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Economics of Education
A Category Archive (208 entries)
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May 26, 2009
Labor Mobility, Immigration, Outsourcing
Arnold Kling
David Card writes, I show that evidence from cross-city comparisons is remarkably consistent with recent findings from aggregate time series data. Both designs provide support for three key conclusions: (1) workers with below high school education are perfect substitutes for... MORE
May 9, 2009
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
I keep thinking about Bruce Sacerdote's Korean adoption study. I've read every twin and adoption paper I could find about parental influence on kids' educational outcomes. Sacerdote's is the best of the bunch - the cleanest study, the clearest presentation,... MORE
April 27, 2009
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
From Mark C. Taylor, in an op-ed piece many New York Times readers found worth forwarding to one another. Graduate education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is... MORE
April 20, 2009
Political Economy
Arnold Kling
A reader asks, Do you believe that it is moral for universities to receive state funds? If so, how would you justify it? As a student that attends a state-funded university, I've had to think about this myself. I remember... MORE
March 5, 2009
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Theda Skocpol and Suzanne Mettler write (free but awkward registration required), in 1970, 6.2 percent of the U.S. population in the bottom income quartile had completed a baccalaureate degree by age 24-and that percentage actually declined slightly, to 6 percent,... MORE
January 20, 2009
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
John Merrifield and I write, We criticize the way that Goldin and Katz talk about "years of schooling" as a continuous variable, when the underlying phenomenon is that the combination of high school graduation rates and college attendance rates increased... MORE
January 8, 2009
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
A former student emails me:I'm currently looking for any filmed clip of someone perpetuating the myth that college is a MUST for everyone. I've found several Obama clips (surprise, surprise) but I'm looking for clips outside the political world; i.e.,... MORE
January 6, 2009
Economic Methods
Arnold Kling
Gordon Dahl and Lance Lochner write (I can't find an ungated 2008 version of the paper, and the 2005 version seems to differ), Our baseline estimates imply that a $1,000 increase in income raises combined math and reading test... MORE
December 6, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
I attended a Cato event at which Glen Whitman and Ezra Klein discussed health care spending. The main stylized fact is that those who spend more on health care do not necessarily get more. As Ezra puts it The evidence... MORE
December 5, 2008
Economic Methods
Arnold Kling
It comes from Eric Drexler, the nanotech visionary. Pointer from Robin Hanson who I'm sure understands much more of what Drexler says than I do. My guess is that at the margin, scientific communication would benefit from more blogging and... MORE
December 1, 2008
Economics of Education
David Henderson
This month's featured article on Econlib is George Leef's "Are Government 'Investments' in Higher Education Worthwhile?" In his article, Leef points out that one cannot use decades-old data on the private return to spending on higher education to draw conclusions... MORE
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Louis Gerstner writes Abolish all local school districts, save 70 (50 states; 20 largest cities). Some states may choose to leave some of the rest as community service organizations, but they would have no direct involvement in the critical task... MORE
November 13, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Joshua Bordoff, Jason Bendor, andn Jason Furman wrote, Smaller school districts may also be more efficient (Barrow and Rouse 2002, p. 29, Fowler and Walbert 1991). This may result from the difficulties in dealing with a large organization that may... MORE
October 29, 2008
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
No one in the Cato Unbound exchange on Charles Murray's education book responded to my closing questions. I asked Murray:In your view, why precisely does the market financially reward students for taking lots of classes that at best seem distantly... MORE
October 16, 2008
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Over at Cato Unbound, I praise Murray for highlighting the fact that many "investments" in education end in foreclosure - also known as "dropping out":[L]abor economists normally estimate the return to completed education. It only takes a small drop-out rate... MORE
October 14, 2008
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Over at Cato Unbound, Murray seems to be missing how much I agree with him:I guess I'm asking my colleagues to step back from a system that worked for them and consider the large majority of young people who are... MORE
October 10, 2008
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
I critique Charles Murray's work on education at the latest Cato Unbound. My thesis: Murray is great on the facts, but muddled on theory. He's one of the few scholars to notice the flimsiness of the connection between higher education... MORE
October 2, 2008
Income Distribution
Arnold Kling
Nick Schulz and I write, It might seem natural to pin the blame for the disappointing rate of high school graduation and college training on America's education system. However, Heckman and others find little evidence that education can reduce differences... MORE
September 22, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Jason Malloy writes, merely earning a Bachelor's degree is a golden ticket. People with average and below average IQs are getting just as much of a financial return out of their 4-year degree as those above the 85th percentile. This... MORE
September 19, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Steven Yamarik writes, Labour economists have estimated the micro-Mincerian wage equation using different time periods, samples, and econometric techniques. For the US, the private return to schooling ranges from 4 %to 16% with a consensus estimate is around 10%. The... MORE
September 8, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
From William Pannapacker, aka Thomas H. Benton, here and here. From the second essay: Essentially I see students having difficulty following or making extended analytical arguments. In particular, they tend to use easily obtained, superficial, and unreliable online sources as... MORE
August 27, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
After reading Real Education, by Charles Murray, I decided that there are three dilemmas in education. 1. What do we do about inequality in incomes depending on education levels? 2. Should the curriculum be designed by experts or emerge in... MORE
August 22, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Shikha Dalmia and Lisa Snell write The only preschool programs that seem to do more good than harm are very intense interventions targeted toward severely disadvantaged kids. A 1960s program in Ypsilanti, Mich., a 1970s program in Chapel Hill, N.C.,... MORE
August 19, 2008
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Schooling has a high private financial return. But most people don't finish college; many don't even finish high school. Lots of economists are baffled by these facts, and spin complex theories to explain them. At the same time, however, I've... MORE
August 18, 2008
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
It looks like Charles Murray embraces the signaling model of education:Outside a handful of majors -- engineering and some of the sciences -- a bachelor's degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual... MORE
August 13, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Charles Murray says, Young people entering the job market should have a known, trusted measure of their qualifications they can carry into job interviews. That measure should express what they know, not where they learned it or how long it... MORE
August 6, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
The American Prospect Gloats, Edison learned what career educators have always known: Managing schools isn't as simple as it first might seem. The idea behind for-profit public education was that districts would turn over school budgets to Edison, plus supplemental... MORE
August 5, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Spending data for the 2005-2006 school year can be found at the National Center for Education Statistics. Data for the total number of students, the total number of FARMS students (free and reduced meals, an indicator of poverty), and the... MORE
August 1, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Michael Rizzo does New York. He finds no difference in school spending between schools "above the line" (high pass rates relative to their poverty index) and those below the line. However, the regression line appears to do a very poor... MORE
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
K DeRosa draws the chart that I proposed. Here is the chart for 497 school districts in Pennsylvania for 2005. On the X axis I have the percentage of students in the district that do not receive free and reduced... MORE
July 31, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
The Washington Post reports, Upon the debut of the Maryland School Assessments in 2003, Montgomery County ranked second in the state in math, with 67 percent of students passing tests in elementary and middle school. This year, the county ranks... MORE
July 25, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
A study by Janet Hyde, Sara Lindberg, Amy Ellis and Carolyn Williams is getting a lot of publicity (two non-academic friends brought it up in conversation lastnight). They find that boys and girls do not differ in their performance on... MORE
July 23, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Goldin and Katz get more press. "There has been much more growth of inequality among college graduates than among noncollege workers," Katz says. Only some people, he says, are coming out of college with the high-level abstract-reasoning skills that fully... MORE
July 18, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
David Brooks writes, During the 20th century, Americans were better educated than the citizens of any other power. Since 1970, that lead has been forfeited, producing inequality and wage stagnation. To compete, the U.S. will require a series of human... MORE
July 15, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
In the latest podcast, Russ Roberts interviews Eric Hanushek. Hanushek describes some natural experiments in education with statistical properties that I can actually understand. In a number of cases judges interpreted state constitutions as requiring states to increase funding for... MORE
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
David Card writes, estimates based on supply-side innovations tend to recover returns to education for a subset of individuals with relatively high returns to education. Let me try to put that into English. The conventional wisdom is that when somebody... MORE
July 10, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
On p. 96 of their new book, Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz provide a table on the composition of the U.S. labor force in terms of educational background, based on historical census data. The percentage of high school graduates... MORE
July 3, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
He writes, Question: If signaling has negative externalities, could government action make matters more efficient? Answer: Yes - government could tax education. Then everyone could get half as much education and still get the same job offers. No, this is... MORE
July 2, 2008
Human Capital: Returns to entrepreneurs, skills, etc.
Arnold Kling
I have ordered their new book, after seeing it mentioned in David Leonhardt's column in the New York Times. An excerpt from the book is here. For cohorts born from the 1870s to about 1950, every decade was accompanied by... MORE
June 19, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Stephen Dubner looks at a reader's question of who is the greatest modern thinker. I love this question. It first requires you to define what a “thinker” is, and also raises the question of what incentives exist in the modern... MORE
June 18, 2008
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Maybe in Arnold and Megan's experience, but not in mine. At both Princeton and George Mason, I found one of students' main problems to be low morale. This ends up being a self-fulfilling prophesy: Students with low morale don't try... MORE
June 16, 2008
Income Distribution
Arnold Kling
James Heckman writes, Family environments of young children are major predictors of cognitive and socioemotional abilities, as well as a variety of outcomes such as crime and health. ...Family environments in the U.S. and many other countries around the world... MORE
June 13, 2008
Income Distribution
Arnold Kling
Income distribution, education, health care, and oil prices. David Henderson rushes in where few right-of-center economists dare to tread. He talks about the income distribution. The average number of earners per family for the top quintile is 2.16, almost three... MORE
June 5, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
a donation to Harvard is an act of conspicuous consumption by the rich, a bit like buying the watch that doesn't tell time. Tyler Cowen, and there is more with reading.... MORE
May 26, 2008
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
Arnold Kling
One of the examples that comes up in the Robin Hanson podcast concerns dating. If the point is to signal to the person that you are healthy, wealthy, and intelligent, why not just bring your health records, your bank statement,... MORE
May 12, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
In the June issue of The Atlantic, "Professor X" rants, Students routinely fail; some fail multiple times, and some will never pass, because they cannot write a coherent sentence Perhaps Tyler Cowen was implicitly referring to that article. In any... MORE
April 30, 2008
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
From Richard Rothstein at Cato Unbound:College graduates are, in fact, not in short supply. Indeed, some college graduates are now forced to take jobs requiring only high-school educations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that, for the next decade, only... MORE
April 29, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
From an column in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Among high-school students who graduated in the bottom 40 percent [UPDATE/correction]: in a comment, Adelman writes that this is the bottom 20 percent] of their classes, and whose first institutions were... MORE
April 22, 2008
Political Economy
Arnold Kling
Reviewing a book by Bill Bishop, Alan Ehrenhalt writes, there is one simple statistic, rightly seized on by Mr. Bishop, that is difficult to explain away. It is this: In 1976, less than a quarter of the American people lived... MORE
March 26, 2008
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
I'm frankly puzzled by Tyler's latest attack on the signaling model of education. Not only does he merely repeat an argument that I previously answered; but he fails to tell readers about a new and improved version of his argument... MORE
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
I am going to combine comments on two papers cited by Tyler Cowen. First, he cites a paper on inequality and mobility. It argues that skill differentials are widening, and that parental education seems to be increasingly important. (Note that... MORE
March 25, 2008
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Here's Richard Posner being unusually blunt and insightful even for him:From the standpoint of most teachers, right up to and including the level of teachers of college undergraduates, the ideal student is well behaved, unaggressive, docile, patient, meticulous, and empathetic... MORE
March 12, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Inside Higher Ed has the scoop. the majority of full-time professional employees in higher education are in administrative rather than faculty jobs. A university consists of a faculty attached to a fundraising apparatus, where it used to be the other... MORE
February 28, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Brink Lindsey writes the upper-middle-class kid grows up in an environment that constantly pushes him to develop the cognitive and motivational skills needed to be a good student; the low-income kid's environment, on the other hand, pushes in the opposite... MORE
February 27, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
This is interesting, if only tenuously related to economics. English-speaking children, who are prone to such errors as “twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-ten, twenty-eleven.” French is just as bad, with vestigial base-twenty monstrosities, like quatre-vingt-dix-neuf (“four twenty ten nine”) for 99. Chinese,... MORE
January 31, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
An anonymous teacher says, I was desperate -- every day I went home feeling like I was escaping a war zone -- and so I set up a classroom economy, a variant of what the behaviorists call "token reinforcement." I... MORE
January 17, 2008
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Sol Stern writes, If Hoxby and Peterson were right in asserting that markets were enough to fix our education woes, then the ed schools wouldn’t be the disasters that Hirsch, Ravitch, and others have exposed. Unlike the government-run K–12 schools,... MORE
December 20, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
James J. Heckman and Paul A. LaFontaine write (here is the abstract, the U.S. high school graduation rate peaked at around 80 percent in the late 1960s and then declined by 4-5 percentage points; (2) the actual high school graduation... MORE
December 19, 2007
Finance: stocks, options, etc.
Arnold Kling
Nick Schulz sends me three interesting links. 1. A shining example of what I call a bogus mortgage lender. In 2004, Bohan Group, a due diligence underwriting company, was hired by a bank to double-check the suitability of mortgages written... MORE
December 13, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
U.S. News and World Report says that Northern Virginia's Thomas Jefferson (TJ) is the best public high school in the country. Here's a neat paper by Lloyd Cohen of the GMU Law School estimating the extent of AA (or as... MORE
December 4, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Here's a fascinating dialogue on the economics of education from Anna Karenina. Two country gentlemen - Levin and Sviiazhsky - are arguing about how to raise farm productivity. Sviiazhsky's answer: `To educate the people three things are needed: schools, and... MORE
November 20, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
My latest essay tries to sort out the issues of race, IQ, and education. Earlier, I said that my preferred approach is individualism. To understand this approach, try this thought experiment: imagine if everyone suddenly were afflicted with group-identity amnesia.... MORE
November 19, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Some countries are more corrupt than others: Haiti is not Finland. Measures like the Corruption Perceptions Index attempt to quantify these differences. Some academic disciplines are more bogus than others: Women's Studies is not Mathematics. But as far as I... MORE
November 16, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Daniel B. Klein and Charlotta Stern discuss how academic disciplines become dominated by particular ideologies. At the very top departments, more than 90 percent come from the worldwide top-35 departments; the top is almost entirely self-regenerating. They call the result... MORE
November 5, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
James Flynn writes, Two twins raised apart, thanks to having slightly better genes than average, would both get into increasingly privileged environments. Both would get more teacher attention, would be encouraged to do more homework, would get into a top... MORE
November 4, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Reflection #1 inspired by the Social Philosophy and Policy conference: In academic economics, the ultimate scarce good is the right to write pieces in plain English for top journals. We ration it by putting economists famous for their mathematical and... MORE
November 2, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
From a transcript of a panel on reading instruction, here is Dr. Reid Lyon: The biggest impediment to kids’ learning to read is not biological or genetic: it’s instructional. Instructional casualties account for the majority of that 50–60 percent of... MORE
October 24, 2007
Income Distribution
Arnold Kling
Terry J. Fitzgerald in the Minneapolis Fed Review: Fringe benefits have become an increasingly important part of employee compensation over the past 30 years. The BLS estimates that benefits currently account for about 30 percent of employer costs for employee... MORE
October 18, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Dani Rodrik writes, if economists with high opportunity costs of time start to get out, shall we have a lemons problem on our hands? Will eventually the only prolific bloggers remain the ones that are not worth reading? It takes... MORE
October 9, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
David Brooks writes, People who were born before 1964 tend to define adulthood by certain accomplishments — moving away from home, becoming financially independent, getting married and starting a family. In 1960, roughly 70 percent of 30-year-olds had achieved these... MORE
September 20, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Two last questions on political correctness: 1. What's the worst PC experience you've ever personally had? 2. What's the worst PC experience anyone you personally know has ever had? My answers: 1. My worst experience: Hearing second-hand that a student... MORE
September 19, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Not that I agree completely with what Bryan says, but I do admit that I do not wish to join an anti-PC crusade. I think that the real problem is that the academy has been dumbed down. PC is a... MORE
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
I agree with Arnold that Harvard did Larry Summers wrong. In fact, whenever I hear an anecdote about PC run amok, I normally take the side of the whoever gave offense. Nevertheless, I still think the PC threat to higher... MORE
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Bryan asks if PC persecution is overblown. I suppose that the term "overblown" can be construed liberally enough (so to speak) to make it impossible to settle the matter. But you might want to re-read this post and consider the... MORE
September 18, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
I just got an invitation to see Indoctrinate U, a documentary on the tyranny of political correctness in higher education. The trailer left me with a furrowed brow. Why? Because in all honesty, I've never been the target of p.c.... MORE
August 21, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Charles Murray says college admissions offices should stop using the SAT and instead use the SAT 2's (what we used to call the achievement tests). Getting rid of the SAT will destroy the coaching industry as we know it. ...A... MORE
August 20, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Ben Stein writes, To make friends with your teachers, try the following: • Read your assignments and be ready to discuss them. I can tell you, based on my years of teaching at glorious American University, stupendously beautiful University of... MORE
August 9, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
The assessment of high school students' knowledge of economics made a big splash in the news recently. See Matthew Yglesias or, for that matter, today's Washington Post. I was more interested in the standards being used than in the results.... MORE
August 7, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Our Library of Economics and Liberty has a lot of interesting new stuff this week. 1. On Econtalk, Eric Hanushek argues that: --human capital is measured more accurately by performance on standardized tests than by years of schooling --better teachers... MORE
July 30, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
What do you think of this? Launched in England less than a year ago, ICUE software lets users read novels on their cell phone without the irritation of constantly scrolling through blocks of text displayed on the small screen. Instead,... MORE
July 8, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
On this post, a commenter writes, I was thinking of providing my children with exceptional tutors from various disciplines in addition to their regular curriculum. Aristocrats would frequently engage proven scholars to teach their children. Good private schools today attempt... MORE
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
A reader sends in this question: CBS Sunday Morning knocked multi-million dollar baseball salaries this morning and lamented that teachers are much more poorly paid. Then I wondered, why do teachers not market themselves? How come there are no teaching... MORE
June 29, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Richard Vedder writes The more evidence that I see that I believe is creditable and meaningful, the more I am convinced of the following: * Too many students, not too few, are going to college; * College and universities are... MORE
June 24, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
My next book will use the under-valued signaling model to make The Case Against Education. On his blog, Tyler hasn't been buying my story:If education is pure signaling, just give everyone a standardized test in seventh grade and then close... MORE
June 17, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Robert Epstein says, I believe that young people should have more options—the option to work, marry, own property, sign contracts, start businesses, make decisions about health care and abortions, live on their own—every right, privilege, or responsibility an adult has.... MORE
June 12, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Skip Sauer writes, I find the current state of sports a bit puzzling. I spoke at a local function yesterday and was asked the question whether pro sports were "pricing themselves out of the market." This was once an old... MORE
May 17, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
I haven't had a joint lunch with Robin Hanson and Tyler Cowen for two weeks, but we're having a substitute meal (minus food) in the MR comments section. Tyler: Income distribution thus depends on the balance between technological progress and... MORE
Income Distribution
Arnold Kling
(I swear I posted on this first thing this morning, and now it's gone. It was a good post, too. I'm attempting to remember it here.) Tyler Cowen writes, For the economy as a whole, labor’s share of national income... MORE
May 9, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Arnold makes a very interesting remark: I think that it is difficult for an entrepreneur to compete in the signalling market, because it is hard to establish the credibility of your signalling mechanism. I would go further. It is difficult... MORE
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Bryan writes, If you think that entrepreneurs can easily find a cheaper way to certify worker quality, why can't entrepreneurs easily find a cheaper way to reinforce membership in the "upper and/or upper-middle class tribe"? The context is that we... MORE
May 8, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Arnold repeats an earlier argument against the signaling model of education: I don't believe the signalling story, because of the point Wilkinson makes. If it costs $200,000 for a person to go to an elite private school, and this does... MORE
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Gary Becker and Kevin Murphy make the case. For many, the solution to an increase in inequality is to make the tax structure more progressive—raise taxes on high-income households and reduce taxes on low-income households. While this may sound sensible,... MORE
April 30, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Andrew Samwick writes, I've taken a 5-school moving average by rank here to make the graph more readable. By rank 11, we're at an acceptance rate of about 20%. By rank 21, we're above 30%. In the low- to mid-30s,... MORE
April 26, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Here's Robin Hanson making a point I always tell my labor students: The best education in the world is already free of charge. Just go to the best university in the world and start attending classes. Stay as long as... MORE
April 23, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
In the Milken Institute Review, Kevin Lang writes, Is teenage motherhood one of the means by which poverty is passed from generation to generation, or are both teenage motherhood and adult poverty consequences of the same childhood disadvantages? There are... MORE
April 12, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Robert Epstein writes, although it’s efficient to cram all apparently essential knowledge into the first two decades of life, the main thing we teach most students with this approach is to hate school. In today’s fast-paced world, education needs to... MORE
April 6, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
From Rolling Stone's review of Grindhouse: As the late critic Pauline Kael famously stated, "Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize." The whole movie's a fun ride, but Tarantino's half... MORE
April 2, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Arnold writes: I carry around an entrepreneurial idea of an American equivalent of the "gap year," which would be a year of education in between high school and college. This year would involve finding a part-time job, living in and... MORE
April 1, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Iqbal Quadir: The UN should empower the people, not empower their governments. And if they cannot empower the people they can just shut it off. My point is that helping the wrong side is harmful. So if they cannot help... MORE
March 26, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
My goal: Get a reasonably large number of college (or even high school) graduates to go over their transcripts, and state, course-by-course, how often they take what they learned in school and apply it on the job. Respondents should have... MORE
March 20, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
I'm fortunate to have Prof. Karl Smith of Modeled Behavior reading my posts on education. In response to my claim that educators overestimate the practicality of education, Smith writes: I think those who spend their lives in academia will tend... MORE
March 18, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
I like his first post on this new book idea better than his second. I agree that the demand for education is artificially high. However, I disagree that the main reason for this is that education primarily performs a signaling... MORE
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
I've often blogged about the dangers of selection bias (see here and here). So in writing a book about education, I have to wonder: To what extent is my personal experience atypical? My main answer: My personal experience exaggerates the... MORE
March 16, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
I've started writing my next book, tentatively entitled The Case Against Education: A Professional Student Explains Why Our Education System is a Big Waste of Time and Money. Here's page one: I have been in school continuously for the last... MORE
March 11, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Tyler has chimed in on tenure with a bizarre dadaism and a serious challenge: Bizarre Dadaism: To put it bluntly, the tenure system works because for many people their "output" doesn't matter in the first place; tenure is however wonderful... MORE
February 21, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Brad DeLong raises an important puzzle: One would have thought that the rise in the value of a sheepskin from a 30% lifetime wage premium over a high-school diploma in 1975 to a 90% premium in 2005 would have called... MORE
February 19, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Greg Mankiw writes, Harvard tuition is about $30K (not counting room and board). Assuming 4 classes each of the two 12-week semesters and 3 class hours a week in each class, one finds that each hour class at Harvard costs... MORE
February 14, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Po Bronson reports, Blackwell split her kids into two groups for an eight-session workshop. The control group was taught study skills, and the others got study skills and a special module on how intelligence is not innate. These students took... MORE
February 8, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Theodore Dalrymple writes Schools may no longer exclude disruptive children—that would be the very opposite of social inclusion—so a handful of such children may render quite pointless hundreds or even thousands of hours of schooling for scores or even hundreds... MORE
February 2, 2007
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Borrowers rarely default on their loans. Nevertheless, differences in default rates have huge effect on rates of return. Suppose, for example, that two lenders charge 3% interest, but one has a default rate of 1% and the other has a... MORE
January 22, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
In this essay, I pull together thoughts on education, based on my reaction to Charles Murray's recent op-eds. He tends to treat IQ as if it were a measure of one's capacity to hold knowledge, like the volume of a... MORE
January 19, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Reihan Salam writes, To understand why Mike Bloomberg's latest round of proposed school reforms is so bloody brilliant, read Lisa Snell on the weighted student formula. The New York Sun points out that WSF bears a faint resemblance to a... MORE
January 17, 2007
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
He writes, it makes sense for only about 15% of the population, 25% if one stretches it, to get a college education. And yet more than 45% of recent high school graduates enroll in four-year colleges... No data that I... MORE
December 31, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Tyler Cowen points to a paper by Bruce G. Charlton which uses Nobel Prizes as an indicator of trends in research quality. Cowen picks out the fact that the Western U.S. has been gaining at the expense of Europe and... MORE
December 26, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
George Leef writes, On October 2, The Conference Board, an organization of American businesses, released a survey entitled “Are They Really Ready for Work?” The report, which was based on responses from 431 employers, hardly gives a ringing endorsement of... MORE
December 24, 2006
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Mankiw's got a good econo-parody here. I wrote this and this back in grad school, for a Christmas skit that never was.... MORE
December 14, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
He writes, we have built too many bureaucracies that lack clear lines of accountability, which means that mediocrity and failure are tolerated, and excellence goes unrewarded. We recruit a disproportionate share of teachers from among the bottom third of their... MORE
December 1, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
is here. I fear that many of the students who pass will go on to earn Wizard-of-Oz diplomas, which signify nothing. Students will claim to be educated, but employers will know otherwise. The phenomenon of the Wizard-of-Oz diploma has discredited... MORE
November 28, 2006
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Over at Overcoming Bias, Robin Hanson amusingly contrasts the abject deference the public gives to physicists with the stubborn defiance the public gives to economists: Consider how differently the public treats physics and economics. Physicists can say that this week... MORE
October 23, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Andrew Coulson writes Teachers make up 72 percent of on-site staff in Arizona’s independent education sector, but less than half of on-site staff in the public sector. In order to match the independent sector’s emphasis on teachers over non-teaching staff,... MORE
October 20, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
David Wessel writes, Although the best-paid college grads are doing well, wages of college grads have fallen on average, after adjusting for inflation, in the past five years. The only group that enjoyed rising wages between 2000 (just before the... MORE
October 16, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Alex Tabarrok asks "Why is Medicine so Primitive?" One reason is that medicine is the largest area of the economy still dominated by artisanal production. I will be blunt: We need assembly line medicine, medicine that is routinized, marked and... MORE
October 3, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
This was bound to happen. Her 13-year-old daughter, Taylor, is one of 1,100 Americans enrolled in Bangalore-based TutorVista, which launched U.S. services last November with a staff of 150 "e-tutors" mostly in India with a fee of $100 a month... MORE
September 25, 2006
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Mankiw notes that Yale is offering some free education over the web, and wonders whether this is "the beginning of a big change in the industrial organization of higher education?" I say: No Way. Lots of people want an Ivy... MORE
September 18, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
George C. Leef writes, we waste resources on a more extensive higher education system than is necessary. We employ more professors, administrators, and support personnel than would be the case if individuals were not subsidized and prodded to attend college.... MORE
September 13, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Gary Becker writes, One of the challenging paradoxes during the past several decades is that American teenagers have consistently performed below average on international tests in math and sciences, and not especially well on reading tests, yet the American economy... MORE
September 12, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Greg Mankiw comments on Harvard's decision to end early decision in the admissions process. The early admission process has been becoming increasingly strategic on the part of both schools and students, and this game playing does not seem to serve... MORE
August 24, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Expanding an idea I first tossed out on this blog, I write, A simple way to separate the teacher from the exam is to exchange grading responsibilities. For example, have the teacher of "algebra 2" make up and grade the... MORE
August 17, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
My latest essay says, Imagine what might happen if one were to run a controlled experiment, pooling a group of students and randomly assigning them to different schools. Would the "good" suburban school really do better than the "failing" urban... MORE
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Austan Goolsbee writes, Landing the best scientists in the world can start a place on the way to economic superstardom. The catch is, there are not many superstars and they mainly want to be near one another. The study covered... MORE
August 16, 2006
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
Arnold quiped: "[H]igher education is the only product where the consumer tries to get as little out of it as possible." If I wind up writing a book on education, that quote will be very prominently displayed! I can't think... MORE
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Following a link from Alex Tabarrok, I see that Angry Professor writes, The marginal departments, the ones with the lowest possible academic standards, are pulling in vast numbers of warm bodies and the tuition dollars associated with them. I recall... MORE
August 5, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Libertarian Jeff Miron asks, In what sense is Democratic predominance a problem? And what "market failure" is responsible? Perhaps the truth is that many conservatives do not really believe in competition; instead they want conservative ideas imposed because these ideas... MORE
July 14, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
From a summary of a study by Donald Haurin and David Brasington: The study of Ohio school districts showed that an increase of about 20 percentage points in the proficiency test “pass rate” increased house values in a district about... MORE
April 24, 2006
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
Arnold Kling
Concerning the choice of where to attend collegeTyler Cowen asks, If parents (and their children) are loaded with biases, is behavioral economics useful? I suspect the core bias is parents wanting to feel they have done everything possible to help... MORE
April 2, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Inside Higher Ed reports, Dickeson’s paper suggests, because accreditation is the primary system responsible for gauging the performance and ensuring the success of higher education in the United States. If the quality of American higher education is slipping, as the... MORE
March 31, 2006
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
My undergrads think that a Mason win in basketball will lead to skyrocketing applications. Russ Roberts isn't so sure.... MORE
February 9, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Now Bryan writes, It is also important for employees to be conscientious and conformist. And while we can accurately assess someone's intelligence with a short IQ test, it's a lot harder to find out how conscientious and conformist someone is.... MORE
February 6, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Bryan writes, I've been defending the signaling model to other economists for 15 years, and always met fierce resistance. Frankly, I think that this resistance mostly stems from a failure of introspection. If you really compare what you learned in... MORE
February 2, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Tyler Cowen speculates Men are born beasts. But education gives you a peer group, a self-image, and some skills as well. Getting an education is like becoming a Marine. Men need to be made into Marines. By choosing many years... MORE
January 18, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Ken of Upper Left Coast came up with an analogy between Maryland's Walmart Law and a proposed reform for public education. I wonder if those who rejoiced in the passage of Maryland's law -- and who, I'm relatively certain, gave... MORE
January 6, 2006
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
The Florida Supreme Court decided that school vouchers violate the state constitution. The narrow question we address is whether [vouchers] violates a part of the Florida Constitution requiring the state to both provide for “the education of all children residing... MORE
December 30, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
James C. Garland writes, state higher-education budgets are not targeted efficiently. By way of comparison, consider the food stamp program, which in 2004 paid out $27 billion directly to 24 million low-income Americans. Imagine if there were, in its place,... MORE
December 26, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
The Washington Post reports Literacy experts and educators say they are stunned by the results of a recent adult literacy assessment, which shows that the reading proficiency of college graduates has declined in the past decade, with no obvious explanation.... MORE
December 21, 2005
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
I've heard a lot of people complain about extreme left-wing bias in sociology, but I had no idea that sociologists themselves were complaining about it. A forthcoming paper by Dan Klein and Charlotta Stern provides the inside scoop. One highlight:... MORE
December 2, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
A Symposium in Reason Magazine: We asked a dozen experts what reforms they think are most necessary and promising to improve American education. We also asked them to identify the biggest obstacles to positive change. Some folks give predictable answers... MORE
November 29, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
My alma mater, Swarthmore College, sent out a mailing (I can't find it online) that begins, Swarthmore charges $41,280 per student in tuition and fees, and its endowment reached nearly $1.2 billion...Isn't that enough money for a small college...is it... MORE
October 28, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Chris Dillow cuts right to the heart of an issue I've danced around on this blog a number of times. Say I were to claim the following: lots of middle class parents care only about the relative quality of their... MORE
September 25, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
USA Today writes, Currently, 135 women receive bachelor's degrees for every 100 men. That gender imbalance will widen in the coming years, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Education. (I got to the story by following... MORE
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Mark Thoma writes, David Brooks says, "Especially in these days after Katrina, everybody laments poverty and inequality. But what are you doing about it? For example, let's say you work at a university or a college. You are a cog... MORE
September 15, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Robert M. Dunn complains, The disparities in college endowments are enormous. As of mid 2004, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton had average endowments of $14.9 billion, while three private institutions of similar size, George Washington University, Georgetown, and American University, averaged... MORE
August 21, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
In response to Bryan's post on the role of "pity grades" in undermining academic meritocracy, Jane Galt writes, I find it odd, too, that so many academics profess to be egalitarians, yet academia as a whole has produced one of... MORE
August 18, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
The Christian Science Monitor reports, It seems the popularity of makeover shows on television, such as "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and "Design on a Dime," has fueled a decorating craze on college campuses... Spending on dorm and apartment... MORE
August 17, 2005
Economic Philosophy
Bryan Caplan
More students than I care to remember have argued with me about their grades. But there is one argument that I always dismiss out of hand: "You should raise my grade because I NEED a higher grade!" I don't do... MORE
July 5, 2005
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
When professors complain about grade inflation, they rarely mention that their students are the easiest graders of all. The main way that colleges evaluate professors' teaching is with student evaluations. Students typically rate how good their professor was on a... MORE
June 29, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
This rant struck me, mostly because it is strikingly consistent with my 22-year-old's experience. Dear current Management-Generation of Cubicle Land, please understand that: 1. My generation was misinformed—by elders and fortune—about the value of our college degrees. $120,000 of your/our... MORE
June 20, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
I strongly second Don Boudreaux' recommendation to read this interview with James Heckman. A few excerpts (but do go read the whole thing): what do the GEDs earn? They earn what high school dropouts who do not get GEDs earn,... MORE
May 27, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
James Miller writes, My employer, Smith College, should hire a few score smart Indians to grade for their faculty and in return Smith should expect its professors to spend more time in the classroom. High schools should similarly outsource their... MORE
May 23, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Here is a list of universities with the highest endowments. Forty-seven have assets of more than $1 billion. The total assets of these top forty-seven is over $150 billion. It appears that California and Texas have their entire state university... MORE
April 26, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Jeff Miron, another Bernie-Saffran-influenced economist, is teaching a course on libertarianism at Harvard. The lecture notes are available in pdf format. One of the papers on the reading list for the course, is an article by Miron questioning the case... MORE
April 19, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
In the recent Larry Summers flap, his chief antagonist was Nancy Hopkins, an MIT biologist. A reader forwarded me a link to a paper by Patricia Hausman and James H. Steiger on an earlier Hopkins controversy. the 1999 publication of... MORE
April 10, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Steven Roy Goodman writes, Colleges have long been hotbeds of political agitation, of course. But where it was once students who did the acting out, as they spread their intellectual and philosophical wings, now the professors and administrators are more... MORE
April 7, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Andrew Samwick writes, An elite university is like a kibbutz hooked up to an ATM. It is the closest thing we may ever find to a socialist enterprise that endures. The key element of the kibbutz--that the workers collectively decide... MORE
March 29, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Pre-kindergarten education is one of those policies that feels right to do-gooders. What are the actual consequences? According to an NBER report, early education does increase reading and mathematics skills at school entry, but it also boosts children's classroom behavioral... MORE
March 24, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
The book Beyond the Classroom, by Laurence Steinberg, suggests that school performance depends on factors that are outside the control of the school. He focuses on the issue of student engagement. When highly engaged students are in class, they are... MORE
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
In this essay, I write The Catholic Church in 1500 was a debased, corrupt monopoly. It collected onerous taxes, which people paid because they believed that there was no alternative if they wanted a decent afterlife. However, inwardly people seethed... MORE
February 22, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
In this essay, I use the Lawrence Summers controversy as a jumping-off point for some idle speculation about gender differences in the world of academics and business. My experience is that in male-dominated organizational groups...Guys tend to flatter the boss... MORE
February 18, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
There has been a lot of controversy over Harvard President Lawrence Summers' talk at an NBER conference about gender differences in faculty in science and engineering. Harvard has posted a transcript of the talk. One excerpt: The second problem is... MORE
January 30, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
James B. Twitchell writes, At the turn of the 20th century, one percent of high school graduates attended college; that figure is now close to 70 percent. This is an industry that produces a yearly revenue flow more than six... MORE
January 10, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
When I taught "Economics for the Citizen" this past fall at George Mason, I included a unit on education. In the latest issue of the Becker-Posner blog, Richard Posner brings up a point that I wrestled with in class. But... MORE
January 6, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
On C-span last night, I happened to hear part of the State of California Speech. In addition to a recognizable name, the Governor of California has interesting ideas. We must financially reward good teachers and expel those who are not.... MORE
December 29, 2004
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Columbia University Teachers College Professor Amy Stuart Wells writes, policymakers should amend state laws to better support the high-achieving charter schools and close the rest. And I hope they will also remember the hard lesson learned from this reform: that... MORE
December 7, 2004
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
An OECD report on comparative performance of high school students in different countries is receiving a lot of attention. Overall, wealthier countries tend to do better in educational terms than poor nations, but there are exceptions: Korea's national income, for... MORE
October 11, 2004
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Christopher Avery, Mark Glickman, Caroline Hoxby, and Andrew Metrick use a chess-rating methodology to rank colleges. If a student admitted to both Harvard and Yale selects Harvard, then that is a "win" for Harvard. The schools that rank at the... MORE
September 20, 2004
Growth: Causal Factors
Arnold Kling
Alison Wolf challenges the conventional wisdom. large international studies often find a negative relationship between education and growth rates. Egypt is a classic example of this. Between 1970 and 1998, its primary school enrollment rates grew to over 90%, secondary... MORE
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
The Washington Post looks into one of the dirty little secrets about the higher education industry: its intense political lobbying. The more-established schools want to block legislation that would, among other things, make it easier for students to transfer academic... MORE
September 3, 2004
Economics of Health Care
Arnold Kling
In my latest essay, I look at the specifics of the President Bush's economic proposals. Overall, I am afraid that the President's concept of the "ownership society" owes more to David Brooks than it does to Stephen Bainbridge. But the... MORE
August 5, 2004
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Jeff Madrick argues for more aid to higher education. the case for investing in higher education is stronger than ever. We of course all know some people with a great education who earn a lot less than their peers with... MORE
July 23, 2004
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
I discuss the economics of government subsidies to higher education. The end result is that even though government subsidizes higher education, and even though most economists believe that higher education enhances productivity, the government subsidies do not result in higher... MORE
May 17, 2004
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
In this essay, I propose a compulsory cultural exchange to try to improve national cohesiveness. With a cultural exchange program of this sort, the children of the liberal elites could experience first-hand the urban public schools which their parents believe... MORE
May 14, 2004
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
I have a skeptical essay on the No Child Left Behind Act. The No Child Left Behind Act reflects outmoded, paternalistic, industrial-age thinking on education. Its real name should be No Educrat Left Behind. What we need instead is bottom-up,... MORE
May 3, 2004
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
An alarmist New York Times article about America's relative standing in science has Cafe Hayek on edge. First, Russ Roberts wrote, The real question is not whether America is "ahead" or "behind" but whether students interested in science have good... MORE
April 12, 2004
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Are textbooks overpriced? This newspaper story looks at the issue. Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) in November introduced a bill requiring to General Accounting Office to investigate the high price of college textbooks and whether publishers are marketing the same books... MORE
March 25, 2004
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Virginia Postrel describes recent research in the issue of teacher pay and teacher quality. One paper is by Sean P. Corcoran and others. Postrel summarizes the results as: the chances of getting a really smart teacher have gone down substantially.... MORE
February 17, 2004
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Why does the academy lean left in terms of politics? In this essay, I offer a hypothesis. In general, wherever creative individuals receive incomes without having to worry about the "business aspect" of their organizations, you have freedom without responsibility...... MORE
February 4, 2004
Social Security
Arnold Kling
I have a new essay that argues that we over-estimate the value of collective benefits. Contrary to my training as an economist, I believe that at least some of the preference that workers have for in-kind benefits reflects flat-out irrationality.... MORE
December 7, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
The fifty states use a variety of methods to subsidize higher education, but the most popular seems to be a subsidy for in-state students to attend specific public institutions. Bridget Terry Long compares this approach with a voucher program. up... MORE
October 15, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
A lot of interesting comments on school vouchers. For example, Peter Gallagher writes, What beneficiaries want may NOT be a better education: and even if they do, they may not be very discriminating in deciding what 'better' looks like when... MORE
October 13, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Chang-Tai Hsieh and Miguel Urguiola find evidence that in Chile school vouchers caused schools to compete for the best students rather than compete to deliver better education. Although statistically insignificant, the point estimates suggest that, if anything, test scores experienced... MORE
October 7, 2003
Regulation and Subsidies
Arnold Kling
A few days ago, controversial radio personality Rush Limbaugh created a controversy. As a commentator on a football pre-game show, he said (1) The Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback was overrated by others in the media. (2) The reason that the quarterback... MORE
September 29, 2003
Income Distribution
Arnold Kling
In an essay called Bleeding-Heart Libertarianism, I sketch a system for using a consumption tax with a negative-income-tax feature to replace government-provided health care, education, and income security. Does the bleeding-heart libertarian approach seem harsh? Actually, the Welfare State is... MORE
September 17, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
On the topic of college tuition, Andrew Martin writes, I disagree with the idea that tuition is high because the government helps pay for it. UNC, for an instate student is much lower than that $20 grand for the precise... MORE
September 16, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
John Hawkins' interview of Milton Friedman touches on many subjects. Friedman is not terribly worried about Social Security. we're a very strong country, lots of able people, lots of active entrepreneurs, and so the Social Security system will be a... MORE
September 15, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Why is college tuition so high? In an essay, I argue that colleges today offer more lifestyle consumption benefits. college represents a different bundle of services than it did thirty years ago, and part of where the increase in tuition... MORE
September 11, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
On school vouchers, John Thacker wrote, Vouchers, depending on implementation, should decrease the strength of the link between housing and good schooling, since schooling would be less determined by where one lived. One would then expect the price of housing... MORE
September 7, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
What would a new economics blog be without "on the one hand...on the other"? Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen writes, If we are going to move forward with vouchers, I would like to know what the plan will look like, once... MORE
August 28, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
I probably need to wear an asbestos suit after posting this essay. A few years spent working in a corporate or government setting would benefit professors by giving them first-hand knowledge of organizational behavior and politics in practice. I think... MORE
August 18, 2003
Microeconomics
Arnold Kling
About a year ago, the big story in our local suburban newspaper was the adoption of a "living wage" bill in our county. This summer, the big story was the shortage of teenage jobs here. I was tempted to write... MORE
August 6, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
On the continuing lively discussion of school vouchers, Boonton writes, The graduates of those 'horrible' [American public] schools went on to build not only an economic boom but one with heavy concentration in knowledge industries. This is the exact opposite... MORE
July 30, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
On the topic of vouchers and education, Jim Glass writes, The public school system in the past never worked any better than it does now. Arguably it was worse in the past. ...There's a lot of both selective memory and... MORE
July 28, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
In an essay called Mandatory Libertarianism, I address the distrust of markets voiced by opponents of vouchers in education. opponents asserted that there could not possibly be enough private schools to support a voucher system. However, if education were completely... MORE
June 3, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Stephen Karlson points to this story about resentment among humanities faculty of higher salaries in professional schools. While many academics have accepted the inevitability of the differences, others believe that salaries in professional schools are out of control. Critics worry... MORE
May 28, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
On the topic of the academic job market, Damien Smith writes, Could the trouble in the humanities PhD market not be an insider-outsider problem, where the "insiders" (in this case, tenured faculty) exercise a form of market power over the... MORE
May 26, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Two recent essays discuss the academic job market. Laura Vanderkam argues that students with good academic skills over-estimate their chances of landing a good job with a Ph.D. Like actors, however, humanities graduate students have to realize that — except... MORE
April 23, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
On the subject of productivity in the government sector Scott (no last name included) wrote, ...All of the educational proposals currently in vogue specifically involve reducing productivity. They keep looking for smaller class sizes and higher teacher pay with the... MORE
March 26, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
The teacher pay issue drew the most interesting comments. Someone who left only a first name wrote a voucher system would make the educationally well-off better off, would make the poorly-off worse off, would Balkanize society, and would create an... MORE
March 24, 2003
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Peter Temin argues that teacher pay is too low. He says that in the past, limitied opportunities for women meant that schools were supplied with a pool of high-quality teachers willing to work for low pay. Today, however, talented women... MORE
January 26, 2003
Economic Education
Arnold Kling
When asked by edge.org's John Brockman what he would do if he were science advisor to the President, Steven Pinker's reply included: Observers from our best science writers to Jay Leno are frequently appalled by the innumeracy, factual ignorance, and... MORE
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