Public higher education in the Czech Republic is financed by general taxation. Due to permanent lack of financial sources in the sector, there should be sought alternative ways of financing, among which private financing is considered to be the best alternative. Nevertheless, it is important that these additional funds are managed efficiently. Thus, next to private financing, the thesis also studies efficiency of the sector as these two areas are interrelated. The results of private funding model indicate feasible realization with relatively low negative impact on private rate of return. Using DEA method, the efficiency analysis reveals that although Czech universities are teaching efficiently, they lack efficiency in research. This suggests that current financing scheme should be adjusted accordingly. Higher education is also studied from theoretical perspective and discussed are such topics as quality, mass education or the recent reform proposal.

<div>This dissertation consists of three chapters regarding labor economics. The first chapter studies the relative preference men and women have for working with coworkers of the same or opposite sex. The second chapter develops a conceptual framework for estimating the distribution of perceived returns to investments conditional on observed characteristics. The third chapter applies the methods described in the second chapter to estimate perceived returns to college and discusses policy implications.</div><div><br></div><div>The first chapter analyzes the effect of occupational gender composition on job-specific labor supply for workers of each gender. I construct a static model of job selection wherein preferences regarding coworker gender composition produce gender-specific compensating differentials. I estimate the model to identify the underlying coworker gender preference parameters. Based on estimated compensating differentials, men's preference is highest for occupations that are 60% female and lowest for female-dominated occupations. Women prefer jobs that are female-dominated, and are least satisfied with jobs that are 25% male all else equal.</div><div><br></div><div>The second chapter describes a conceptual framework for inferring agents' perceived returns to college by exploiting the dollar-for-dollar relationship between perceived returns and tuition costs in a binary choice model of college attendance. This approach has four attractive features. First, it provides estimates of perceived returns in terms of compensating variation, which directly inform financial policies that seek to (dis)incentivize the investment. Second, it provides very fine continuously-heterogeneous estimates conditional on a large set of observed characteristics, allowing for differential predictions for how selective, well-publicized policies are likely to affect different types of individuals. Third, because it obtains type-specific perceived returns distributions instead of point elasticities, it provides differential predictions for the effects of type-specific financial interventions depending on the magnitude of the intervention. Finally, the estimates are obtained assuming rational expectations only on prices (one component of returns) rather than on returns as a whole.</div><div><br></div><div>The third chapter applies the method described in the second chapter to estimate perceived returns to college using NLSY79 data. Estimating the model using both maximum likelihood and moment inequalities, I find that the scale of the distribution of perceived returns is an order of magnitude lower than past work has found when assuming rational expectations on income returns. The low variance I find in perceived returns implies high responses to financial aid. I predict a 2.6 percentage point increase in college attendance from a $1,000 universal annual tuition subsidy, which is consistent with quasi-experimental estimates of the effects of tuition assistance on college attendance. Adapting the difference-in-difference estimation performed by Dynarski (2003) on the effect of the Social Security Student Benefit to the current setting, I find that the policy increased perceived returns to college by $23,800, compared to an average aid amount of $6,700 per year ($26,800 per four years) (year 2000 dollars). Using the estimated distribution of perceived returns, I perform a counterfactual policy experiment that induces a set percentage of the population to attend college at minimal cost to the government.</div>

Utiliza-se o método de decomposições do índice Theil-L para encontrar determinantes da desigualdade de desempenho escolar das crianças da 4ª série do ensino fundamental do estado de São Paulo. Os dados de proficiência dos alunos em português e matemática são extraídos da Prova Brasil 2005 e combinados com os dados do Censo Escolar 2005. A análise das contribuições brutas e marginais geradas por meio do índice Theil L mostra que variáveis comumente utilizadas como medidas de background sócioeconômico dos alunos explicam pouco da desigualdade das notas, menos de 2%. Ao mesmo tempo, as contribuições brutas e marginais apontam para a importância significativa das escolas, que explicam 14,58% da desigualdade de desempenho dos alunos em matemática e 13,27% do desempenho dos alunos em português. A única variável que explica significativamente a desigualdade entre as escolas é o município, 14,56% da desigualdade em matemática e 13,98% em português. As demais variáveis quando consideradas isoladamente, respondem por menos de 2,5% da desigualdade. Quando tomadas em grupos, seu poder explicativo aumenta. As variáveis de infraestrutura escolar explicam 18,68% da desigualdade entre as escolas em português e 20% da desigualdade em matemática. As variáveis referentes ao background dos colegas respondem respectivamente por 8,79 e 9,40%. Conclui-se que o impacto das diferentes variáveis no desempenho dos alunos se dá por meio de sua interação mais do que pelo efeito de variáveis específicas. Reitera-se também a importância de se entender o impacto dos insumos escolares para compreender a proficiência dos alunos. O trabalho aponta ainda o efeito que os municípios têm sobre as escolas e oferece base para uma melhor compreensão posterior desse fenômeno. / This research uses the method of Theil-L decomposition to find determinants of the inequality among students scores of the 4th grade of the fundamental school in the state of São Paulo. The data is provided by a combination of Prova Brasil 2005 standardized tests and the Censo Escolar 2005. The analysis of the gross and marginal contributions measured by the Theil-L indez indicates that the variables normally used for students social and economic background give few explanation about the total inequality measured. The analysis of the decompositions also shows that schools play a main role in the inequalities among students, explaining 14,58% of the students inequality in math and 13,27% in Portuguese. The only single variable that shows an important impact in the score inequalities among schools is the municipality, 14,56% for math and 13,98% for Portuguese. The other variables have no impact over 2,5% when considered solely. By the other side, when these variables are considered in groups, there is a gain in explanation. The school infra-structure explain 18,68% of the inequality among schools in Portuguese and 20% of the inequality in math. The variables about the peers background are responsible for 8,79 and 9,40% respectively. It is concluded that the impact of differents variables in students learning are more due to their interaction, than by their direct effects. It is reinforced the importance of a better understanding of school variables to understand children apprenticeship as shown by part of the literature. This research points to the importance of municipalities for schools and gives a basis for further discussion on this matter.

This study veers from the traditional perspective of examining school efficiency or productivity as a cost minimizing process, in which educational inputs are minimized to achieve maximum outputs (student performance). Instead, it provides a critical examination of the dominant, cost minimizing assumption associated with efficiency models and suggest schools instead behave similarly to budget maximizers as presented in Niskanen’s (1971) seminal budget maximizing framework. The study examines the relationship between total student expenditures and subsequent student outcomes, establishing the relative efficiency of Texas school districts using stochastic frontier analysis within a budget-maximizing framework. Additionally, the study investigates how special education populations are structured within those districts deemed efficient or inefficient. The results of the study concluded that district efficient type did not result in different educational outcomes for students with disabilities. While analysis revealed that inefficient districts spend almost twice as much as efficient districts, no other significant differences were identified among districts type based on the percentage of students receiving special education or student performance. This study contributes to the growing need to identify more appropriate estimation techniques for measuring school productivity and how students with special needs should be included in the education productivity conversation.

Esta dissertação é formada dois ensaios com temas vinculados à educação. O primeiro ensaio investiga a evolução das desigualdades de oportunidades educacionais no Brasil sob o prisma das etnias e dos gêneros, com base na concepção de John Roemer (1998) de Igualdade de Oportunidades. Para quantificar a desigualdade são utilizados os índices de dissimilaridade de Yalonetzky (2010) aplicados aos microdados da PNAD de 2011. Para a amostra estudada, os resultados apontaram para a redução da desigualdade de oportunidades educacionais na dimensão étnica e para seu aumento, no âmbito dos gêneros, ao longo dos anos. O segundo ensaio busca avaliar o impacto da universidade pública sobre o seu egresso, medido principalmente sob a forma de rendimentos do trabalho. Através de modelos baseados na Equação de Mincer (1974), buscou-se verificar os principais determinantes da renda do egresso, utilizando-se, para tanto, uma amostra de dados de egressos da UFRGS. A análise apontou para conclusões que levam a crer que o diploma da universidade pública não é suficiente para, em termos de rendimento, compensar discriminações existentes no mercado de trabalho analisado. Outra contribuição do ensaio foi apontar, para algumas áreas do conhecimento, a remuneração média, a incidência de desemprego, a relevância atribuída pelo egresso à formação recebida e seu vínculo à atividade profissional exercida. / This dissertation is composed by two essays whose subjects are linked with education. The first one investigates evolution of the inequalities of opportunities of education in Brazil, through ethnical and genre prism, using the Opportunities Equality framework proposed by Roemer (1998). To quantify inequality, the dissimilarities indexes are used on PNAD 2011 data. The results pointed to a reduction of opportunity inequality in ethnical types, while it detected an increase in inequality for the gender types. The second essay aims to assess the impact of the public university in Brazil on its graduated, understood mainly as his wage. Using econometric specifications based on Mincer (1974), the study tried to find out the main determinants of graduated earnings, using a sample of graduated from UFRGS. The analysis suggested that the public university's diploma is not enough to compensate the discrimination existing in the studied labor market. Another contribution of this essay was to point, for some knowledge areas, the mean earnings, the unemployment rates, the relevance attributed by the graduated to the received education and its links with his professional career.

Esta dissertação é formada dois ensaios com temas vinculados à educação. O primeiro ensaio investiga a evolução das desigualdades de oportunidades educacionais no Brasil sob o prisma das etnias e dos gêneros, com base na concepção de John Roemer (1998) de Igualdade de Oportunidades. Para quantificar a desigualdade são utilizados os índices de dissimilaridade de Yalonetzky (2010) aplicados aos microdados da PNAD de 2011. Para a amostra estudada, os resultados apontaram para a redução da desigualdade de oportunidades educacionais na dimensão étnica e para seu aumento, no âmbito dos gêneros, ao longo dos anos. O segundo ensaio busca avaliar o impacto da universidade pública sobre o seu egresso, medido principalmente sob a forma de rendimentos do trabalho. Através de modelos baseados na Equação de Mincer (1974), buscou-se verificar os principais determinantes da renda do egresso, utilizando-se, para tanto, uma amostra de dados de egressos da UFRGS. A análise apontou para conclusões que levam a crer que o diploma da universidade pública não é suficiente para, em termos de rendimento, compensar discriminações existentes no mercado de trabalho analisado. Outra contribuição do ensaio foi apontar, para algumas áreas do conhecimento, a remuneração média, a incidência de desemprego, a relevância atribuída pelo egresso à formação recebida e seu vínculo à atividade profissional exercida. / This dissertation is composed by two essays whose subjects are linked with education. The first one investigates evolution of the inequalities of opportunities of education in Brazil, through ethnical and genre prism, using the Opportunities Equality framework proposed by Roemer (1998). To quantify inequality, the dissimilarities indexes are used on PNAD 2011 data. The results pointed to a reduction of opportunity inequality in ethnical types, while it detected an increase in inequality for the gender types. The second essay aims to assess the impact of the public university in Brazil on its graduated, understood mainly as his wage. Using econometric specifications based on Mincer (1974), the study tried to find out the main determinants of graduated earnings, using a sample of graduated from UFRGS. The analysis suggested that the public university's diploma is not enough to compensate the discrimination existing in the studied labor market. Another contribution of this essay was to point, for some knowledge areas, the mean earnings, the unemployment rates, the relevance attributed by the graduated to the received education and its links with his professional career.

Utiliza-se o método de decomposições do índice Theil-L para encontrar determinantes da desigualdade de desempenho escolar das crianças da 4ª série do ensino fundamental do estado de São Paulo. Os dados de proficiência dos alunos em português e matemática são extraídos da Prova Brasil 2005 e combinados com os dados do Censo Escolar 2005. A análise das contribuições brutas e marginais geradas por meio do índice Theil L mostra que variáveis comumente utilizadas como medidas de background sócioeconômico dos alunos explicam pouco da desigualdade das notas, menos de 2%. Ao mesmo tempo, as contribuições brutas e marginais apontam para a importância significativa das escolas, que explicam 14,58% da desigualdade de desempenho dos alunos em matemática e 13,27% do desempenho dos alunos em português. A única variável que explica significativamente a desigualdade entre as escolas é o município, 14,56% da desigualdade em matemática e 13,98% em português. As demais variáveis quando consideradas isoladamente, respondem por menos de 2,5% da desigualdade. Quando tomadas em grupos, seu poder explicativo aumenta. As variáveis de infraestrutura escolar explicam 18,68% da desigualdade entre as escolas em português e 20% da desigualdade em matemática. As variáveis referentes ao background dos colegas respondem respectivamente por 8,79 e 9,40%. Conclui-se que o impacto das diferentes variáveis no desempenho dos alunos se dá por meio de sua interação mais do que pelo efeito de variáveis específicas. Reitera-se também a importância de se entender o impacto dos insumos escolares para compreender a proficiência dos alunos. O trabalho aponta ainda o efeito que os municípios têm sobre as escolas e oferece base para uma melhor compreensão posterior desse fenômeno. / This research uses the method of Theil-L decomposition to find determinants of the inequality among students scores of the 4th grade of the fundamental school in the state of São Paulo. The data is provided by a combination of Prova Brasil 2005 standardized tests and the Censo Escolar 2005. The analysis of the gross and marginal contributions measured by the Theil-L indez indicates that the variables normally used for students social and economic background give few explanation about the total inequality measured. The analysis of the decompositions also shows that schools play a main role in the inequalities among students, explaining 14,58% of the students inequality in math and 13,27% in Portuguese. The only single variable that shows an important impact in the score inequalities among schools is the municipality, 14,56% for math and 13,98% for Portuguese. The other variables have no impact over 2,5% when considered solely. By the other side, when these variables are considered in groups, there is a gain in explanation. The school infra-structure explain 18,68% of the inequality among schools in Portuguese and 20% of the inequality in math. The variables about the peers background are responsible for 8,79 and 9,40% respectively. It is concluded that the impact of differents variables in students learning are more due to their interaction, than by their direct effects. It is reinforced the importance of a better understanding of school variables to understand children apprenticeship as shown by part of the literature. This research points to the importance of municipalities for schools and gives a basis for further discussion on this matter.

Esta dissertação é formada dois ensaios com temas vinculados à educação. O primeiro ensaio investiga a evolução das desigualdades de oportunidades educacionais no Brasil sob o prisma das etnias e dos gêneros, com base na concepção de John Roemer (1998) de Igualdade de Oportunidades. Para quantificar a desigualdade são utilizados os índices de dissimilaridade de Yalonetzky (2010) aplicados aos microdados da PNAD de 2011. Para a amostra estudada, os resultados apontaram para a redução da desigualdade de oportunidades educacionais na dimensão étnica e para seu aumento, no âmbito dos gêneros, ao longo dos anos. O segundo ensaio busca avaliar o impacto da universidade pública sobre o seu egresso, medido principalmente sob a forma de rendimentos do trabalho. Através de modelos baseados na Equação de Mincer (1974), buscou-se verificar os principais determinantes da renda do egresso, utilizando-se, para tanto, uma amostra de dados de egressos da UFRGS. A análise apontou para conclusões que levam a crer que o diploma da universidade pública não é suficiente para, em termos de rendimento, compensar discriminações existentes no mercado de trabalho analisado. Outra contribuição do ensaio foi apontar, para algumas áreas do conhecimento, a remuneração média, a incidência de desemprego, a relevância atribuída pelo egresso à formação recebida e seu vínculo à atividade profissional exercida. / This dissertation is composed by two essays whose subjects are linked with education. The first one investigates evolution of the inequalities of opportunities of education in Brazil, through ethnical and genre prism, using the Opportunities Equality framework proposed by Roemer (1998). To quantify inequality, the dissimilarities indexes are used on PNAD 2011 data. The results pointed to a reduction of opportunity inequality in ethnical types, while it detected an increase in inequality for the gender types. The second essay aims to assess the impact of the public university in Brazil on its graduated, understood mainly as his wage. Using econometric specifications based on Mincer (1974), the study tried to find out the main determinants of graduated earnings, using a sample of graduated from UFRGS. The analysis suggested that the public university's diploma is not enough to compensate the discrimination existing in the studied labor market. Another contribution of this essay was to point, for some knowledge areas, the mean earnings, the unemployment rates, the relevance attributed by the graduated to the received education and its links with his professional career.

The recent growth of Teach For America (TFA) has enabled it to substantially expand the teacher labour supply in many rural Southern communities, one of its largest and fastest-growing partnership subsets. Though it is generally accepted that these areas face more severe teacher shortages than most other regions in the country, there is little research as to how these staffing challenges arise or how they might be resolved; TFA’s potential to grow the rural Southern teacher supply thus signals a promising opportunity in need of further research. This work offers a case study of teacher labour outcomes in the Mississippi-Arkansas Delta, TFA’s oldest and largest rural Southern partnership site. In this region, local schools have experienced a 600 per-cent increase in corps member presence since 2008; consequently, TFA provided anywhere from a quarter to a half of the area’s new teacher labour supply each year from 2008 to 2010. A mixed-methods analysis illuminates both the causes of Delta teacher shortages and TFA’s potential to address these vacancies. Within the Delta, local schools face chronic teacher shortages because the communities they serve are overwhelmingly poor, geographically isolated, and racially segregated. TFA appears to have targeted the Delta communities where teacher labour policies have systematically fallen short, as it partners with districts bearing the greatest share of the region’s aggregate teacher vacancies. Additional statistical testing reveals that amongst these hard-to-staff districts, TFA has further focussed its resources into the schools that serve more rural, less educated, and/or predominantly African American populations. In this way, TFA funnels its corps members into the very districts where state reform efforts have struggled most, thus serving as a powerful resource for realigning ‘sticky’ outcomes in the most hard-to-staff Delta school districts. These findings notwithstanding, closer examination reveals significant drawbacks and limitations to current TFA outcomes in the rural Southern Delta. TFA does not saturate hard-to-staff school districts enough to produce statistically significant changes in local teacher vacancy rates. Instead, the programme appears to have established an unofficial threshold for the number of teachers placed per district; once this ceiling has been reached, additional corps members are funnelled into a new area regardless of the original district’s remaining need. Additionally, there is no long-term ‘exit strategy’ to help Delta districts employing TFA corps members to eventually cultivate their own high-quality teacher labour supply, thus leaving them perpetually dependent on TFA to staff their classrooms. Preliminary evidence suggests that state governments could address these shortcomings through 1) increased financial support for TFA to fully saturate vacancies in current partnership districts, as well as 2) the simultaneous development of grow-your-own teacher certification programmes in rural Delta districts. The evidence suggests that these two strategies would improve TFA as a targeted teacher recruitment strategy for hard-to-staff communities both in the Delta and across the programme’s nine other rural Southern partnership sites.

This thesis consists of a short introduction and three self-contained analytical chapters. Chapter 1 focuses on the question of learning gaps and divergence in achievement across countries. I use unique child-level panel data from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam to ask at what ages do gaps between different populations emerge, how they increase or decline over time, and what the proximate determinants of this divergence are. I document that learning gaps between the four countries are already evident at the age of 5 years and grow throughout the age trajectory of children, preserving country ranks from 5 to 15 years of age. At primary school age, the divergence between Vietnam and the other countries is largely accounted for by substantially greater learning gains per year of schooling. Chapter 2 focuses on learning differences between private and government school students in India. I present the first value-added models of learning production in private and government schools in this context, using panel data from Andhra Pradesh. I examine the heterogeneity in private school value-added across different subjects, urban and rural areas, medium of instruction, and across age groups. Further, I also estimate private school effects on children's self-efficacy and agency. I find modest or insignificant causal effects of attending private schools in most test domains other than English and on children's academic self-concept and agency. Results on comparable test domains and age groups correspond closely with, and further extend, estimates from a parallel experimental evaluation. Chapter 3 uses panel data from the state of Andhra Pradesh in India to estimate the impact of the introduction of a national midday meal program on anthropometric z-scores of primary school students, and investigates whether the program ameliorated the deterioration of health in young children caused by a severe drought. Correcting for self-selection into the program using a non-linearity in how age affects the probability of enrollment, we find that the program acted as a safety net for children, providing large and significant health gains for children whose families suffered from drought.