Educational scores: How does Russia fare?

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. Using an education production function, we distinguish between individual and family background factors and those relating to the school and institutional environment. We use pooled data, as well as cross sectional evidence, to look at the variation across countries before looking at within-country variation in Russia. We find -both in the cross-country estimates as also those using just Russia data -that a number of individual and family variables in particular, such as parental educational levels, are robustly associated with better educational outcomes. Institutional variables also matter -notably student-teacher ratios and indicators of school autonomy -but there are also some clear particularities in the Russian case.JEL Classification: H5, I21, I28, J24, O15, P5

Math, girls and socialism

“…Some studies have also documented the association between stereotypes about gender roles and the width of the gender gap in math across American states (Pope & Sydnor 2010, Else-Quest et al 2010 or across Spanish regions (Gonzalez de San Roman & de la Rica 2012). Our paper is closer to that of Schnepf (2007) and Amini & Commander (2012) who noted the smaller gender gap in education that prevails in Central and Eastern European countries.…”

Innovation in Russia: The Territorial Dimension

“…The share of citizens holding a university degree ranged from 11.9% in Chechnya to 41.2% in Moscow in 2010 (Russian census, 2010). Highlighting spatial variation in quality of education, Amini and Commander (2012) find that pupils' performance is positively associated with population size of the town where they attend school.…”

Boosting Productivity in Russia

“…Russia has achieved outstanding results in terms of enrolment, with 51% of the labour force educated at the tertiary level (OECD, 2013). But the quality of education is at least as important for economic growth as years of schooling (OECD, 2010; Amini and Commander, 2011). Russia is not performing as well in that respect.…”

“…While the Soviet education system was highly centralised at the start of the transition, responsibility has been increasingly transferred to regions and municipalities. This positive development has, however, been accompanied by a greater heterogeneity in spending across regions (Amini and Commander, 2011). This partly reflects differences in the costs of education (especially when considering those in remote schools), but it is also linked to regional financing capacities.…”