Public expenditure on education: A review of selected issues and evidence.

The role of education in economic development has been recognised for quite some time in mainstream economic literature. Divergence between the private and social rate of return from education is the rationale for intervention by the state in ensuring equity in opportunity across the population. The so-called `New Growth Theories' predict that higher levels of schooling and better quality of workforce will lead to an increase in the rate of growth, further strengthening the case for public expenditure on education. The outcome of these lines of research also has implications for the financing of education. However, the effectiveness and efficiency of resource allocation by the government has generated considerable debate, both from ideological and technical points of view. It is widely acknowledged that there is a large scope for improvement in both the level, and the quality of publicly-funded education. New institutional arrangements are being designed to address the deficiencies in incentives and monitoring, thereby improving quality.Public expenditure ; Education

Do wavelets really detect non-Gaussianity in the 4-year COBE data?

We investigate the detection of non-Gaussianity in the 4-year COBE data reported by Pando, Valls-Gabaud & Fang (1998), using a technique based on the discrete wavelet transform. Their analysis was performed on the two DMR faces centred on the North and South Galactic poles respectively, using the Daubechies 4 wavelet basis. We show that these results depend critically on the orientation of the data, and so should be treated with caution. For two distinct orientations of the data, we calculate unbiased estimates of the skewness, kurtosis and scale-scale correlation of the corresponding wavelet coefficients in all of the available scale domains of the transform. We obtain several detections of non-Gaussianity in the DMR-DSMB map at greater than the 99 per cent confidence level, but most of these occur on pixel-pixel scales and are therefore not cosmological in origin. Indeed, after removing all multipoles beyond $\ell = 40$ from the COBE maps, only one robust detection remains. Moreover, using Monte-Carlo simulations, we find that the probability of obtaining such a detection by chance is 0.59. We repeat the analysis for the 53+90 GHz coadded COBE map. In this case, after removing $\ell > 40$ multipoles, two non-Gaussian detections at the 99 per cent level remain. Nevertheless, again using Monte-Carlo simulations, we find that the probability of obtaining two such detections by chance is 0.28. Thus, we conclude the wavelet technique does {\em not} yield strong evidence for non-Gaussianity of cosmological origin in the 4-year COBE data.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures. Revised version including discussion of orientation sensitivity of the wavelet decomposition. MNRAS submitte

Noise In Nonohmic Regimes Of Disordered Systems

We present here a short review of mainly experimental properties of noise as disordered systems are driven into non-ohmic regimes by applying voltages of few volts only. It is found that the noise does not simply follow the resistance in that the direction of change of noise could be opposite to that of resistance. It is discussed how this and other properties make the noise a complementary and incisive tool for studying complex systems, particularly its dynamic properties. Study of noise in non-ohmic regimes in physical systems is rather in a nascent stage. Some of the open issues are highlighted.Comment: 9 Pages, 7 figures. Reported in Unsolved Problems of Noise and Fluctuations: UPoN 2005, Gallipoli, Italy, June 6-10, 200