A year ago I explained 5 reasons why you should take a long vacation. Here is one very big one why your kids should not. Recently, Matthew Yglesias wrote on why vacations are evil. Much of his piece was based on a RAND literature review on the impact of vacations on children. Summer learning loss is approximately one month of instruction and this loss is particularly … [Read more...] about Vacations
education
Listen to your mother
We don't need no education We don´t need no thought control Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone! All in all it's just another brick in the wall. Despite Pink Floyd, it is pretty clear that education pays off. And programs targeted towards the earliest years have a higher return than those directed at later years. But who knew that when you finally went to college, … [Read more...] about Listen to your mother
Channeling Remittances to Education
By Kate Ambler , Diego Aycinena, and Dean Yang Evaluations of supply side educational interventions such as conditional cash transfers and private school vouchers have shown that such programs can be effective in increasing the demand for education in the developing world. In a new paper, we study a program that seeks to mitigate the costs of such transfer programs by … [Read more...] about Channeling Remittances to Education
Go to school, but only if it is a good one
In early May I attended a conference on Skills, Education and Labor Market Outcomes at the University of Maryland. Five papers were presented discussing investments in human capital, its effects and mechanisms through which these investments provide returns later in the labor market. A link to the papers and information on the conference can be found here. This research … [Read more...] about Go to school, but only if it is a good one
CCTs: not the silver bullet, but with long lasting positive effects
Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) were a major social policy innovation in the mid/late 1990s. Instead of providing generalized subsidies, using price controls, and/or directly distributing food as means to help the poor (instruments that are inefficient, distort markets and in general are regressive), governments began to transfer cash directly to the poorest families, … [Read more...] about CCTs: not the silver bullet, but with long lasting positive effects