Long-Run Trends in School Productivity: Evidence From Australia

Andrew Leigh and Christopher Ryan

No 618, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University

Abstract: Outside the United States (U.S.), very little is known about long-run trends in school productivity. We present new evidence using two data series from Australia, where comparable tests are available back to the 1960s. For young teenagers (aged 13-14), we find a small but statistically significant fall in numeracy over the period 1964- 2003, and in both literacy and numeracy over the period 1975-1998. The decline is in the order of one-tenth to one-fifth of a standard deviation. Adjusting this decline for changes in student demographics does not affect this conclusion; if anything, the decline appears to be more acute. The available evidence also suggests that any changes in student attitudes, school violence, and television viewing are unlikely to have had a major impact on test scores. Real per-child school expenditure increased substantially over this period, implying a fall in school productivity. Although we cannot account for all the phenomena that might have affected school productivity, we identify a number of plausible explanations.

Keywords: education production function; literacy; numeracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H52 I21 I22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eff, nep-lab and nep-ure
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https://www.cbe.anu.edu.au/researchpapers/CEPR/DP618.pdf (application/pdf)

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Journal Article: Long-Run Trends in School Productivity: Evidence from Australia (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:auu:dpaper:618

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