This paper makes use of hierarchical linear modelling to investigate which teacher characteristics impact significantly on student performance. Using data from the SACMEQIII study of 2007, an interesting and potentially important finding is that younger teachers are better able to improve the...

This paper investigates different theoretical models of incentives for teachers in education. It highlights key characteristics likely to render incentives successful in encouraging productive behaviour, provides evidence of where these systems have been successfully and unsuccessfully...

The derivation of a subjective value of time (SVT) requires finding the marginal rate of substitution between travel time and cost in a travel choice model. In the typical case of models with linear-in-parameters utility functions, the SVT is equal to the ratio between the parameters of travel...

The causes of the poor white problem, first noted at a Dutch Reformed Church Synod in 1886, were unclear; many blamed the inadequate education system, urbanisation, cheap wages or cultural factors, while others argued that external events such as the rinderpest disease or the Anglo-Boer war...

In the absence of longitudinal data that track individuals over an extended period of time, information on childhood socio-economic status can be provided by questions that ask adults to recall their parents’ education or their economic status at childhood. The usefulness of these data,...

This study quantifies a year’s worth of mathematics learning in South Africa (0.3 standard deviations) and uses this measure to develop empirically-calibrated learning trajectories. Two main findings are, (1) only the top 16% of South African Grade 3 children are performing at an appropriate...

Using forecasts of the inflation rate in South Africa, we study the rationality of forecasts and the shape of forecasters’ loss function. When we study micro-level data of individual forecasts, we find mixed evidence of an asymmetric loss function, suggesting that inflation forecasters are...

This paper assesses the impact of teacher subject knowledge on student performance using a nationally representative dataset of grade 6 students in South Africa. Test scores in two subjects and correlated random error models are used to identify within-pupil across subject variation in...

In this paper we test whether the key metals prices of gold and platinum significantly improve inflation forecasts for the South African economy. We also test whether controlling for conditional correlations in a dynamic setup, using bivariate Bayesian-Dynamic Conditional Correlation (B-DCC)...