We study the role of cognitive and non-cognitive skills in the university readiness and performance of first-in-family students (FIFS) using nationally representative survey data and linked survey-administrative data on an incoming student cohort at an elite Australian university. In both data sets, we find that FIFS enter university with lower levels of cognitive skills than non-FIFS but with similar levels of non-cognitive skills. The only exception is that male FIFS report lower levels of Openness to Experience. FIFS at the elite institution have lower grade-point averages and are more likely to drop out after Year 1 than non-FIFS, a finding driven by females. The higher risk of dropout is not observed in the broader Australian tertiary education context, suggesting that female FIFS struggle at this elite university. Gaps in cognitive skills are the dominant channel through which FIFS experience achievement penalties, while non-cognitive skills play no role. However, very low levels of Conscientiousness exacerbate the achievement penalties due to social origin.

We use rich data on a cohort of English adolescents to analyse the long-term effects of experiencing bullying victimisation in junior high school. The data contain self-reports of five types of bullying and their frequency, for three waves of the data, when the pupils were aged 13 to 16 years. Using a variety of estimation strategies - least squares, matching, inverse probability weighting, and instrumental variables - we assess the effects of bullying victimisation on short- and long-term outcomes, including educational achievements, earnings, and mental ill-health at age 25 years. We handle potential measurement error in the child self-reports of bullying type and frequency by instrumenting with corresponding parental cross-reports. Using a detailed longitudinal survey linked to administrative data, we control for many of the determinants of bullying victimisation and child outcomes identified in previous literature, paired with comprehensive sensitivity analyses to assess the potential role of unobserved variables. The pattern of results strongly suggests that there are important long run effects on victims - stronger than correlation analysis would otherwise suggest. In particular, we find that both type of bullying and its intensity matters for long run outcomes.

This report examines the impact of Preparing for Life (PFL), an Irish prenatally commencing early childhood intervention programme which targets disadvantaged communities and focuses on parents as the key mechanism of change, when the children are nine years old. Prior evidence on the sustained effect of home visiting and parent– training programmes in middle childhood is inconclusive, with many of the pioneering studies experiencing a dissolution of treatment effects once the programmes end. This report finds little evidence of cognitive fade-out at age 9, with effect sizes of 0.67 of a standard deviation (SD) on general conceptual ability, and significant treatment effects on executive functioning (inhibitory control (0.61SD), attention flexibility (0.66SD), working memory (0.56SD) and standardised school achievement tests of reading (0.74SD) and maths (0.47SD). The significance and magnitude of these effects are similar to those observed at age five. The programme, however, has no impact on absenteeism or the use of school resources and the significant treatment effects found for children’s socio-emotional skills and behaviour at age 4 are no longer present. While about 50% of the original sample recruited during pregnancy is retained at the Age 9 Follow-up, the treatment groups are still balanced on all key baseline characteristics. In sum, these findings indicate that PFL continues to have a significant impact on important dimensions of children’s skills five years after the families finished the programme, yet continued investment may be needed to break long-standing inequalities in health and socio-emotional wellbeing. That said, the sizable cognitive advantages are likely to have positive impacts as the children progress from primary to secondary school, as well as subsequent outcomes in adolescence.  The evaluation of the Preparing for Life programme was funded by the Northside Partnership through the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and The Atlantic Philanthropies. Additional support was provided by Tusla, the Community Foundation of Ireland and the HSE for the Age 9 Follow-up. We would like to thank all those who supported this research, especially the participating families and community organizations, the PFL intervention staff, and the programme’s Expert Advisory Committee. Thanks also to the Scientific Advisory Committee, including Sylvana Côté, Colm Harmon, James Heckman, Cecily Kelleher, Sharon Ramey, Craig Ramey, and Richard Tremblay, for their guidance and advice, and to the Early Childhood Research Team at the UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy who significantly contributed to this study. The trial was registered with controlled-trials.com (ISRCTN04631728) and the AEA RCT Registry (AEARCTR-0000066). All study procedures were approved by the UCD Human Research Ethics Committee, the Rotunda Hospital’s ethics committee, and the National Maternity Hospital’s ethics committee. E-mail: orla.doyle@ucd.ie

Abstract In this paper we examine whether – conditional on other child endowments and family inputs – bilingual children achieve different language, emotional, and pro-social developmental outcomes. Our data, which allow us to analyze children's development in a dynamic framework, are extracted from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). We model the development production functions for bilingual children using cumulative value-added specifications, which account for parental investments and children's own ability. Analysis based on child age confirms that bilingual children initially have worse language skills than their monolingual peers. The commencement of schooling appears to attenuate these differences, and by age seven, bilingual children have a developmental advantage. We find evidence of a positive relationship between bilingualism and some aspects of emotional development, and it is mainly boys who appear to benefit from their bilingual background.

This paper uses pooled cross-section data on recent school leavers in Ireland to model the determinants of labour market status and wages for young adults. Firstly we use a multinomial logit model to analyze whether individuals exit school to employment, unemployment or higher education. Family background is an important predictor for participation in higher education reflecting the degree of rationing in the system. The level of educational attainment influences the probability of entering higher education or employment. The estimates for earnings functions show large differences across gender with males being rewarded significantly higher. The returns to training are positive though biased upwards by sample selection particularly for females.

How effective is compulsory schooling as a

This paper presents evidence on early skill formation and parental investment using an experimentally designed, home visiting program targeting disadvantaged Irish families. Program effects from pregnancy to 18 months are estimated using measures of parenting and child cognitive, noncognitive and physical development. Permutation testing, a stepdown procedure, and inverse probability weighting are applied to account for small sample size, multiple hypothesis testing, and attrition. The program's impact is concentrated on parental behaviors and the home environment with small to moderate effect sizes found. Deficits in parenting skills can be offset within a relatively short timeframe, yet continued investment may be required to observe child effects.

Immigrants come to the UK from different countries, with different resources, languages and experiences. All of these factors influence the early cognitive development and school readiness of their children. In this paper we consider how the cognitive development of young bilingual children may differ from that of their monolingual counterparts by examining children’s cognitive skills for a nationally representative cohort (UK Millennium Cohort Study). The dynamic model follows children from age of 3 until 7 years and supports the notation that cognitive skill acquisition is a cumulative process. Our empirical research shows that contrary to popular believe, bilingualism has no inherent negative impact on childrens development. On the contrary, it seems to even have some cognitive advantages. While bilingual children are found to lag behind their monolingual peers at age of 3 and 5, they catch up by the time they are 7 years old by which then any language penalty has disappeared. More importantly, at 7 years of age, bilingual children showed a general superiority over their peers in a range of cognitive outcomes such as the British Ability Scale Word reading, Pattern construction and Math tests. Thus, our study facilitates the recent language education policy initiative on the value-added of speaking foreign language.

The ways in which preferences respond to the varying stress of economic environments is a key question for behavioral economics and public policy. We conducted a laboratory experiment to investigate the effects of stress on financial decision making among individuals aged 50 and older. Using the cold pressor task as a physiological stressor, and a series of intelligence tests as cognitive stressors, we find that stress increases subjective discounting rates, has no effect on the degree of risk-aversion, and substantially lowers the effort individuals make to learn about financial decisions.

The literature on skill formation and human capital development clearly demonstrates that early investment in children is an equitable and efficient policy with large returns in adulthood. Yet little is known about the mechanisms involved in producing these long-term effects. This paper presents early evidence on the nature of skill formation based on an experimentally designed, five-year home visiting program in Ireland targeting disadvantaged families - Preparing for Life (PFL). We examine the impact of investment between utero to 18 months of age on a range of parental and child outcomes. Using the methodology of Heckman et al. (2010a), permutation testing methods and a stepdown procedure are applied to account for the small sample size and the increased likelihood of false discoveries when examining multiple outcomes.The results show that the program impact is concentrated on parental behaviors and the home environment, with little impact on child development at this early stage. This indicates that home visiting programs can be effective at offsetting deficits in parenting skills within a relatively short timeframe, yet continued investment may be required to observe direct effects on child development. While correcting for attrition bias leads to some changes in the precision of estimates, overall the results are quite similar.

We investigate the relationship between early school-leaving and parental education and paternal income using UK Labour Force Survey data. OLS estimation reveals modest effects of income, stronger effects of maternal education relative to paternal, and stronger effects on sons than daughters. Using IV to simultaneously model the endogeneity of parental education and income, the maternal education effect disappears, while paternal education remains significant but only for daughters. In our favourite specification, which proxy for permanent income, paternal income becomes insignificant. Thus policies alleviating income constraints to alter schooling decisions may not be as effective as policies which increase permanent income. JEL codes I20; J62

We investigate the relationship between early school-leaving and parental education and paternal income using UK Labour Force Survey data. OLS estimation reveals modest effects of income, stronger effects of maternal education relative to paternal, and stronger effects on sons. Using IV methods to simultaneously model the endogeneity of parental education and income, we find no effect of maternal education. Under certain assumptions, paternal education remains significant (for daughters only). Similarly there are modest effects of paternal income for sons. Thus policies that alleviate income constraints to alter schooling decisions may not be as effective as policies which increase permanent income.

Undergraduate study behaviours, principally lecture attendance and additional study, are shown to predict better student achievement by many researchers. Despite this, there is not much evidence on the determinants of these behaviours. This is the first paper to explore the determinants of study behaviours across multiple subject areas; and is the first to incorporate students' noncognitive traits into such a model; that the authors are aware of. This enables the formation of policy that can improve academic achievement by encouraging study behaviour. The results show that students' noncognitive traits, in particular conscientiousness and future-orientation, are important determinants of lecture attendance and additional study hours. In fact, there is very little that explains undergraduate study behaviour besides noncognitive traits. Standard economic factors, such as family income, financial aid and parental transfers, are not predictive of study behaviours. Some comments are provided on a potential behavioural economics approach to encouraging study behaviours. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

While there is an extensive literature on intergenerational transmission of economic outcomes (education, health and income for example), many of the pathways through which these outcomes are transmitted are not as well understood. We address this deficit by analysing the relationship between socio-economic status and child outcomes in university, based on a rich and unique dataset of university students. While large socio-economic differences in academic performance exist at the point of entry into university, these differences are substantially narrowed during the period of study. Importantly, the differences across socio-economic backgrounds in university grade attainment for female students is explained by intermediating variables such as personality, risk attitudes and time preferences, and subject/college choices. However, for male students, we explain less than half of the socio-economic gradient through these same pathways. Despite the weakening socio-economic effect in grade attainment, a key finding is that large socio-economic differentials in the earnings expectations of university students persist, even when controlling for grades in addition to our rich set of controls. Our findings pose a sizable challenge for policy in this area as they suggest that equalising educational outcomes may not translate into equal labour market outcomes.

This paper addresses the intergenerational transmission of education and investigates the extent to which early school leaving (at age 16) may be due to variations in parental background. An important contribution of the paper is to distinguish between the causal effects of parental income and parental education levels. Least squares estimation reveals conventional results – weak effects of income (when the child is 16), stronger effects of maternal education than paternal, and stronger effects on sons than daughters. We find that the education effects remain significant even when household income is included. However, when we use instrumental variable methods to simultaneously account for the endogeneity of parental education and paternal income, only maternal education remains significant (for daughters only) and becomes stronger. These estimates are consistent across various sets of instruments. The impact of paternal income varies between specifications but becomes insignificant in our favored specifications. Our results provide only limited support for policies that alleviate income constraints at age 16 in order to alter schooling decisions. In contrast, our results do suggest that policies which increase permanent income would lead to increased participation (especially for daughters).

SummaryComparing self-assessed indicators of subjective outcomes (such as health, or job satisfaction) across countries or socio-economic groups is often hampered by the fact that different groups use different response scales. Anchoring vignettes are used as a tool to identify and correct for such differences. The paper develops a model in which objective measurements are used to validate such vignette-based corrections. The model is illustrated with an application to objective and subjective self-assessments of drinking behaviour by students in the Republic of Ireland. Model comparisons using the Akaike information criterion favour a specification with response consistency and vignette-corrected response scales. Put differently, vignette-based corrections appear quite effective in bringing objective and subjective measures closer together.