Studies of "cost and value" in anatomical sciences education examine not only what works, but at what cost, thus evaluating the inputs and outputs of education. This research provides insights into how to use available resources (e.g., academic time, budgets, infrastructure) as a mechanism to obtaining the maximum outcomes available. The…

The production function explains a basic technological relationship between scarce resources, or inputs, and output. This paper offers a brief overview of the historical significance and operational role of the production function in business and economics. The origin and development of this function over time is initially explored. Several…

Class-size reduction (CSR) mandates presuppose that resources provided to reduce class size will have a larger impact on student outcomes than resources that districts can spend as they see fit. I estimate the impact of Florida's statewide CSR policy by comparing the deviations from prior achievement trends in districts that were required to…

Using detailed individual-level data from public universities in the state of Ohio, I estimate the effect of various institutional expenditures on the probability of graduating from college. Using a competing risks regression framework, I find differential impacts of expenditure categories across student characteristics. I estimate that student…

A multiproduct cost function is estimated for English higher education institutions using a panel of data from recent years. The panel approach allows estimation by means of a random parameter stochastic frontier model which provides considerable new insights in that it allows the impact on costs of inter-institutional differences in the cost…

This paper measures and decomposes socioeconomic-related inequality in mathematics achievement in 15 European Union member states. Data is taken from the 2003 wave of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). There is socioeconomic-related inequality in mathematics achievement, favoring the higher socioeconomic groups in each…

This paper studies a sample of economies in transition to verify the assertion that returns to schooling increase as an economy transitions to a market environment. This claim has been difficult to assess in the past as the empirical evidence so far has covered only a few countries over short time periods. A number of studies find that returns to…

We use panel data from the kindergarten and 1st grade waves of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class to investigate whether increases in schooling inputs in the form of smaller classes "crowd out" parental inputs. We estimate child fixed-effect and fixed-effect-instrumental-variable models to identify the causal effects of…

Expands on an earlier article which states that economies of scale cannot exist unless the production function exhibits increasing returns to scale. Argues that this is correct only to the extent that the firm faces constant input prices as output expands. Concludes that the assumption that product and input markets are competitive may be…

An economic viewpoint is applied to four educational issues in the acquisition of reasoning skills: (1) defining reasoning; (2) methods for producing and developing reasoning skills in the classroom; (3) how the economy allocates and values reasoning skills; and (4) future economic needs for reasoning skills. (BS)

The notion of optimal population is recast as a problem of optimal scale (population times per capita resource use). Considers bioeconomic limits to scale. Discusses the choice between many people at low resource use per capita versus fewer people at higher resource per capita and suggests a policy that serves both efficiency and sufficiency.…

In the past decade, based on a change in paradigms in university policy, performance funding on a cantonal and central state level has been introduced in Switzerland: the universities have been granted higher autonomy, combined with global budgets and contract management by the responsible authorities (cantonal authorities). At the same time, the…

This article contends that a new concept of education finance has emerged in response to substantial alterations in the U.S. education policy environment. The major distinction between modern and old is that the latter was principally concerned with arrangements of inputs in K-12 schooling. The former, modern-era education finance, is concerned…