Economic and Social Research Institute

About: Economic and Social Research Institute is a nonprofit organization based out in Dublin, Ireland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & European union. The organization has 425 authors who have published 1530 publications receiving 41567 citations.

Acting up or opting out? Truancy in Irish secondary schools

Abstract: This paper explores the way in which truancy levels are structured by individual social class and the social mix of the school within the Republic of Ireland, where limited research is available on...

Foreign Firms and Host-Country Productivity: Does the Mode of Entry Matter? ∗

Abstract: Foreign direct investment is considered an important source of knowledge spillovers. We argue that the efiects of foreign presence on host country productivity may difier depending on the mode of foreign entry. Using a long panel from the Norwegian Manufacturing Census, we flnd that greenfleld entry both in the same industry and in the same labour market region has a negative impact on the productivity of domestic plants, while entry via acquisition afiects the productivity of domestic plants in the same industry positively. The positive efiect from acquisitions is consistent with knowledge spillovers as these plants have pre-established linkages within the industry. The negative efiects from greenfleld entry can be attributed to increased competition both in the product market and for qualifled employees in a tight labour market. This may help to explain the ambiguity of results in the empirical literature that relates overall foreign presence to host country productivity.

Civil war, climate change, and development: A scenario study for sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract: This article presents a model of development, civil war and climate change. There are multiple interactions. Economic growth reduces the probability of civil war and the vulnerability to climate change. Climate change increases the probability of civil war. The impacts of climate change, civil war and civil war in the neighbouring countries reduce economic growth. The model has two potential poverty traps – one is climate-change-induced and one is civil-war-induced – and the two poverty traps may reinforce one another. The model is calibrated to sub-Saharan Africa and a double Monte Carlo analysis is conducted in order to account for both parameter uncertainty and stochasticity. Although the IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) is used as the baseline, thus assuming rapid economic growth in Africa and convergence of African living standards to the rest of the world, the impacts of civil war and climate change (ignored in SRES) are sufficiently strong to keep a number of countries in Africa in ...

Teacher behavior and student outcomes: Results of a European study

Abstract: This study investigates the extent to which the factors included in the dynamic model of educational effectiveness are associated with student achievement gains in six different European countries. At classroom level, the dynamic model refers to eight factors relating to teacher behavior in the classroom: orientation, structuring, questioning, teaching-modeling, application, management of time, teacher role in making classroom a learning environment, and classroom assessment. This paper presents results concerned with the impact of the teacher factors on student achievement. In each participating country (i.e., Belgium/Flanders, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Ireland, and Slovenia), a sample of at least 50 primary schools (n = 334) was drawn. Written tests in mathematics and science were administered to all grade 4 students (n = 10,742) at the beginning and at the end of the school year 2010–2011. Students were also asked to complete a questionnaire concerning the eight teacher factors of the dynamic model. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to test the construct validity of the student questionnaire. Both across and within country analyses revealed that student ratings are reliable and valid for measuring the functioning of the teacher factors included in the dynamic model. Multilevel analyses revealed that teacher factors are associated with student achievement gains in mathematics and science. Implications for the development of educational effectiveness research and for improving quality of teaching are drawn.

Are married women more deprived than their husbands

Abstract: Conventional methods of analysis of poverty assume resources are shared so that each individual in a household/family has the same standard of living. This article measures differences between spouses in a large sample in indicators of deprivation of the type used in recent studies of poverty at household level. The quite limited overall imbalance in measured deprivation in favour of husbands suggests that applying such indicators to individuals will not reveal a substantial reservoir of hidden poverty among wives in non-poor households, nor much greater deprivation among women than men in poor households. This points to the need to develop more sensitive indicators of deprivation designed to measure individual living standards and poverty status, which can fit within the framework of traditional poverty research using large samples. It also highlights the need for clarification of the underlying poverty concept.