“Con el proyecto Agenda Colombia Fedesarrollo busca plantear propuestas concretas sobre algunos de los temas más importantes que debe contener el Plan de Desarrollo del nuevo gobierno. Para cumplir este propósito, Fedesarrollo entrega esta serie de documentos, de alto contenido académico...

The aim of this paper is to investigate and understand the effect of high-school friends on years of schooling. We develop a simple network model where students first choose their friends and then decide how much effort they put in education. The empirical salience of the model is tested using...

The purpose of this paper is to study identification and estimation of causal effects in experiments with multiple sources of noncompliance. This research design arises in many applications in education when access to oversubscribed programs is partially determined by randomization. Eligible...

In India the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments have given powers and responsibility of achieving the goal of Universal Elementary Education (UEE) to the local body governments. The present study has examined the situation of elementary schools run by Bharuch municipality. The evidence show...

This study compares student outcomes at Alberta elementary schools where students come from similar socio-economic backgrounds, thus revealing “good” schools where principals, teachers and staff are making a positive difference in student performance. The study screens out the influence of...

This study compares student outcomes at British Columbia elementary schools where students come from similar socio-economic backgrounds, thus revealing "good" schools where principals, teachers and staff are making a positive difference to student performance. This alternative means of...

The evidence that productivity varies greatly across teachers has given rise to the idea that student achievement data should be included in performance evaluation, despite limited empirical evidence on subjective evaluation or the use of objective performance measures in U.S. public schools. In...

One of the potential strengths of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act enacted in 2002 is that the law requires the production of an enormous amount of data, particularly from tests, which, if used properly, might help us improve education. As an economist and as someone who served 13 years on...

The No Child Left Behind law is flawed for many reasons, but the most important is that it is built around proficiency targets. Proficiency rates are not useful metrics of school performance because universal proficiency is not a socially efficient goal for principals and teachers. Further, the...