Grants or Loans? Theoretical Issues Regarding Access and Persistence in Postsecondary Education

Most economic investigations of access to education treat an investment in college or university as if it were a financial investment offering a particular expected rate of return. Since the average measured rates of return are quite favourable, other factors such as lack of information, contrary parental infl�uence, or "debt aversion" must be invoked to explain the unwillingness of some qualified students from poorer backgrounds to borrow money and attend. However, a model that recognizes the hardship associated with low levels of expenditure suggests that, ceteris paribus, poorer students will actually need a higher measured rate of return before they will decide to attend. The result holds even when there is an efficient student loan system. This approach can provide some normative guidance for decisions about the choice of grants or loans as vehicles for student aid, and has positive implications about the effects of grants and loans on access and persistence.postsecondary education, educational subsidies, student loans, equal access, hyperbolic preferences

Room at the Top: Strategies for Increasing the Number of Graduate Students in Canada

The knowledge economy requires more people with advanced degrees. Policies that attach funding to students hold the greatest promise for increasing both the quantity and quality of graduate education.graduate education, government education support

Mobility and Gender at the Top Tail of the Earnings Distribution

The increasing share of the top fractile in the earnings distributions of several Anglo- Saxon heritage economies since the 1970s has been dramatic, and well documented. To date, however, little is known about the socio-economic origins and gender composition of the very top tail in the modern era. This paper takes a first step in filling some of the holes in our knowledge. We use a tax-filer data base for Canada for the period 1983-2003 that contains about eighty million observations. We show first that male earners in the top one thousandth of the distribution come very disproportionately from families with incomes in the top decile. In contrast, individuals in the remaining part of the top centile have more dispersed socio-economic origins. Second we show that female participation in the top fractiles has been very low, and that growth in participation has been slow yet definite. In contrast, female earnings in this echelon are almost on par with male earnings. Third, we show that there is an enormous asymmetry between the genders when it comes to spousal earnings: high-earning women have very high-earning spouses, but not vice versa. ‘Secondary males’ have earnings levels almost ten times as high as ‘secondary females’, suggesting that, even at this extremely elevated earnings level there is truth to the adage about who lies ‘behind’ successful individuals. Finally, it is illustrated that the earnings concentration that has characterised the last three decades did not change with the end of the ‘tech boom’ in the year 2000.

The Welfare Enigma: Explaining the Dramatic Decline in Canadians' Use of Social Assistance, 1993-2005

What accounts for the truly remarkable drop in welfare dependency in Canada since the early 1990s? The authors provide a nationwide empirical analysis of the underlying factors, and draw implications for policymakers.social policy, Social Assistance (SA), Employment Insurance

Fields of Plenty, Fields of Lean: The Early Labour Market Outcomes of Canadian University Graduates by Discipline

This paper reports the results of an empirical analysis of the early career outcomes of recent Canadian Bachelor's level graduates by discipline based on three waves of the National Graduates Surveys, which comprise large, representative databases of individuals who successfully completed their programmes at Canadian universities in 1982, 1986, and 1990, with information gathered during interviews conducted two and five years after graduation for each group of graduates (1984-87, 1988-92, 1990-95). Many outcomes conform to expectations, typically reflecting the different orientations of the various disciplines with respect to direct career preparedness, with the professions and other applied disciplines generally characterised by lower unemployment rates, closer skill and qualification matches, higher earnings, and so on. On the other hand, while the "applied" fields also tend to perform well in terms of the more subjective measures regarding job satisfaction and the overall evaluation of the chosen programme, these outcomes also depart from what job market outcomes alone might have predicted (e.g., fine arts and humanities graduates are more satisfied than many others). Some implications of the findings are discussed and avenues for future research are suggested.Cet article présente les résultats d'une analyse empirique de l'évolution de la carrière des récents diplômés d'universités canadiennes, par discipline, basée sur trois enquêtes nationales auprès des diplômés qui comprennent des bases de données d'envergure représentatives d'individus qui ont terminé avec succès un programme canadien d'études universitaires en 1982, 1986 et 1990. Les renseignements ont été recueillis dans le cadre d'entrevues effectuées deux et cinq ans après que chacun de ces groupes d'étudiants aient obtenu leur diplôme (1984-87, 1988-92, 1990-95). Plusieurs résultats sont conformes aux attentes, c'est-à-dire qu'ils reflètent généralement les différentes orientations des diverses disciplines en ce qui a trait à la préparation immédiate à la carrière; par exemple, les professions et autres disciplines appliquées sont généralement caractérisées par des taux de chômage plus faibles, une meilleure concordance emploi-étude, un revenu plus élevé, etc. D'un autre côté, bien que les domaines « appliqués » ont tendance à obtenir de bons résultats pour ce qui est des mesures plus subjectives concernant la satisfaction au travail et l'évaluation globale du programme d'études, ces résultats diffèrent des prédictions des indicateurs relatifs au marché du travail. Les implications de ces conclusions sont discutées et des pistes de recherche sont suggérées

Long-Run Inequality and Annual Instability of Men's and Women's Earnings in Canada

earnings inequality, earnings instability, long-run inequality

A problem solving system employing a formal approach to means

The thesis describes the theory and design of a general problem-solving system. The system uses a single general heuristic based on a formal definition of differences within the framework of means/ends analysis and employs tree search during problem solution. A comparison is made with two other systems using means/ends analysis. The conditions under which the system is capable of solving problems are investigated and the efficiency of the system is considered. The system has solved a variety of problems of varying complexity and the difference heuristic appears comparatively accurate for goal-directed search within certain limits

The Age Pattern of Retirement: A Comparison of Cohort Measures

Measures of retirement that take a cohort perspective are appealing since retirement patterns may change, and it would be useful to have consistent measures that would make it possible to compare retirement patterns over time and between countries or regions. We propose and implement two measures. One is based on administrative income tax records and relates to actual cohorts; the other is based on a time-series of cross sectional labour force surveys and relates to pseudo-cohorts. We conclude that while the tax-based observations for actual cohorts provide a richer data set for analysis, the estimated measures of retirement and transition from work to retirement based on the two data sets are quite similar.Measures of retirement, cohort perspective