derecho de la información y los derechos a la intimidad personal y a los datos personales en Colombia

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    Artículo de reflexiónLa presente investigación analiza la tensión existente entre los derechos fundamentales a la información, a la intimidad personal y a los datos personales en el marco normativo colombiano, realiza una ponderación para establecer qué derecho prima sobre el otro, y estudian paralelamente casos difíciles en los que se enfrenta el interés general contra el interés particular.INTRODUCCIÓN I. Derecho a la información II. Derecho a la privacidad o intimidad. III. Derecho de Habeas Data IV. Tensión entre el derecho a la información y los derechos al habeas data e intimidad. V. Responsabilidad civil en la franquicia Conclusiones ReferenciasPregradoAbogad
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