The convergence process of compulsory schooling in Western Europe: 1950-2000

This paper examines the expansion of compulsory schooling in fifteen Western European countries over the period 1950-2000. We show that a convergence process of mandatory years of schooling has occurred across these countries since 1950. We argue that the major driver of this phenomenom is the existence of diminishing returns to education that limit the extension of compulsory schooling. Then we test whether convergence still holds when one controls for the major three alternative explanations described in the literature, which are respectively based on technology and trade, institutions, and the budget constraint of governments. Conditional convergence does hold and we find that openness, membership of the European Union, urbanization and illiteracy rates are other significant determinants of compulsory years of schooling over this period.economic history ; education ; convergence

Explaining the Cross-National Time Series Variation in Life Expectancy: Income, Women’s Education, Shifts, and What Else?

This paper examines the variation across countries and evolution over time of life expectancy. Using historical data going back to the beginning of the 20th century several basic facts about the relationship between national income and life expectancy are established. The paper shows that even by examining the augmented Preston curve there is no indication that the Preston curve is “breaking down” and no indication from over 100 years of data that a very strong relationship between national income and life expectancy will not persist, particularly over the ranges of income of primary interest to the Human Development Report. Empirical findings show that there are actually fewer “puzzles” than might appear while trying to reconcile the strong cross-sectional association with the time evolution of life expectancy in specific countries and most of the existing “puzzles” come from using either very short time-horizons or very small moves in income per capita when the Preston curve is a long-run phenomena. The paper also discusses the phenomena of the cross-national convergence, with the life expectancy of the poorer countries increasing, in absolute terms, faster than those of the rich countries and how the findings about the augmented Preston curve relate to discussions of health policy.economic development, economic growth, health, life expectancy, mortality.

The Convergence of Compulsory Schooling in Western Europe: 1950-2000

This paper examines the expansion of compulsory schooling in fifteen Western European countries over the period 1950-2000. We show that a convergence process of mandatory years of schooling has occurred across these countries since 1950. We argue that the major driver of this phenomenon is the existence of decreasing aggregate returns to education that have limited the extension of compulsory schooling. Then we test whether convergence still holds when confronted with other explanations described in the literature, which are respectively based on technology and trade, institutions, and the budget constraint of governments. Conditional convergence does hold and we find that openness has been another robust determinant of compulsory years of schooling, reflecting the need of education in an increasingly globalized world.Economic history, education, convergence, globalization

American Education in the Age of Mass Migrations 1870-1930

This paper derives original series of average years of schooling in the United States 1870-1930, which take into account the impact of mass migrations on the US educational level. We reconstruct the foreign-born US population by age and by country of origin, while combining data on the flow of migrants by country and the age pyramids of migrants by country. Then we use original data on educational attainment in the nineteenth century presented in Morrisson and Murtin (2008) in order to estimate the educational level of US immigrants by age and by country. As a result, our series are consistent with the first national estimates of average schooling in 1940. We show that mass migrations have had a significant but modest impact on the US average educational attainment. However, the educational gap between US natives and immigrants was large and increased with the second immigration wave, a phenomenon that most likely fostered the implementation of restrictive immigration rules in the 1920s.economic history, migrations, education, economic development research

Does Money Matter for Schools?

There is considerable disagreement in the academic literature about whether raising school expenditure improves educational outcomes. Yet changing the level of resources is one of the key policy levers open to governments. In the UK, school expenditure has increased by about 40 per cent in real terms since 2000. Thus, providing an answer to the question as to whether such spending has an impact on educational outcomes (and whether it is good use of public money) is of paramount importance. In this paper we address this issue for England using much better data than what has generally been used in such studies. We are also able to test our identification assumption by use of a falsification test. We find that the increase in school expenditure over recent years has had a consistently positive effect on outcomes at the end of primary school. Back-of-envelope calculations suggest that the investment may well be cost-effective. There is also some evidence of heterogeneity in the effect of expenditure, with higher effects for students who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.education, resources

The Great Leap Forward: The Political Economy of Education in Brazil, 1889-1930

Recent research links the inequality across countries and regions to colonial institutions. This paper argues that trade shocks could alter the development path of a country or subnational units, in spite of its colonial institutions. This hypothesis is analyzed using state-level data for Brazil, a country with high regional heterogeneity in endowments. We find that positive trade shocks, or improvements in export tax revenues, increased expenditures on education per capita and education outcomes in the period 1889 to 1930. In fact, trade shocks ended up altering the inequality in education levels across states in a permanent way. The paper ends by explaining why politicians spent windfall tax revenues to invest on education.Institutions, Fiscal Federalism, Education, Long Run Development

Variation in Educational Outcomes and Policies Across Countries and of Schools within Countries

This study examines the variation in educational outcomes across and within countries using the TIMSS mathematics tests. It documents the wide cross-country variation in the level and dispersion of test scores. Countries with the highest test scores are those with the least inequality in scores, which suggests a "virtuous" equity-efficiency trade-off in improving educational outcomes. Analyzing the association of gender, immigrant status, and family background factors with scores, we find large cross-country differences in the relation between those factors and scores.Educational attainment, schools, inequality

Does Additional Spending Help Urban Schools? An Evaluation Using Boundary Discontinuities

Improvement of educational attainment in schools in urban, disadvantaged areas is an important priority for policy - particularly in countries like England which have a long tail at the bottom of the educational distribution and where there is much concern about low social mobility. An anomaly in the spatial dimension of school funding policy in England allows us to examine the effect of increasing school expenditure for schools in urban areas. This anomaly arises because an 'area cost adjustment' is made in how central government allocates funds to Local Authorities (school districts) whereas, in reality, teachers are drawn from the same labour market and are paid according to national pay scales. This is one of the features that give rise to neighbouring schools on either side of a Local Authority boundary being allocated very different resources, even if they have very similar characteristics. We find that these funding disparities give rise to sizeable differences in pupil attainment in national tests at the end of primary school. This finding lends adds to the evidence that school resources have an important role to play in improving educational attainment and has direct policy implications for the current 'pupil premium' policy in England.Urban schools, education, resources,

Closing the Gender Gap in Education: Does It Foretell the Closing of the Employment, Marriage, and Motherhood Gaps?

In this paper we examine several dimensions of gender disparity for a sample of 40 countries using micro-level data. We start by documenting the reversal of the gender education gap and ranking countries by the year in which it reversed. Then we turn to an analysis of the state of other gaps facing women: we compare men and women's labor force participation (the labor force participation gap), married and single women's labor force participation (the marriage gap), and mothers' and non-mother's labor force participation (the motherhood gap). We show that gaps still exist in these spheres in many countries, though there is significant heterogeneity among countries in terms of the size of and the speed at which these gaps are changing. We also show the relationship between the gaps and ask how much the participation gap would be reduced if the gaps in other spheres were eliminated. In general, we show that while there seems to be a relationship between the decline of the education gap and the reduction of the other gaps, the link is rather weak and highly heterogeneous across countries.