Efficiency versus Effectiveness: Interpreting Education Production Studies

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Efficiency versus Effectiveness: Interpreting Education Production Studies

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Christopher C. Klein

Abstract

To gain analytical insight into whether input resources matter in public education, a Becker/Peltzman/Stigler model of the determination of local educational budgets and outputs by political authorities is constructed. The model results are consistent with empirical findings that resources don’t matter, even when all schools are efficient, if errors in measurement and specification occur. When all outputs are not observed, one cannot distinguish an inefficient school district from one that chooses an idiosyncratic output mix. Blind application of efficiency measurement techniques in this context yields perverse or counterintuitive findings. Interpretation of feasible approaches to education production studies are discussed.

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Paper provided by Middle Tennessee State University, Department of Economics and Finance in its series Working Papers with number 200703.

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Date of creation: Apr 2007
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Handle: RePEc:mts:wpaper:200703

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Production

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

NEP-ALL-2007-04-28 (All new papers)
NEP-EDU-2007-04-28 (Education)
NEP-EFF-2007-04-28 (Efficiency & Productivity)
NEP-HRM-2007-04-28 (Human Capital & Human Resource Management)
NEP-URE-2007-04-28 (Urban & Real Estate Economics)

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